Hi There,

Lately, I have been trying to install Linux on a home PC, and run into some problems. When I attempt to install Mandrake 9.1, I can get through all of the package installation, but then the system hangs when it comes time to choose a bootloader. With Knoppix, I can bring it up from CD and get to the point of installing packages to the hard drive. Then errors will come up concerning the installation of packages, such as:

cloop:error -3 uncompressing block 16343 68536/5644/34527/0 393320683-393355210
end_request: I/O error, dev f0:00 (cloop) sector 2098404
This corresponded to the package /usr/bin/mysql_waitpid

Other packages/sectors run into similar problems, such as /usr/share/doc/bison/

Then I see an array of hexadecimal addresses print to the screen, followed by

code: f0 fe 49 04 0f .....
<0> kernel panic: Aiee, killing interrupt handler!
In interrupt handler-not syncing

And then it all hangs....

I thought it might have been the iso's or CDs...but I have used images from both linuxiso.org and mirrors from the distribution web pages, and have also used both CDs from a cheap rebate stack and expensive memorex CDs.

I have had to power on/off repeatedly during these attempts, and think that some of the sectors of the hard drive are now corrupted. I am guessing that I can just download a DOS bootdisk with something like the scandisk utility to look for and possibly fix disk errors.

I am able to install RH 7 or MDK 7 without difficulty, but these only install 950-1000 MB of packages, so I thought that I might not have reached the bad sectors yet.

Other suggestions?

Thanks for your help.