Mandrake 9.1 Installation problem

Ok folks, heres how it all started. I decided to dual boot my pc with Mandrake 9.1 and XP. So I started out with creating a 20gb partition (is this too much?) Which would leave me with about 50 for XP. So I got through all that fine and dandy (BTW I used partition magic 8). So then I got to installing mandrake, worked fine the first time, except had some problems with it recognizing my keyboard at first, fixed that by doing the text based installation instead of the normal GUI. So when that finished I got to the logon prompt, logged in, everything was fine. Switched back to xp and defragmented over night. Came back next morning, rebooted. Tried to get into mandrake, worked fine until I got to the Logon Prompt. At that point it froze up, keyboard and mouse wouldn't function. So I rebooted, got onto XP, everything worked fine. So then I opened up Partition Magic to see if everything looked ok. And to my surprise my linux partition was filled up somehow. So I tried formatting and reinstalling mandrake, same problem happened again. So here is where I leave off. Could this be a hardware problem? Or is my installation of PM8 corrupt? Attached below is a picture of what partition magic shows me for my partitions. If I forgot to mention any valuable information, please respond with what I need to add and I'll get to it asap. Thanks in advanced for any help.

I am not an expert on Mandrake, but it sounds like hardware.

What type of keyboard are you using ( USB ? Wireless ? )

Partition magic 8 says it will recognize etx3 file systems, which RedHat ( and thus Mandrake ) can utilize, but may not display properly in Partition Magic ( I don’t use it )

What did the /var/log/boot.log, /var/log/dmesg, /var/log/messages. etc. files show?? There should be indications in there as to what was going wrong.


If you are using some unusual keyboard or mouse ( where the install hung ) did you check with Mandrake and the manufacture to see if it is supported?

I've tried both, ps/2 and wireless keyboard, usb and ps/2 mouse. As for the var/log ect, How would I go about accessing those files without having access to the system? (This is my first introduction to *nix, so sorry if its a simple answer)

use explore2fs in windows to get the log files from the linux...and those shall explain the reason quite well...
Download explore2fs from here : http://uranus.it.swin.edu.au/~jn/linux/explore2fs.htm

/var/log/linuxconf/boot.log-The log is empty


/var/log/cups/error_log

Quote:

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I [13/Sep/2003:08:53:54 -0400] Listening to 0:631
I [13/Sep/2003:08:53:54 -0400] Configured for up to 100 clients.
I [13/Sep/2003:08:53:54 -0400] Allowing up to 100 client connections per host.
I [13/Sep/2003:08:53:56 -0400] LoadPPDs: Wrote "/etc/cups/ppds.dat", 747 PPDs...
E [13/Sep/2003:08:53:56 -0400] StartListening: Unable to find IP address for server name "localhost.localdomain" - Host name lookup failure
E [13/Sep/2003:08:53:57 -0400] Scheduler shutting down due to SIGTERM.
I [13/Sep/2003:08:53:57 -0400] Listening to 0:631
I [13/Sep/2003:08:53:57 -0400] Configured for up to 100 clients.
I [13/Sep/2003:08:53:57 -0400] Allowing up to 100 client connections per host.
I [13/Sep/2003:08:53:57 -0400] LoadPPDs: Read "/etc/cups/ppds.dat", 747 PPDs...
I [13/Sep/2003:08:53:57 -0400] LoadPPDs: No new or changed PPDs...
E [13/Sep/2003:08:53:57 -0400] StartListening: Unable to find IP address for server name "localhost.localdomain" - Host name lookup failure
I [13/Sep/2003:08:54:02 -0400] Setting EPSONStylusC62 printer-is-accepting-jobs to 1 (was 0.)
I [13/Sep/2003:08:54:02 -0400] Setting EPSONStylusC62 printer-state to 3 (was 5.)
I [13/Sep/2003:08:54:02 -0400] Saving printers.conf...
I [13/Sep/2003:08:54:02 -0400] New printer 'EPSONStylusC62' added by 'root'.
I [13/Sep/2003:08:54:02 -0400] Saving printers.conf...
I [13/Sep/2003:08:54:02 -0400] Printer 'EPSONStylusC62' modified by 'root'.
I [13/Sep/2003:08:54:02 -0400] Saving printers.conf...
I [13/Sep/2003:08:54:02 -0400] Printer 'EPSONStylusC62' modified by 'root'.
I [13/Sep/2003:08:54:02 -0400] Saving printers.conf...
I [13/Sep/2003:08:54:02 -0400] Printer 'EPSONStylusC62' modified by 'root'.
I [13/Sep/2003:08:54:02 -0400] Setting EPSONStylusC62 device-uri to "usb://EPSON/Stylus%20C62" (was "file:/dev/null".)
I [13/Sep/2003:08:54:02 -0400] Saving printers.conf...
I [13/Sep/2003:08:54:02 -0400] Printer 'EPSONStylusC62' modified by 'root'.
I [13/Sep/2003:08:54:02 -0400] Saving printers.conf...
I [13/Sep/2003:08:54:02 -0400] Printer 'EPSONStylusC62' started by 'root'.
I [13/Sep/2003:08:54:02 -0400] Saving printers.conf...
I [13/Sep/2003:08:54:02 -0400] Printer 'EPSONStylusC62' now accepting jobs ('root').
I [13/Sep/2003:08:54:02 -0400] Saving printers.conf...
I [13/Sep/2003:08:54:02 -0400] Saving classes.conf...
I [13/Sep/2003:08:54:02 -0400] Default destination set to 'EPSONStylusC62' by 'root'.
I [13/Sep/2003:08:54:04 -0400] Saving printers.conf...
I [13/Sep/2003:08:54:04 -0400] Saving classes.conf...
I [13/Sep/2003:08:54:04 -0400] Default destination set to 'EPSONStylusC62' by 'root'.
E [13/Sep/2003:08:54:51 -0400] Scheduler shutting down due to SIGTERM.
I [14/Sep/2003:00:47:25 -0400] Listening to 0:631
I [14/Sep/2003:00:47:25 -0400] Configured for up to 100 clients.
I [14/Sep/2003:00:47:25 -0400] Allowing up to 100 client connections per host.
I [14/Sep/2003:00:47:26 -0400] LoadPPDs: Read "/etc/cups/ppds.dat", 747 PPDs...
I [14/Sep/2003:00:47:26 -0400] LoadPPDs: No new or changed PPDs...
I [14/Sep/2003:00:51:58 -0400] Listening to 0:631
I [14/Sep/2003:00:51:58 -0400] Configured for up to 100 clients.
I [14/Sep/2003:00:51:58 -0400] Allowing up to 100 client connections per host.
I [14/Sep/2003:00:51:59 -0400] LoadPPDs: Read "/etc/cups/ppds.dat", 747 PPDs...
I [14/Sep/2003:00:51:59 -0400] LoadPPDs: No new or changed PPDs...

