I was asked to repeat the problem and how it was solved so all could benefit. Problem: I bought a new hard drive so could put linux on a drive by itself. I inserted the boot disk and the cd rom and tried to load. I got the window that said use f1 for help or hit return to install. I got a boot failed msg. I tried all the f1 help suggestions. Still got a boot failed message. I then got out my 6.1 mandrake and it loaded ok. Tried again to boot 7.1 got same boot failed msg. I asked the newbie list for help, one of the suggestions was to change the bios to boot first, I changed the bios and the cdrom booted, and I was then able to load the 7.1. Thanks again all. Jim