johonbravo

OK I just got a new 120 GB Seagate HD today.

Now with Windows Disk Manager I partitioned it into this and tried the following installs:

2GB Primary FAT 32 for WIN98 (successful install)
4GB Primary NTFS for WINXP Pro (successful install)
4GB Primary NTFS for WINXP Pro (will install later)
5GB Extention NTFS for Mandrake 10.0 (tried to install)
5GB Extention NTFS for Fedora 1 (tried to install)
100GB Extention NTFS for Storage, backup, temp etc... (will back up other drives I own later)

I succeeded in the first two Windows Installs.
Then I tried to install Mandrake 10.0 CE (but all the install screens, and everywhere it would mention it it says 9.2...did I really download 9.2??? I hope not...Im on dialup here.)
Well The Install seemed to go fine...and then I went on to the Configuration etc... and It came to a screen where it had Config options for different devices...I proceeded to configure the Graphics Card and It froze up after about 5 mins...and so I was finally forced to reboot...

the LILO bootup screen worked fine...I could still boot into both Windows...
So I then tried booting into Linux.
Everthing seemed to go ok...It configured some devices and asked me to reboot again so I did and then I booted into Linux once more and It flashed a bunch of [ OK ]'s at me and like two or 3 [FAILURE]'s at me but they disappeared at the top of the screen I didnt get to catch what they were.

Then it left me at the Login Command Prompt...
So I successfully logged in.
Then I (a nearly complete linux n00b) was left with the "username@localhost $" prompt...I dont know any command lines yet.
Do I have to type something for it to boot into the "GUI" or should it go in automatically? Well I was lost...as I didnt have access to any commands from there...

So I was like what the heck and rebooted and insterted my Fedora 1 Disk.
I began the GUI install Interface with that and when It came time to select where I wanted to install It or how I wanted the Drive Partitioned, I selected the 2nd 5GB Partition and tried to install there but It gave the error something like "Must be installed on root directory" or something like that. So I tried selecting some of the other available partitions and it still did not work...So then I booted into WIN XP and here I am now.

any help/advice would be appreciated.
Thanx...

Hellmasker

first of all, linux cant write NTFS (thsi is not technically 100% true but its VERY BAD to try it), and fedora doesnt even ship with an ntfs driver.

For this reason, if theres nothing on that 100gb partition i woudl change it to fat32. And while u shouldnt really have fat32 partitions bigger than 20gb (some ppl say 40) as long as you only put big files (>1mb) on it u shouldnt have a problem. - ive got a 140gb fat32 partition full of ISO's, music and movies here without any issues.

so those 2 5gb partitions will need to be reformatted during your install, mandrake probably did this kinda automatically and fedora shoudl ask u to reformat it when u tell it u want to isntall there, (select ext3 for compatibility reasons). This may fix that "need root.." error if it was "this partition is nto useable as root" although i have heard of the fedora isntall program giving errors liek that for other reasons which i dotn remember how to fix.

Int the mandrake isntll (at least in my 9.0 installer) there was an option to "load GUI at boot" or something, if u said no here, or if your graphics driver isnt happy, it will load a terminal. type mcc and go to display option, i seem to remember there being an option here for "load xfree on boot" turn this on. (u can also edit the /etc/inittab file but this is harder)

now type
this will start your GUI provided your graphics card is happy.

if this fails post up whatever error it gives you.

johonbravo

Ok Im just going to reformat both of the 5GB partitions to FAT32.
I dont need to "uninstall" Mandrake do I?

johonbravo

OK I got Mandrake Fully Installed....and it works good...

Red HAt I almost had finished when it froze...so I will have to try again.

I cant connect to the net on either cuz i have an unsupported winmodem.