What Ram and processor is in this old box? Many Linux distros will do what you describe upon an attempted installation if less than 256 RAM. Did you try it in text mode?

It has a intel celeron processer and 128 mb of ram. I have a brand hp zd7000 laptop top of the line. if it is the old computer then it should work fine on my lap top right!

Once installed, it *should* work OK. It's just the install itself that will sometimes give trouble if you don't have enough RAM. As I said, the newer distros, some of them anyway, need more RAM to install in "GUI" mode. Have you tried a text install? Does it give you the same problems when you do?

how do i do a text install? the only two options i have seen is install now and hit f1 for options

Someone help me here. Is it you just type "text" at first screen? Or do you have to press F1, then choose it or type it as an option? I can't remember...

ok thanx! i'll try that, but what is the difference between the text instal and the reguler install

Dan hit it right on the nose. Once the install screen comes up, just type in text and it will proceed without the graphical install interface. This uses less ram and should complete OK.
 
Some words of advice on the laptop install. Do not allow Mandrake to overtake your total hard drive space on the install. Defrag Windows first before going any further with the HP and check back with us before actually doing the install. HP systems have a hidden recovery partition on the drive that you don't want to distub, especially if you plan to keep Windows on the system.
 
Did HP give you the full Windows XP cd or just the recovery disk?
 
Do you plan on keeping Windows on this system?

the text install is working it is currently at 75 percent which is the furthest it has been and for my lap top. i have the actual xp install disc, and i do plan to dual boot it. i have an 80 gig hard drive and i was planning to allocate 20 gigs for mandrake linux.

it stopped at 73 percent and gave me like 20 to 30 errors but gave me the choice to go on and i went on and it ejected the cd and told me to put the 3rd one in and and it went through 20 more install errors and brought up to the partioning menu again. would it just be best if u bought the full 6 cd version and just put it on my lap top then tryign to mess with the old one with the free version.

then this sounds like you have bad cds. if you are getting these errors and freeze ups then either the iso's that you donwload have missing packages that are supposed to be there or there were errors when you burned the cds. if you can remember what were some of the error messeages that you got in the text install? ifyou can post them in here then we will be able to tell you what is going on. installing a linux os with missing packages and isntall errors is going to lead you to much more problems when you are done with the install.

What type errors are they? Can you write some of them down and post them here? It's possible you have bad media.

Originally posted by Dapper Dan:

Quote:What type errors are they? Can you write some of them down and post them here? It's possible you have bad media. 
 
 
that is what i just said in my previous post buddy!!!!!

matrix3000k, you need to calm down.
 
It often happens that I begin writing posts at work, get busy and don't have time to finish editing and posting it until later. Often much later. I probably read vettebl71s message, began a response and wasn't able to edit and post it until after you posted yours, having never seen it.
 
I'm sure that's what happened today because I don't remember seeing your message until now and I was also quite busy.

it has never really been the same errors each time i have tried to install mandrake. but with the first time i done the text install everything went fine up until it got to 73 percent trying to install mozilla and it went install error happy on me.before that i never got past 10 percent with the gui install because of various install errors and freezing.

I concur, the install issue is probably due to a bad burn on the cd disks.
 
vettebl71, I assumed that you burned these cd disks? What speed did you burn them at and what media did you use, cdrw disks or cdr disks?
 
ISO images need to be burned at a slow rate, say 4X or 8X. CDRW disks can be troublesome when using them for iso images, especially if they are inexpensive disks, or not fully erased before burning an iso image. If they are erased using the "fast erase" feature, this is possibly an issue.
 
If you bought the Mandrake cd disks, where did you get them?
 
A little story to explain. Last week I was working with one of our techs re-imaging a new system that had a bad image on the machine. She burned six cd disks of the Ghost image on cdr @ 24X speed. You guessed it! When she tried to re-imaging the system with the burned disks, she got an error on each attempt from different cd disks on each try. The master cd disks worked fine.
 
Not to be negative or discourage you, but I found this article about your system and installing Fedora Core 3. Just be aware that the same hardware issues may be present on the Mandrake install. If you are using broadband to connect to the internet, the Broadcom NIC card may give you a problem. Apparently the modem does not work either, probably it's a winmodem. It would be interesting to see if the author updates the page to tell if he got the modem or NIC card to work.
 
However, if you just want to try Mandrake and play around with it, you should have no problem. I'm sure that there is a fix for the NIC issue, but it may take some work on your part. Or, Mandrake may do the job. Just so that your aware that everything may not work out-of-the-box.

i am very experienced with computers (software and hardware) for windows and everything. i am trying to just familerise myself with linux so i can become experienced with it as well. i bought the mandrake linux 10.1 off of ebay for 3 dollars they are memorex cd-r i just reinstalled again using the text install method and the errors that i got before did not occur. and i got passed 73 percent and it was at like 80 percent on the second cd that there was one open office error and i skipped it and went on any way and it went to 86 percent and then it was like the installation just crashed for some reason. i really think that it is just the machine i am going ot purchase the full 6 cd mandrake 10.1 and install it on my hp lap top. since i get a little bit further each time i will continue to try on the old machine and it will probably work in a couple of days. i know they yall are experienced with linux. which is better mandrake or red hat and also what are other good and bad versions of linux. i appreciate all the help from everyone and i thank you very much.
 

It's also possible there are issues with your cd reading the disk correctly. This cdrom has been OK otherwise?
 
You'll get differing views on the best distro. If I were to suggest the best way to spend money on a distro, I'd say SuSE 9.2 Professional. SuSE is to me the best all around distro for new and experienced users. It's well worth the price.
 
Between Mandrake and RH/Fedora, I much prefer Fedora.

There is nothign wrong with the cd rom because i replaced it with a cd/rw drive recently i bought it brand new in the box.

Quote:i bought the mandrake linux 10.1 off of ebay for 3 dollars they are memorex cd-r i just reinstalled again using the text install method and the errors that i got before did not occur. and i got passed 73 percent and it was at like 80 percent on the second cd that there was one open office error and i skipped it and went on any way and it went to 86 percent and then it was like the installation just crashed for some reason.

If they are not commercial cd disks, my guess is that the person who burned them did so incorrectly, or the cdrw is funky. What brand and model is it?

I would move on any buy reliable disks from a vendor, which can be had for little cash. There are a variety of sites that you can buy from, such as Linux Central.