Linux Installation Problem

[thebrookster]

Hi huys, I am having some problems installing Mandriva 2007 onto my pc. I have copied a post that I have made on another forum here (am lazy) hoping that some-one somewhere may be able to ease my troubles
[hr]
Hi, I am attempting to install Mandriva 2007 (Free) onto my PC, however I have found some stumbling blocks. My install goes fine until I reach the summary section. When I attempt to configure my graphics card it initially chooses the wrong one, (telling me that my GeForce 6600GT is a GeForce FX series). When I change it to the correct entry, and then follow the wizard through I reach the screen that asks if I wish to test my config now. If I choose yes, my screen goes black and does not change. If I select no, I can continue the installation. Any Ideas here?

Second Problem (The major one!!). For some reason or other I cannot get my computer to boot up into a bootloader at all. I have tried both Grub and Lilo, and tried them both with nd without APCI enabled. I have checked my Bios and Plug and Play OS is disabled, and I have attempted the entire install using the no APCI option. The furthest that the PC gets during boot-up in LILO is it will display 'L' with a flashing cursor next to it, and the furthest it has reached with Grub is it will display 'GRUB 1.5' then below tell me that it is loading Grub. My main drive is a SATA drive, and I run two IDE HDD's alongside it with two disc drives. The SATA contains Win XP on the first partition (50Gb), My Docs on the second (for Windows that is) (60Gb), hopefully Mandriva 2007 on the third partition(37Gb) and a swap partition as the last at 1Gb. I have tried playing with the BIOS boot settings for the HDD's, I have unplugged the two IDE HDD's, all to no avail. If anyone could possibly shed some light on to these problems I would be extremely grateful, because if Mandriva 2007 lives up to articles that I have read about it, I may finally have found a version of Linux that will completely replace Windows.

My System Spec:

Asus K8N-E Deluxe Motherboard
AMD Athlon 64 3200
2Gb RAM PC3200
Nvidia GeForce 6600 GT graphics card
160Gb SATA HDD
80Gb IDE HDD
40Gb IDE HDD
DVD burner (All singing all dancing)
CDRW
Belkin Wireless Card

[Hash9]

What is the contents of the grub/lilo config file?

[hr]

Reality is twisted lie, perpetrated by those who can not dream.

[thebrookster]

Unfortunately I have been unable to get access to the Grub config file, however it also now appears that it was my SATA controller that was upsetting things. Having disabled it, I have been able to install onto an IDE drive and reboot successfully. Unfortunately now my xserver does not appear to have been installed properly, so I am now having to try and re-install that.

[holloner]

use lpart for showing yours partition when using rescue console. If partitions size will not be equal partitions size you've got in windows probably it's apic problem; try to add noapic command to lilo or grub.