Ok, Mandrake is getting a little retarted here.

[Top Wop]

Im trying to boot off of my cd but it skips it and goes off to boot even though I had set it to boot off from CD. No biggie. So I did a floppy option to use the CD as the install source, but when it scans it, it says that it is not the Mandrake setup CD. What do I do to get it to read it?

Before, I copied it to the hard drive and it read it just fine! Exept I had to quit to fix my partition.

But after that, nothing works! I get this:
"Can't find a valid filesystem. (Tried ext2, vfat, reserfs)"

Thats when I tried to install from the hard drive. I get this when I try to install from cd:
"That disc does not seem to be a Mandrake Linux install CD. Retry w/ another disc?"

This is really making me mad, because I want to use Linux but no matter how hard I try, I ALWAYS get into problems! WTF? This is my 5th attempt at getting into Linux with no succes because of the stupid installation! Why do they have to make Linux so freaking hard! This is ridiculous, it does not have to be this way! So much for "user friendly". I hate to say this, but if this wont work I have to consider Windows as my permmanent home! (shudder). Someone help me get SOMETHING out of this. Thanks!

[hastx]

first things first. Did you set the BIOS to boot from cd? Even so, I've had issues with older machines trying to boot from cd(regardless of OS being installed). Did you double check to make sure that you used the proper boot image to create the boot floppy? IF so, Set the BIOS to boot from floppy, then just keep the first disk in the cd-rom, and let the floppy boot and take over the install. It will automatically detect the cd-rom and begin installing files.

You may also want to post your system specs, so that if someone has had similar experience, they might be familiar with the issues.

Was your copy downloaded or retail? (not that it matters, just want to rule out an incomplete download)

[This message has been edited by hastx (edited 02-18-2002).]

[jmillerbomb]

I had the same problem after downloading the image file for Mandrake 8.1 and burning it to cd. Look at this help file. http://www.linux-mandrake.com/en/howtos/iso/howtoisoen.html
I think I had to end up burning it in Linux to get the CD to boot, but this might help you. I'm no expert but that page should explain how to burn the cd in windows under Easy CD Creator. You have to have the .iso image file to do this though.

[This message has been edited by jmillerbomb (edited 02-24-2002).]