RE: [newbie] Help! Mandrake install destroyed windows registry, keyboard doesn't work in gnome, DSL connection can't be configured......
This time I did a full install, with 4 linux partitions, got a bootdisk, and it works. But, when i was done the install, i deleted everything except windows from grub. What are the default choices and the commands to run them? (My partitions are windows, linux/, linux/home, linux/boot, swap, or something very close to that). I GNOME, i had drakconf last time, but this time i used a smaller install to have it go faster, so drakconf isn't there. I also wanted to add and remove some packages. Is there a package manager for mandrake, and where can i get it? btw, Thanks for all the help!
[newbie] Help! Mandrake install destroyed windows registry, keyboard doesn't work in gnome, DSL connection can't be configured......
Yesterday i tried to install mandrake, but with problems that got worse every time i tried to fix them, i had to repartition my disk and reinstall windows. Here's everything i remember, can anyone help me with these problems? The first time i tried to install mandrake, i chose "customized" installation. After repartitioning and selecting packages, i got some errors (before it started installing the packages). I started windows and ran the installer again, choosing "Automated". This time the only problem was that i couldn't configure my printer (an HP Deskjet 720C), but the installation worked. I restarted my computer and went in to gnome under my normal user. The first thing I did was try to change the screen resolution. I went in to the gnome control panel (i think that's what it was) and didn't find any resolution option, but i did change a few things in some other area, try all the window managers, and choose Enlightenement. I'm not sure what i did after; i think i closed the control panel, ran gnomeicu (which crashed), ran licq, and found out that i couldn't connect. My internet connection is DSL using a Startech (that's all i know about it) NE2000 compatible ISA card. I tried to run the control panel again, but when the root password dialog came up, i tried to click in the password area and type the password, but nothing happened (i think pressing enter did close it though). I tried restarting the computer, and had the same problem. I went in to root and ran drakconf, then went to the network configuration. I don't know where to enter the information, but i looked around and found a few settings i knew, but i still couldn't type anything. I opened a terminal and an editor, and the keyboard didn't work for them. I logged out then logged in to the KDE, and this time the keyboard worked. I tried to enter my network information, but licq still didn't work. I decided to go back in to windows to see if i could find some help. When i restarted the computer and grub came up, it was configured to run linux by default. I changed this (in linux) to run windows by default, and then restarted my computer. When grub camp up, it has windows selected, but after the 4 seconds were done, it would run the commands to start windows, pause for a second, and return to the grub menu. I got out the windows(98) installation diskette and started the computer in dos. I went to c:\windows and tried to run win, but i got an error about a resource missing. A few reboots later, i found that windows couldn't open the registry. I checked in c:\windows, and the registry files weren't there. I went back to the KDE (before this, in linux, i had found all my windows files in /mnt/windows/. I tried to run XMMS with my windows playlist (when i was still using gnome), but it kept going through the playlist (in about 3-4 second, i had 120-140 files) like i was holding the down key) and looked in /mnt/windows/, but it was empty. When i checked in dos, all the files were still there. I tried to find a way to get windows running, but it wouldn't work. I ran windows setup to see if i could replace the registry, but it said i had to format the hard drive. Since there was nothing I could do, i deleted all the partitions, made one partition that filled the drive, and reinstalled window. When i installed mandrake, i had one 12GB partition, but i resized it to ~9GB and added a 2.5GB partition for mandrake and a 128MB swap partition after the main partition. What cause the problems i had? How can i get a normal mandrake install without destroying windows? Can i skip installing a bootloader (keep the windows loader) and make a boot diskette that will run linux?
Re: [newbie] Help! Mandrake install destroyed windows registry, keyboard doesn't work in gnome, DSL connection can't be configured......
Richard Garand wrote: Yesterday i tried to install mandrake, but with problems that got worse every time i tried to fix them, i had to repartition my disk and reinstall windows. Here's everything i remember, can anyone help me with these problems? The first time i tried to install mandrake, i chose "customized" installation. After repartitioning and selecting packages, i got some errors (before it started installing the packages). I started windows and ran the installer again, Actually, you answered your own question. You made the same mistake twice. You started the install from inside windows. This is something that I WISH the folks at Mandrakesoft would address, cause it's becoming painfully clear that installing from within Windows or behind a DOS partition is a REAL bad thing. Putting it mildy. Linux is an Operating system and not a windows application, it should therefore be treated as such. I don't say that to scold you or to demean you in any way, rather to make a point crystal clear that obviously is not being made clear enough. You cannot and should not EVER attempt to install one OS from inside another OS and not expect or be ready for the worst to happen to the host OS. In this case Windows. At this point I won't go into all the wherefores and what-nots. Suffice it to say that yours, or anyone's best option for installing Linux is to boot the CDROM, run the installer as it was REALLY intended to be run and take whatever steps necessary for your application of Linux to install the Operating system. Hope this helps, Mark
Re: [newbie] Help! Mandrake install destroyed windows registry, keyboard doesn't work in gnome, DSL connection can't be configured......