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/vars/log/daemons/errors

Quote:

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Sep 14 00:47:20 localhost modprobe: modprobe: Can't locate module snd-card-2
Sep 14 00:47:20 localhost modprobe: modprobe: Can't locate module snd-card-3
Sep 14 00:47:20 localhost modprobe: modprobe: Can't locate module snd-card-4
Sep 14 00:47:20 localhost modprobe: modprobe: Can't locate module snd-card-5
Sep 14 00:47:20 localhost modprobe: modprobe: Can't locate module snd-card-6
Sep 14 00:47:20 localhost modprobe: modprobe: Can't locate module snd-card-7
Sep 14 00:47:21 localhost modprobe: modprobe: Can't locate module snd-card-2
Sep 14 00:47:21 localhost modprobe: modprobe: Can't locate module snd-card-3
Sep 14 00:47:21 localhost modprobe: modprobe: Can't locate module snd-card-4
Sep 14 00:47:21 localhost modprobe: modprobe: Can't locate module snd-card-5
Sep 14 00:47:21 localhost modprobe: modprobe: Can't locate module snd-card-6
Sep 14 00:47:21 localhost modprobe: modprobe: Can't locate module snd-card-7
Sep 14 00:47:29 localhost devfsd[93]: unknown group: "video", defaulting to GID=0
Sep 14 00:51:53 localhost modprobe: modprobe: Can't locate module snd-card-2
Sep 14 00:51:53 localhost modprobe: modprobe: Can't locate module snd-card-3
Sep 14 00:51:53 localhost modprobe: modprobe: Can't locate module snd-card-4
Sep 14 00:51:53 localhost modprobe: modprobe: Can't locate module snd-card-5
Sep 14 00:51:53 localhost modprobe: modprobe: Can't locate module snd-card-6
Sep 14 00:51:53 localhost modprobe: modprobe: Can't locate module snd-card-7
Sep 14 00:51:54 localhost modprobe: modprobe: Can't locate module snd-card-2
Sep 14 00:51:54 localhost modprobe: modprobe: Can't locate module snd-card-3
Sep 14 00:51:54 localhost modprobe: modprobe: Can't locate module snd-card-4
Sep 14 00:51:54 localhost modprobe: modprobe: Can't locate module snd-card-5
Sep 14 00:51:54 localhost modprobe: modprobe: Can't locate module snd-card-6
Sep 14 00:51:54 localhost modprobe: modprobe: Can't locate module snd-card-7
Sep 14 00:52:02 localhost devfsd[93]: unknown group: "video", defaulting to GID=0

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Would any of these result in a boot failure? If so, just mention top one or bottom one and I'll look into it.

I'm thinking that maybe the partitioning info inthe MBR is corrupt
so that you have overlapping definitions of your partitions, with
windows accessing space that is supposed to belong to linux.

I would recreate the partitions and reinstall linux
:cool:

You said it seems to be stopping at the Logon Prompt.

What other files are in /var/log/ ??

( And just out of curiosity how large is that directory, and how large is the temp directory? )

It may be a partitioning problem, but I still think it is related to your hardware.
( most people I have talked to do not have problems with Partition Magic 8, but Mandrake does have a partitioning tool itself that should work too. )

You said it could not set up your keyboard properly. I am guessing that you did the install with the wireless? When it did it's own search what did it come up with? Why was it not right, so much so that you had to resort to the text based instillation?

I was gettin this problem well some thing like to i gave it, its own machine. My partition magic thought it was full and i could browse it with its file viewer, but you have plenty of space there

My USB mouse will now work on XP now for some odd reason since i install linux but i couldnt be bothered formating to much to reset up.

My USB Card stuffed up and didnt work

When booting linux, after doing a windows scandisk id get dirty sectors in my /usr/bin i think that was the place

My CD Burner wasnt being detected the same with my floppy after a few boots, i say to remove it and give it a completely new machine