Problem installing Mandriva Limited Edition 2005

[thecandleishere]

Hi everyone,

I'm trying to install Mandriva Limited Edition 2005 on a Pentium 4 laptop. I'm installing it from a DVD from Linux Format magazine, in the UK - this was done by booting the computer from the CD drive, and everything ran fine. Previously I had Windows XP on the laptop but I wanted to start fresh with Linux, so I selected the option to delete the contents of the hard drive, since there was nothing valuable and I didn't want to keep windows.

It automatically divided the hard drive into the root and swap partitions and "/home" and appears to work until it comes up with "an error occured. No hdlists found". EDIT: just to make it clearer, this is before the intallation process happens and just after the hard drive partitioning, before it lets you move onto the next step. A quick Google search confirmes this is a relativly common problem, but I couldn't find any clear solutions. I'm new to Linux and have fairly limited technical knowledge (although quite a bit of computer experience and the capacity to learn). So I'm hoping for an answer as simple as possible. Also would trying a different distribution help?

Thanks for your time, looking forward to being a Linux user soon.

[AlexK]

try formatting the drive from DOS or try a low level format. Since most low level formatting tools require a floppy drive to work, create a floppy emulated bootable cd from nero. and run the low level formatting tool or the ms dos stratup dsik.

[thecandleishere]

OK, thanks for the reply. Forgive my ignorence but do I even have DOS? I mean, my hard drive is completely clean, apart from the 3 partitions - surely I don't have an OS, that would be Linux when I manage to install it.

[Flatline]

That doesn't sound like a hard drive problem to me (especially since it lets you partition the drives and format them). Hdlist is what urpmi uses to (among other things) resolve package dependencies. If it can't find the hdlist files on your disk, it won't be able to install any packages. Sounds like a bad dvd to me, and since you got it from a magazine you can't even check the md5sum . Are you able to try the disk on another system to see whether the same problem comes up?

[thecandleishere]

No, the only other computer I've got is a mac. Could it be a problem with the disc drive? I've had some problems with it in the past, not always reading discs and also trouble burning CDs at full speed, it has been ok recently but I know its probably on the way out.

[Flatline]

Yes, it could be a problem with the disk drive. Just to be sure, are you positive you have a PPC version of Mandrake?

[thecandleishere]

Just to update, I managed to run an SUSE "live" version (where you just run it straight from a CD) with no problems - so I can only judge from that that there isn't a problem with my disk drive. Aaah well, I'll probably just try another distro - let you know how I get on.