Black screen when trying to install Mandrake Linux 8.2

[Fosuco]

Hey everyone,

I'm completely new to Linux, but I figured I'd give it a shot because right now I have the hd space and some time to play around with it. So I went to Mandrake's site, downloaded the 3 iso's, and then burned them with cdrwin5. So I next step I go to reboot with the cd in the drive - I get a screen telling me to either press enter or F1, so I press enter - and it just sits at a black screen. I next tried installing via text mode, but my mouse and keyboard don't work for me to select the languages (I've got an Abit IT7 with usb mouse/keyboard if that makes a difference). So that's where I'm stuck, before I can even begin installing it.

I'm trying to dual boot Mandrake, not make it replace my existing OS (Win XP pro).

Here are my specs of my system:

abit it7 mobo
p4 2.26 @ 2.84 ghz
1.2 gigs ram
240 gigs hd space (2 Western digital 120 se in raid 0)
gainward gf4 4600 video card

My system works perfectly w/ xp pro.

Oh, and by the way, the partition I want to install to is an extended FAT 32 partition created by partition magic ... that's okay right?

Thanks,

Fosuco

 

[galt]

Welcome to the forums.

Here's one thing you can do .. when you get the black screen, hit Ctrl+Alt+F1 , same with F2 and F3 and F4 , which are log screens (they run parallel to the graphical install screen which is F7), and see if it gives any errors. In my example, at one point in setup (mandrake 8.2) my mouse stopped working and install froze. In the F4 screen, it said "USB not responding" or something, and since my mouse was the only usb device, I unplugged it. Setup continued fine (without mouse though).

Other things are that your computer hardware might not be supported (not sure about this though). You can always try RedHat 7.3 and see if that works. It might just be that your burnt cd is bad. Try reburning, or with RedHat.

 

[galt]

Whoops.. didnt see something till after I replied. You say you have raid 0. Redhat and Mandrake wont support your onboard raid configuration ... (I disabled raid because I couldnt use linux with it). You will have to have a standalone drive (not part of an array) to install linux on. So even if your install works, your computer wont boot into linux after the install because linux can't detect your raid array (happened to me.. i have promise raid card). So unless you want to get an extra hard drive, or break your current raid array, you can't use linux. Ofcourse, you can use alternatives like VMWARE or if you're lucky, your raid card has linux drivers and you wont have any problems.