Can't boot Mandrake10.1

I have a WD.80g HD. with XP home on the first partition. I installed mdk10.1 on a13g partition. I let mdk partition itself, I put the boot loader on the first part of the root partition. When I reboot I can not find it. I have Norton boot-magic,still unable to find it. Also the graphical interface did not config.during the install. I have an nvidia geforce2 mx400 32ddr vid card,not sure how to config it as well as a win modem for dial up.TIA.

 

Someone can correct me if I am wrong but Linux (opposite of Windows) uses the space/partitioning starting from the end of the HardDisk. Also for creating multi-boot Linux/Windows environments you should not do an 'automatic partitioning' process i Linux offered one, instead a manual configuration is used to specify the proper partitioning/space allocation. Even more importantly didn't Linux prompt you to create a 'Linux Boot disk' towards the end of the installation? I don't know much about this version of Mandrake Linux and that is all I can say so if I am off someone should correct me.

 

I know nothing at all about linux. This is the fourth time I have installed this. The first time after I messed it up I went to LinuxQuestions.org fourms and was told to let mdk to do the partitioning because it has a good part.mgr. It looks like it did a better job than I did.

I don't remember if it did or not. It did ask where to put the boot loader,I thought since it would be used little at first that if it was on the start of the linux part. that I would find it with boot magic,and boot from that.

Do you mean that linux should start from the opposite end of the hd. as xp? If so should I reinstall it at the end of the drive?Thanks.

 

I am not familiar with MDK, all I ever used was Linux version of Fdisk or Disk Druid. The thing is even though Linux partitioning logic is different from Windows, it should still see the existing Windows/DOS partitions and not damage them and may be that is why it requires a 'Boot Disk' to keep the mbr intact. See if you can save the 'Boot Loader' files onto a floppy. If that works then you also would have to make sure in BIOS 1st boot device is selected as 'A'-Floppy Drive....
Linux during installation knows the free (available) space on the disk so you do not need to worry about partitoning the beginning or the end of the disk, it will be handled by the installation, so don't worry about that.

Linux is not my forte and I am sure there are at least a
few that should know more, hopefully they see the thread and lend you a hand if you still need help.