Boot problems, and advice regarding partitions with linux

Hi, i just decided to try Mandriva 2007, but i wanted to keep my xp, so i decided that dual booting would be the way to go.

My first question is, if i installed on the right partition? I have 1 SATA hdd which had 2 partitions before installing linux. 1 with windows xp, and the 2. for storage.

I then decided to create a 3. partition with ext3, and then a 500mb swap partition ( i did this during installation)

When in windows, which boots fine, i see that my
1. partition is primary and active.
2. is logical, and not active.
3. is ext3 logical and not active
4. is swap

2-3-4 is all in an extended partition.

I'm wondering if this is all screwed up or if the configuration could actually work?

Second thing.

Now when i boot up, any way i try and boot linux it has the same problem.

It stops after:

"Creating root device
mkrootdev: label linux (what i called my linux partition obviously) not found
no resume device specified
echo: cannot open /proc suspend2 /do_resume for write :2
mounting root filesystem /dev/root
mount:error 2 mounting ext3 flags default (it tries this 2 times more with a little change, but no succes)
switching to new root
error opening dev/console!!!!!: 2
unmounting old /proc
unmounting old /sys
switchroot: mount failed: 22
initrd finished
Kernel panc - not syncing: attempted to kill init!"


I'm all new to linux, so i can only hope i provided useful info about all this.
I'm pretty informed about basic windows, partitions and filesystems, so thats why i jumped into it without really being sure how. see i should have done my homework now :)

I have this same problem as well if anyone can give any advice I would be really appreciative as I got Mandriva off a friend the otherday and it installs fine and all the files are there but when I boot linux using the LINO graphical boot loader I get all the same errors. Yet it boots windows fine (which is on my internal hdd fine). I am a complete LINUX Newb so any help would be fantastic.

Cheers Mike.

If it is a Sata then the disk will be called sda.

Logical partitions always start at the 5th position. In Linux your 2,3 & 4 will be known as sda5, sda6 and sda7. The sda5 will not be used in Linux as it is a Windows partition most probably in NTFS filing system and has a partition Type ID 7 same as your XP partition sda1.

You need sda6 to have about 5Gb large. If sda6 & sda7 has been created correctly then the Partition ID will be 83 and 82 respectively.

Your error message suggests the Linux has been bootable but not successful. This may be to do with your hardware, especially it is too new like a Intel Dual core CPU with mobo chipset not yet supported by Linux.

If your CPU is say 2 months old or more then Mandriva should work.

I would do a re-install, make sure the root of the Linux (called "/") is installed into sda6 and have the partition formatted for a clean install. The installer will know what to do with sda7.

Good luck

My processor is new but is about 3months old so it should be fine thanks for your help I will give it a go.