Anyone who is tempted to call this post off-topic is invited to observe that I am talking about recovering from a problem which sometimes arises during the Linux installation process. In W95 three or four years ago I stumbled upon what seems to me a particularly simple way to fix Windows registry problems. It still works in W98 W98SE. I make no promises abut 2000 or ME; try it at your own risk. I also do not explain how it works; I think it invokes Windows' own internal registry restoration code, but that's only an inference. 1. Boot your machine into Windows' step-by-step mode. There are several ways to do this. Start with a hardware reset (push the reset button on the case, if there is one) or a power-up reset (turn the power off for 30 seconds or so, and then on again). I do not recom- mend a mere warm start (ctl-alt-del). When the memory test ends, hold down shift+F8 to go directly to step-by-step (or hold down ctl if you prefer to go to a menu first, and then select step-by-step). 2. Step through the boot process by pressing Enter whenever it asks you a question. Don't worry about what the question means, just go on. At end, Windows will be up in either normal or Safe mode. If in Safe mode, shut down repeat this process. I have never had to do this more than twice. - Original Message - From: "Richard Garand" [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: Thursday, September 07, 2000 8:45 AM Subject: [newbie] Help! Mandrake install destroyed windows registry, keyboard doesn't work in gnome, DSL connection can't be configured.. Yesterday i tried to install mandrake, but with problems that got worse every time i tried to fix them, i had to repartition my disk and reinstall windows. Here's everything i remember, can anyone help me with these problems? The first time i tried to install mandrake, i chose "customized" installation. After repartitioning and selecting packages, i got some erro rs (before it started installing the packages). I started windows and ran the installer again, choosing "Automated". This time the only problem was that i couldn't configure my printer (an HP Deskjet 720C), but the installation worked. I restarted my computer and went in to gnome under my normal user. The first thing I did was try to change the screen resolution. I went in to the gnome control panel (i think that's what it was) and didn't find any resolution option, but i did change a few things in some other area, try all the window managers, and choose Enlightenement. I'm not sure what i did after; i think i closed the control panel, ran gnomeicu (which crashed), ran licq, and found out that i couldn't connect. My internet connection is DSL using a Startech (that's all i know about it) NE2000 compatible ISA card. I tried to run the control panel again, but when the root password dialog came up, i tried to click in the password area and type the password, but nothing happened (i think pressing enter did close it though). I tried restarting the computer, and had the same problem. I went in to root and ran drakconf, then went to the network configuration. I don't know where to enter the information, but i looked around and found a few settings i knew, but i still couldn't type anything. I opened a terminal and an editor, and the keyboard didn't work for them. I logged out then logged in to the KDE, and this time the keyboard worked. I tried to enter my network information, but licq still didn't work. I decided to go back in to windows to see if i could find some help. When i restarted the computer and grub came up, it was configured to run linux by default. I changed this (in linux) to run windows by default, and then restarted my computer. When grub camp up, it has windows selected, but after the 4 seconds were done, it would run the commands to start windows, pause for a second, and return to the grub menu. I got out the windows(98) installation diskette and started the computer in dos. I went to c:\windows and tried to run win, but i got an error about a resource missing. A few reboots later, i found that windows couldn't open the registry. I checked in c:\windows, and the registry files weren't there. I went back to the KDE (before this, in linux, i had found all my windows files in /mnt/windows/. I tried to run XMMS with my windows playlist (when i was still using gnome), but it kept going through the playlist (in about 3-4 second, i had 120-140 files) like i was holding the down key) and looked in /mnt/windows/, but it was empty. When i checked in dos, all the files were still there. I tried to find a way to get windows running, but it wouldn't work. I ran windows setup to see if i could replace the registry, but it said i had to format the hard drive. Since there was nothing I could do, i deleted all the partitions, made one partition that filled the drive, and reinstalled window. When i inst
RE: [newbie] Help! Mandrake install destroyed windows registry, keyboard doesn't work in gnome, DSL connection can't be configured......
