Serious computer trouble

[funxus]

I just posted a thread about how everything had been set up on our new computer. Now nothing works and I need help.

Problem:
I installed Mandrake Linux 9.2. Everything works fine except the GUI won't work because there is a Monitor problem. I try re-installing Mandrake several times, but I give up after a while. Now the computer can't find Win XP when starting it, and after some experimenting I resort to the recovery cd. Recovery works fine, but there are 2 problems:

1. The old Linux partitions are still there, and I want to merge them all into one Partition. How do I do this? Partition Magic? How do I do this the best way?

2. After recovery-cd is run, there seem to be no functioning drives, and the plug-and-play thing doesn't work either, so I can't connect to internet or network, there are no good screen settings etc. Why doesn't this work?

EDIT: After installing Partition Magic 8 (demo) it seems as if merging them does not work the way I would want. What program should I use that will at boot allow me to delete ALL partitions and create one new primary? FDISK?

[Achinz]

Originally posted by funxus
EDIT: After installing Partition Magic 8 (demo) it seems as if merging them does not work the way I would want. What program should I use that will at boot allow me to delete ALL partitions and create one new primary? FDISK?

Can't answer all your queries but on this one, have you tried to use the Mandrake install CD (CD1) to do this?

[funxus]

I tried several times deleting the partitions with the Mandrake install cd, but since I didn't leave a partition for the linux root, it couldn't go through with it. Maybe there's a way, but I couldn't find it.

However, I found a trial version of some program that, in combination with that recovery cd, allowed me to delete and reformat it to one big partition. I also solved query 2, it was a simple RTFM-solution. I was supposed to run a driver-cd immediately after the recovery disk.

[Plexus]

Yea, you need to know exactly what you're doing if you're installing Linux, things can turn out very badly for you if you do not.

[funxus]

I'm not really illiterate, I've installed Linux a few times before, but it's when you run into problems things get hard...

The computer has all the programs installed now and is working fine except for the sound. For some reason the speakers are mute, and the support told me they didn't have time for me.

[Achinz]

See if you can pick the brains in your local LUG (Linux Users Group) If you can't find any you can join my MLUG (M for Melbourne) mailing list which has helpful Linux users happy to answer specific questions (they already have some overseas members):

http://www.mlug.org.au/

[sebanaj]

Don't you have a windows xp boot disk with cd driver, fdisk and format?

Fdisk delete non dos partitions, etc.

[funxus]

When I finally found FDISK on internet, it wasn't able to delete all partitions, I knew there were several more except for the win one, and FDISK only found one I could delete. If anyone else has similar problems, the program BooING solved it for me. It made an 8MB partition for itself, which I could delete later using the Recovery CD.

Thanks Achinz, but I think I'll leave Linux for a while.

[Achinz]

I think you'll come back to it soon

[sebanaj]

Did you explore the fdisk options well?

[Jeratain]

Run the Linux setup and delete the partitions using that. Then exit the setup and set up new partitions using fdisk.

[funxus]

Originally posted by Achinz
I think you'll come back to it soon

Maybe so, probably when I get bored some time.

The problem is solved now, and it only has one partition with WinXP on. About FDISK, I knew there were several partitions for Linux, but after I deleted one of them, FDISK said there were no more partitions it could delete. I was able to tell it to delete all the partitions with the Linux setup, but I couldn't find an option to apply it. When I told it I was done and wanted to apply it, it said it couldn't do it because there was no partition to install Linux on. Maybe there was an option, but I couldn't find it.

[Padma]

I had a similar problem with Mdk 9.2, when I went to install it last week. I had been fine running 9.1, and had upgraded to 9.2 okay, but I wanted to get a clean install of 9.2, and bang! There went my video - no X windows possible!?!?

Fortunately, I hadn't changed any partitions, so I just booted back to Win2K, downloaded the new Mdk10.0 CE, and installed that! No problems!

(NOTE: Mandrake 10.0 CE has a known bug: if you use *it's* partitioning tool, it will screw your mbr, and you will be unable to boot into Windows (if you dual-boot). So do your partitioning with Windows tools, and then install Linux to the new partitions. Mandrake 10.0 Official (due in May) will have this fixed. CE is really just a massively large beta....)