Mandrake 9.0 + WinXP : partitions set, no go...

[merlin9877]

I'm trying to install Mandrake 9.0 on a laptop (Compaq Presario, Athlon XP 1500+, 30gig HD, 256megs DDR). It already had WinXP Home installed on a single partition. I was using about 20gigs of the HD so I thought I'd have the 1024 cylinders problem if I wanted to install Mandrake after WinXP. So, I installed Partition Magic 8 and now I have the following setup :

- 75 megs of Ext3 partition (for booting Linux)
- around 25 gigs for WinXP
- 5 gigs for Mandrake (Ext3)
- 256 megs of Linux Swap

Everythings formated. I the pop in the Mandrake CD and when it starts loading, it just hangs when it does a Partition check. I left it the whole night and it just stayed at the prompt doing nothing. Here's what was on screen :

Partition check :
hda : spurious 8259A interrupt : IRQ7

Could anyone point me to what might be wrong? btw, I don't want to try and bypass the 1024 cylinders limit since I may want to install Linux on other computers that can't do the lba32 thing. Thanks!

[zdude255]

Search the internet for installing Mandrake on a Compaq Presario.

Its a pain, but there are people who have done it.

I know this firsthand....

[merlin9877]

Great, great, great! Found some very nice ressources. Should be on my way now. Thanks! :D

[merlin9877]

Seems I have to disable USB when starting up to get Linux to boot. Anyone know if there's a way to get it back running since I wan't to use a USB mouse (Logitech optical) and not just the touchpad. Thanks!

[jetblackz]

Turn PnP off in BIOS.

Try 9.1. My friend has a positive experience installing it on his USB 2.0 system.

BTW, 1024 cylinder limit is an old issue. You probably dug it up from mid '90 documentation.

My Linux root partitions are way beyond 1024. PM8 comes with BootMagic which should take care of Linux. Dunno if it's NTFS compatible.

Create an ext3 partition in PM8. Format and check it.