MD 7.1 will not boot after install

[knight31]

Greetings,
I am new to Linux. I have semi-successfully installed Debian but I wanted to try Mandrake because it is allegedly more user friendly.
I purchased a copy of MD 7.1 from Linux mall (2 cd set) and attemped to install.
Here is my hardware config. (Using an old pc as a test machine)
Cyrix P150+
Mitsumi CR 574 B Cdrom
32 meg ram
socket 7 mb intel chipset
standard floppy
S3 Virge 4 mb PCI video
USR 56 k modem
compaq monitor (basic old model)

I have tried to install several times. The only loose condition I have found is that the installer has asked me for another disk if I have it. The disk it is asking for is not the 2nd disk from my set. The cdrom will not eject during install anyway. The installer states that if you dont have the disk, hit cancel and it will skip that package. After finishing the install process, which takes a while on this old pc, it tells me to eject the boot media and hit enter to reboot. Upon rebooting, it tries to start LILO but only displays the "L" and starts scrolling the number "40" across the screen. I have searched to see if anyone has this paticular bug but to no avail. Have I found something unique?
TIA
Brandon

[Choozo]

32 Megs of RAM?? .... hmmm, that may be a bit on the short side. 64 Megs is the recommended minimum (if you want to run X). And if you used the graphical installer, this may be your problem.
If you don't need X (just the terminal), try to reinstall in textmode.

[knight31]

Choozo,
Thanks for the tip. I had concidered this as a possible issue. Based on my experience with Debian, wouldn't I at least get to a login prompt? I was able to run X on this machine with debian. I wasn't able to get GNOME up though. I was going to attempt to run a low end windows manager such as black box under my Mandrake distro.

Brandon

[knight31]

OK,
I read the LHF on LILO dual boot probs and noticed that the author had a similar problem (He had 1's and 0's displayed). Reading this was a shot in the dark as I am not dual booting. I have tried making a boot image from the MD cdrom onto a floppy and using it as a boot disk to no avail.
Any suggestions?
Thanks,
Brandon

[Choozo]

Found this link for you knight: http://www.fan.nb.ca/~aa126/troubleshoot-LILO.html
It explains the different LILO errormessages, and it looks like you may have a bogus harddrive?

If you have a Win98 bootfloppy at hand, you may boot up with that one and run scandisk/fdisk to see if you can salvage the drive?

Good luck! :)

[knight31]

Choozo is good. Choozo is wise.
Reformatted the HD and reinstalled. Took the installation and now I am kicking around and configuring X. I figure that it will take a few more reinstalls before I am comfortable that I won't destroy anything but things are looking up. Thanks for your help.


Brandon

PS X looks like it will run. Nothing flashy but It will allow me to learn how to use and config it. I am going to learn my way around a command line, too. ;)

[Choozo]

/me takes a deep bow :D

Glad it worked out so well knight, and that some also has the presence of mind to let us (and other with the same problems) know if our suggestions work out :)