For some reason, Mandrake keeps changing the installation scripts for each version of the package. All previous changes were cosmetic, but this one is dangerous.
Earlier install scripts prompted for expert install and creation of a boot disk. The new script moved the prompts off the main sequence (and for "expert install", got rid of the prompt entirely. It is now a command line parameter.) I have three SCSI drives and the boot disk is the newest and fastest of the three. Not surprisingly I assigned it a higher SCSI ID than the first two to avoid taking them out, resetting jumpers, and shuffling them around on the cable. It doesn't matter to SCSI which one is boot drive, you just set controller to boot that one. Linux treats this drive as device "sdc", however, calling the other two drives "sda" and "sdb". Mandrake installation script defaults to writing the bootstrap on the lowest numbered disk, in this case "sda". But my "sda" did not have an operating system on it any more. So trying to boot from such a drive gets computer nowhere. When I installed 9.0 the last time, I made a boot floppy in case I assigned the boot sequence to the wrong drive. It turned out I had, but I was able to get into Linux with the floppy and fix things. The Mandrake 9.1 installation script without telling me, stuck the bootstrap on a drive with no OS and did not prompt for a boot floppy. (it does, but you have to scroll off the page to find the prompt and it is really easy to miss. I don't know if it even comes up on an ordinary install.) I kept waiting for the prompts from the old script and they never came. I had to run through the install three times to figure out where the script had been changed, and by then something had gone wrong with the boot sequence. I could boot into Linux but not Windows. I had to reinstall the Windows partition and to get rid of the linux bootstrap, lost all the settings for my Windows programs.
