July 5, 2002 10:30 am, frazer wrote: > As you might guess im new to linux.How many times have you heard that > My problem is with Mandrake 8.2 .Im trying to install onto a pentium 3. > 450Mhz. 12 Gb Hard drive 128Mb ram.The drive was partitioned with Partition > Magic.Windows 98 being on the drive also.The PM wizard guided me through > the process,moving my windows files to a new partition 5Gb in size.Which > works fine and also creating about a 4 or bit more Gb partition for linux > which i believe needs two separate partitions I also installed boot magic > if that matters?.After booting from the first CD (theres three as it was a > download off the net) and starting ok with the welcome to linux press f1 or > f3 i think it is, to install it goes ok for a while until the message > :Error loading program into memory could not uncompress second stage > ramdisk.This is probably "an" hardware error while reading the data this > maybe caused by a hardware failure or a linux kernal bug in then says press > ok but nothing happens.Iv have tried the four or five commands that are > recommended in the help file "text" "Expert and so on but all cause the > same problem.If its a hardware problem wouldn't it be causing windows > problems? Should i try creating the partitions again or would you > recommend formatting the whole hard disk and starting fresh. i dont really > want that.Thats about it i think. If you cant help Thankyou anyway. > > Frazer ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Welcome to the land of free choice Frazer.
I've had a similar problem a few times with downloaded applications, and once (I think it was Mandrake 7.2 Freq) with the operating system disks. Thankfully (I hate coasters) I hadn't burned them to disk; just (tried) mount from a spare hard drive and attempt to install from there. Corrupt download. The second download went swimmingly well for the install. Many times it's a bad download as has already been suggested, but it may also be memory that's "good enough for Windows" but isn't up to spec in some way. As a not quite so side issue; lose boot magic. It's something you don't need since Mandrake and all other distributions of GNU/Linux come with Lilo (LinuxLoader) and Grub (you just need to choose one) and they'll control booting of however many operating systems you want to try. I wouldn't use Partition Magic again either since DiskDrake will do the same thing without costing you money. It won't eat Windows unless you tell it to. But that's just me. I've managed to help people install Mandrake a few times, and many are eager to rush out and acquire a copy of a partition manager when it's not necessary. It's just a sign of the brainwashing everyone has been subjected to by the marketing drones of the Wintel empire that even when people are thinking about leaving the aggravation behind they can't forget about applications/utilities written to do things that a proper operating system would do for itself or at least include utilities to deal with the need. The way GNU/Linux does and Windows can't. The list archives have many posts dealing with memtest and it's uses and I'd check for a hardware problem as the second thing to do. The first is to be sure that your download disks aren't corrupted. Reading as many posts in the list archives will be invaluable to you in many ways. You'll learn things from reading the posts that you won't realize until you run across something and the light suddenly comes on. "OH *that's* what that meant!" Holler when you need to, there are a lot of intelligent and helpful people here that can help get you moving the direction you want. I wish I were one of them. :-) Good luck. -- Charlie Edmonton,AB,Canada Registered user 244963 at http://counter.li.org "Our reruns are better than theirs." -- Nick at Nite
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