Video Problems with Mandrake 10.1

I am a Linux newbie (although I vaguely remember using SCO Unix 3.2 many years ago). I did a new install on a new seagate drive. System is P4 2.0 GHz,
512 MB ram, NVIDIA GeForce 2 MX400 Video card, Gateway FP1700 monitor.

Installation went fine, dual boot with XP works fine - but no GUI. I can boot to command line no problem. Tried resetting video by logging in as root and running XFdrake. Can't seem to find right combination. Screen goes blank if I try startx.

I had a similar problem running a live CD of Knoppix. Got around by typing fb 1024x768 at boot time. Any ideas? This is driving me nuts. It seems to be a common problem with Mandrake and NVIDIA?

You could set up video to run with VESA in the short term. That would get a GUI for you in the short term...