Glad Vorlin seems to think it's different O/S' not playing well together.

I didn't 'unplug' the power supply, but I did turn off the 'master switch' on the power supply. (and left it for 1/2 hour)

I had come to the same conclusion re 'power' and saving remnants of 'code' or ? in the memory, or in a rom chip somewhere.

The re-install of Mandrake 8.1 was/is f lawless now, and I can install software.

Cheers