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ntdll.dll error Please Help


VigilanteLST

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Tonight, I tried to install ManDrake Linux 10.0 by using 3 installation discs on a reboot.... During the installation, the computer froze and I had to restart it. Now, I can not format and install either... Prior to the installation, I had Windows XP.

My computer is a Dell 9100, P4 3.0 w/ HT, 512 RAM, 40 GB HD, Radeon 64MB.

When I insert the XP setup CD and attempt to reinstall, it prepares to setup, however it then switches to the blue screen of death and says "c0000221 unknown hard error systemroot/system32/ntdll.dll"

Please, someone help me with this, I have no idea of what to do!

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does your computer have a floppy drive? if so pm me, and i can email you a batch file and txt file that you can use. it will perform a debug script on the hard drive to wipe out the mbr (table of contents). that should fix it! of course that will obliterate any data on the drive.

edit: spelling. :P

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UPDATE!

I got ManDrake Linux 10.0 running on my computer, I can boot into it now and I am using it to add this thread to the forum...

However, when I attempt to install windows XP on my computer, I get the same error message...

Please advise me on how to format the harddrive or correct this problem, thanks.

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First, Mandrake DOES do some nonsense to the partition tables that it is not supposed to. Fedora or Lycoris and such distributions of linux are a better choice. If you do want to stick to Mandrake, v10 is old - v10.1 is recent, and might have this bug fixed.

Second, its not clear from your post as to what are the things you have already tried. There's any number of things possible. Its not even clear now whether the problem is due to a scratched Windows CD, or a partition problem, or a bad-sectors on HDD, or something caused by Mandrake.

First, the easiest solution:

You should always install linux AFTER windows. That's because linux uses a boot-loader, which can auto-sense your windows, and set it up as a boot-option.

Try removing all partitions, and installing windows after re-partitioning - use a 6 GB primary partition at the start of your HD, as your C:\ drive.

Then leave 1 GB space, as another primary partition - for your "/boot" partition with linux (that much space isn't needed, but just for safety). This is because, no partition above the first 8.4 GB can easily be made bootable with linux.

Then after those initial 2 partitions, set the other partitions for your windows data/backup; for your "/" (root) partition to use with linux, etc.

Of course, there is non-destructive solutions (if you don't want to lose data on your HD) - but that is by nature, long drawn out if-and-then sort of things - a big time-sink, literally.

Hoping this helps....

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linux is awesome. i have two machines that run linux at home. mandrake 10 to be exact. they are nice to have around. personally, i don't dual boot. but i know some people don't have the luxury of extra computers to install on.

anyways, i hope you like mandrake. it's a cool OS.

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The windows CD is not scratched I know for sure, it works in my friend's PC...

Currently, I don't have ANY form of Windows on my computer because the only disk I have for installation is XP and it won't work, whenever it starts the installation process from the CD it gets the error I posted about...

I don't know if I could use that batch file that was described above after thinking about it, since I can't boot to a command prompt or windows, but please send it anyway...

I will try using Fedora and other versions to see if it can correct anything. Please continue posting ideas.

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once i am able to send you the batch file and you put it on a dos based boot disk, you will be able to boot to it. just be sure your bios is set to boot from floppy first, then hdd. i leave work in 3 hours, so just a matter of time now! :)

Can you sent me the file to

you never know :whistle:;)

thanks

sixpack85@mail.com

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