Bootup System Hang

[scewing]

I installed Mandrake 7.1 and things were okay except for soundcard issues. Then I tried installing Mandrake 7.2......Can't get it to boot. It goes thru the initial list of checking irqs, etc. then it gets to the lines
ide1=40x??, ????on irq11
ide2=20x??, 30x??? on irq15
or whatever then goes to the next line and HANGS.

I tried booting back up with 7.1 now and it does the same thing.

I tried installing Redhat 7.0 and it gets thru the sequence fine. (I have an ATA66 controller so I can't actually get thru RH 7.0 installation) but it boots up and at least ENTERS the install prog. okay.

So I wiped out the whole hard drive (including Win98) and repartitioned abck to one drive, reformatted and reinstalled Win98. Tried installing again and get the same thing. (Neither 7.1 or 7.2 will boot, but RH 7.0 will) I also tried experimenting with PNP on and off with no differences. I have two Hds (13GB and a 1.2GB) The second is only used as a backup device. I had 7.1 installed on a 3GB partition of the first HD.

Anyone experience something like this beofore, or know what may have gone wrong with my system?

[jlangley]

did you just get the 13GB HD?
I personally like Redhat but it shouldn't be any different for Mandrake.
The ATA-66 thing shouldn't matter... any self respecting distro. won't configure for speed but for compatibility.
I would suggest going for Redhat and loading on Mandrake on Top of it. Use "hdparm" to fix the hard drive timings.
Jeremy

[jlangley]

Come to think of it I had a problem with my CDROM when I installed Mandrake. It was a bad CDROM for installs I switched it out and the boot from cdrom worked fine.
The CDROM works fine otherwise. I don't get it. (I kept on getting Kernel Panics)
Anyway hope this helps.
Jeremy

[scewing]

The HD is the same old HD I've had for a year or more now. To update:

I ran fdisk /mbr and now I can get 7.1 to install again. But the system still hangs when I try to boot up and install 7.2 Here's the exact lines where it hangs:

ide1 at 0x170-0x177, 0x376 on IRQ 15
ide2 at 0x1080-0x1087, 0x1016 on IRQ 11
(locked up cursor here)

It calls all the drives hde5, hde6, etc. and lists their manufacturer and specs, etc. before it gets to that point. Thats telling me it may not be a ATA66 problem, but maybe something (hardware) not configured correctly. I tried swapping cards around in different slots too. I tested the CD on another computer and it worked fine. I also tried the boot floppy and that didn't work either.

As for RH 7.0, the installation gets to where it's supposed to start DiskDruid or whatever to partition the HD, and gives me an error that no media can be found to install to. I'm assuming this is an ATA66 problem, so I've pretty much given up on RH 7.0. I liked Mandrake 7.1 and it looks as though what I didn't like about it has been corrected in 7.2.....if I could only get it installed.