Before reformating the hard disk, make just one partition for Win, but don't take the whole HD, leave the space you need for Linux unpartitioned. This way you won't resize your windows partition to make space for Linux. I don't know if this can avoid the problem you had, but at least you won't mess with Win partitions (resizing) to install Linux, reducing the risk of a problem. Hugo - Original Message - From: "Richard Garand" [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: Thursday, September 07, 2000 8:45 AM Subject: [newbie] Help! Mandrake install destroyed windows registry, keyboard doesn't work in gnome, DSL connection can't be configured.. Yesterday i tried to install mandrake, but with problems that got worse every time i tried to fix them, i had to repartition my disk and reinstall windows. Here's everything i remember, can anyone help me with these problems? The first time i tried to install mandrake, i chose "customized" installation. After repartitioning and selecting packages, i got some erro rs (before it started installing the packages). I started windows and ran the installer again, choosing "Automated". This time the only problem was that i couldn't configure my printer (an HP Deskjet 720C), but the installation worked. I restarted my computer and went in to gnome under my normal user. The first thing I did was try to change the screen resolution. I went in to the gnome control panel (i think that's what it was) and didn't find any resolution option, but i did change a few things in some other area, try all the window managers, and choose Enlightenement. I'm not sure what i did after; i think i closed the control panel, ran gnomeicu (which crashed), ran licq, and found out that i couldn't connect. My internet connection is DSL using a Startech (that's all i know about it) NE2000 compatible ISA card. I tried to run the control panel again, but when the root password dialog came up, i tried to click in the password area and type the password, but nothing happened (i think pressing enter did close it though). I tried restarting the computer, and had the same problem. I went in to root and ran drakconf, then went to the network configuration. I don't know where to enter the information, but i looked around and found a few settings i knew, but i still couldn't type anything. I opened a terminal and an editor, and the keyboard didn't work for them. I logged out then logged in to the KDE, and this time the keyboard worked. I tried to enter my network information, but licq still didn't work. I decided to go back in to windows to see if i could find some help. When i restarted the computer and grub came up, it was configured to run linux by default. I changed this (in linux) to run windows by default, and then restarted my computer. When grub camp up, it has windows selected, but after the 4 seconds were done, it would run the commands to start windows, pause for a second, and return to the grub menu. I got out the windows(98) installation diskette and started the computer in dos. I went to c:\windows and tried to run win, but i got an error about a resource missing. A few reboots later, i found that windows couldn't open the registry. I checked in c:\windows, and the registry files weren't there. I went back to the KDE (before this, in linux, i had found all my windows files in /mnt/windows/. I tried to run XMMS with my windows playlist (when i was still using gnome), but it kept going through the playlist (in about 3-4 second, i had 120-140 files) like i was holding the down key) and looked in /mnt/windows/, but it was empty. When i checked in dos, all the files were still there. I tried to find a way to get windows running, but it wouldn't work. I ran windows setup to see if i could replace the registry, but it said i had to format the hard drive. Since there was nothing I could do, i deleted all the partitions, made one partition that filled the drive, and reinstalled window. When i installed mandrake, i had one 12GB partition, but i resized it to ~9GB and added a 2.5GB partition for mandrake and a 128MB swap partition after the main partition. What cause the problems i had? How can i get a normal mandrake install without destroying windows? Can i skip installing a bootloader (keep the windows loader) and make a boot diskette that will run linux?
Re: [newbie] Help! Mandrake install destroyed windows registry, keyboard doesn't work in gnome, DSL connection can't be configured......
They won't be gone unless you have seriously corrupted your Win file system. Windows saves the registries from the last five or six good boots (only from the good boots!) apparently steps back through them 'til it finds something that works---usually the immediately past good one. I don't offer panaceas---just hints that are likely, but not guaranteed, to be helpful. - Original Message - From: "Richard Garand" [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: Thursday, September 07, 2000 1:24 PM Subject: RE: [newbie] Help! Mandrake install destroyed windows registry, keyboard doesn't work in gnome, DSL connection can't be configured.. This might work, but what will happen if all the registry files are gone? -Original Message- From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]]On Behalf Of John A. MacLaughlin Sent: Thursday, September 07, 2000 9:37 AM To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject: Re: [newbie] Help! Mandrake install destroyed windows registry, keyboard doesn't work in gnome, DSL connection can't be configured.. Anyone who is tempted to call this post off-topic is invited to observe that I am talking about recovering from a problem which sometimes arises during the Linux installation process. In W95 three or four years ago I stumbled upon what seems to me a particularly simple way to fix Windows registry problems. It still works in W98 W98SE. I make no promises abut 2000 or ME; try it at your own risk. I also do not explain how it works; I think it invokes Windows' own internal registry restoration code, but that's only an inference. 1. Boot your machine into Windows' step-by-step mode. There are several ways to do this. Start with a hardware reset (push the reset button on the case, if there is one) or a power-up reset (turn the power off for 30 seconds or so, and then on again). I do not recom- mend a mere warm start (ctl-alt-del). When the memory test ends, hold down shift+F8 to go directly to step-by-step (or hold down ctl if you prefer to go to a menu first, and then select step-by-step). 2. Step through the boot process by pressing Enter whenever it asks you a question. Don't worry about what the question means, just go on. At end, Windows will be up in either normal or Safe mode. If in Safe mode, shut down repeat this process. I have never had to do this more than twice.
