Mandriva2006 won't boot following install&reboot

[madlima]

I am able to "install" Mandriva2006 via CD and configure all options with the GUI, but once I restart to boot to my HD, it simply stops at a blinking cursor after POST.

I used DiskDrake to manually configure partitions as follows:
sda1 = 100MB /boot
sda5 = 768MB Linuxswap
sda6 = 70GB /

It was a previous XP box. Is this an MBR issue? If so, any tips on how to resolve?

P4, 2.8, Intel 915 chipset motherboard ICH6, one 80GB SATA drive.

Thanks in advance.

[Parcival]

I am currently not sure when the POST message is to be seen. As a rule of thumb:

If it stops before you get a message that the kernel is being booted, then yes, it is an MBR issue. Boot with a liveCD (such as Knoppix), check your bootloaders settings, and reinstall it if necessary.

If it stops after the kernel message, then it has got something to do with your distro. Try to boot it in failsafe mode and look at the log files.

[saikee]

The installer isn't bomb proof and may have a bug when dealing your hardware setting.

Follow Parcival advice to restore Grub is the course of action to take. If you need to know the commands to be used then take at look at Task B4 and B5 of the last link of my signature.

[madlima]

it does hang prior to the kernel being loaded, so i will boot to a live distro (i have Ubuntu somewhere) and follow the steps you gave to fix the MBR. i chose LILO as the boot loader during setup, so would i use the commands in Task B3 instead and substitute sda6 and sda where applicable? this will restore the MBR and allow Mandriva to boot?