[newbie] System Still Hangs

[Wade Waldron]

I reinstalled Mandrake 9.1 in order to try to solve my login problems.  I am booting from a floppy.  When I boot, it gives me options of whether to load linux-secure, linux, failsafe, or windows.  I have tried selecting both secure and just linux.   The system loads and takes me to a text based login.  Here I login and I am taken to the shell (Bash).  I type KDE to try to boot the windowing system.  A blue background comes up with an X shaped cursor.  It then comes up with an initialization screen.  This last for a few moments.  The initialization screen disappears and the blue background remains.  The hard drive continues to hum like it is working, but nothing ever happens.  Does anyone have any suggestions?   Also, I have considered trying to run Gnome instead, but because I am new to linux I do not know the command to start a Gnome session.   Wade