Re: [newbie] Help! Mandrake install destroyed windows registry, keyboard doesn't work in gnome, DSL connection can't be configured......
Would this cause the grub problem and destroy the windows registry? There were only 2 problems (in getting the operating systems to cooperate): grub wouldn't boot windows and something (during the install?) destroyed my registry. If i know what did this and how to avoid these problems, i'll be ready to try again. Windows seems to have all sorts of ways of destroying pieces of itself but it's hard to imagine grub being able to destroy anything. It's launched when the master boot record is queried and it hands an disk location to the boot routine so it can initiate the loading of Windows (or if you've chosen wisely, Linux). Thus, it's not writing anything to your Windows partition and doesn't know what a Windows registry is. Cheers --- Larry
Re: [newbie] Help! Mandrake install destroyed windows registry, keyboard doesn't work in gnome, DSL connection can't be configured......
As far as installing Linux without losing windows. Use partition Magic to set aside about 4gigs on the hard drive (after defrag and scandisk the windows stuff). As has been said, go to bios and set your computer to boot from the CD-ROM drive. (as it appears you don't have a boot diskette) The install will go automatically. At one point in the installation it will ask if you want to make a boot disk and you should answer yes, put a clean floppy in the drive and let her rip. By the way the auto install is best for your first try, IMHO, I don't recommend custom or developer unless you are somewhat familiar with linux. Time will make you more adventuresome as the comfort level goes up. Good Luck. (I have installed 7.0 as a dual boot on one machine and 7.1 stand alone on a second machine, the second one has had three installs because I kept messing things up in places like Netscape and networking and didn't know any better than to do a full reinstall. But I'm better now, thanks) "John A. MacLaughlin" wrote: They won't be gone unless you have seriously corrupted your Win file system. Windows saves the registries from the last five or six good boots (only from the good boots!) apparently steps back through them 'til it finds something that works---usually the immediately past good one. I don't offer panaceas---just hints that are likely, but not guaranteed, to be helpful. - Original Message - From: "Richard Garand" [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: Thursday, September 07, 2000 1:24 PM Subject: RE: [newbie] Help! Mandrake install destroyed windows registry, keyboard doesn't work in gnome, DSL connection can't be configured.. This might work, but what will happen if all the registry files are gone? -Original Message- From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]]On Behalf Of John A. MacLaughlin Sent: Thursday, September 07, 2000 9:37 AM To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject: Re: [newbie] Help! Mandrake install destroyed windows registry, keyboard doesn't work in gnome, DSL connection can't be configured.. Anyone who is tempted to call this post off-topic is invited to observe that I am talking about recovering from a problem which sometimes arises during the Linux installation process. In W95 three or four years ago I stumbled upon what seems to me a particularly simple way to fix Windows registry problems. It still works in W98 W98SE. I make no promises abut 2000 or ME; try it at your own risk. I also do not explain how it works; I think it invokes Windows' own internal registry restoration code, but that's only an inference. 1. Boot your machine into Windows' step-by-step mode. There are several ways to do this. Start with a hardware reset (push the reset button on the case, if there is one) or a power-up reset (turn the power off for 30 seconds or so, and then on again). I do not recom- mend a mere warm start (ctl-alt-del). When the memory test ends, hold down shift+F8 to go directly to step-by-step (or hold down ctl if you prefer to go to a menu first, and then select step-by-step). 2. Step through the boot process by pressing Enter whenever it asks you a question. Don't worry about what the question means, just go on. At end, Windows will be up in either normal or Safe mode. If in Safe mode, shut down repeat this process. I have never had to do this more than twice. -- Dennis a registered linux user #180842
