Having problem installing Mandrivia LE 2005, Please help !!

Hi all,

I am new to Linux and am very keen to try out a new OS to run with Apache, PHP & MySQL. I have somehow managed to configure AMP to work with Window XP and everything seem to work OK so far . But somehow I feel that Linux seem to be a more naturally choice with AMP, may be because they are all open sources !!?

My current set up:
OS: window Xp sp2.
HDD: 1x80 gb SATA,C:, 1x200 gb SATA,E: (Both drives have been formatted with NTFS unfortunately.)

My intension is to install Mandrivia on drive E: and leave window XP and all its application in C:.

My problem : After inserted the DVD and restart the computer , everything is OK and the install splash screen come up, I tried every options to install but everytime during the installation all i get is a blank screen and could not proceed any further. Also tried everything using the boot> prompt with text with no suscess :(

Any comment/help is much appreciated.

The otherthing is: if I manage to install mandrivia on E:, Is it possible to for both window and Linux applications to store data in E: assuming that that it has been parttion correctly. Sorry to ask question like this as I am not only new to Linux but also have little understanding on how thing work with hard drives(ware) in general.

Thanks.

Before you install on to that 2nd hard drive, make 2 partitions. one Fat32, this can be accessed by both windows and Linux. And leave one partition unformatted. This is where mandriva will go.

To do this you will need to use Disk management in XP.
Control Panel>Administrative Tools> Computer management>Disk management.
Delete the partitions, then create the 2 partitions.
The mandriva installer will take care of the swap.
Install LiLo to the MBR, this is a must, unless you want to use some other way to boot Linux. LiLo can load both Windows and Linux.
As for the server applications, I have no idea.

Thanks budman7

I have viped my E: and created the partitions as suggested, the first partition left as formatted and I attempted to format the second partition as F32, but it would appear the only option I have on the drop down menu is NTFC, so I left it as unformated also. Is this OK !? I am a newbie on all these things....

I loaded the DVD and reboot with anticipation, unfortunately I encounter the same problem. Blank screen again !!! This happen when the install progress bar is completed.

In desperation, I tried F1 with text input, I have the following error message, I have no idea what it meant, but I start to think I may have some compatiability of the version of the software with my hardware.

The error message is as followed:

CPU : 0
EIP : 0060 : [<C03C4CFC>] NOT TAINTED VLI
EFRAG : 00010246 (2.6.11-6MDK-I686-UP-1GB)
EIP IS AT SETUP_LOCAL_APIC=0X2C/0X170
EAX:00000000 EBX:00000014 ECX:00000000 EDX:00000001
ESI:00000000 EDI:DFBD1FE0 EBP:DFBD1FB8 ESP:00000001
STACK: TOO LONG TO TYPE !!!!

CALL TRACE:
[<C0104105>] SHOW_STACK +0X75 / 0X90
[<C010425B>] SHOW_REGISTERS+0X11B/0X190
[<C0104424>] DIE+0XB4/0X130
[<C01047C0>] DO INVALID-OP+0X90X0XA0
[<C0103D8B>] ERROR_CODE+0X2B/0X30
[<C03C5520>] APIC-INIT_UNIPROCESSOR+0XB0/0X110
[<C01002BB>] INI+0X1B/0X130
[<C01012D9>] KERNEL_THREAD_HELPER+0X5/0XC

CODE: TOO LONG TO TYPE !!!!!
<0> KERNEL PANIC_NOT SYNCING: FATAL EXCEPTION IN INTERRUPT

What is going on !!!?? Please help, some one.....

My processor is P4 3.2GHZ with HT and the chipset is intel 925x I think ??

Thanks

Correction from above: the sentence should read "the first partition left as unformatted "

I kind of assumed that you meant unformatted.

As for the other problem, the only thing I can think of is that the dvd was burned to fast.
Burning at higher than 4x can cause strange things to happen.
Or it may be the SATA drives.
As for how to solve it. I don't own a SATA drive, so I couldn't explain a solution.

Same thoughts here, if you don't mind one more DVD to sacrifice, burn again your Mandriva DVD image, and chose to make it slowly (2/4x) on a new and clean DVD.

Just in case, in the bios, check if hard disk autodetection at boot is enabled. If not, enable it and try again. If yes, un-enable it and try again :p
But that bloodly looks like and badly burned DVD anyway.

Erm, you are sure your mandriva is the right one ? You're not trying to install a 64bits version on your 32 bits P4, are you ?