[odysseas]

Hi
I am really new into linux. i am trying to intall mandrake 10.1 the three cds by sticking my first cd and rebooting the system. although the system checks the cd first i always end up in windows. the cd just contains a single rar file of around 680 mb. any ideas?
the system is
laptop advent 7026
p4 2.66 ghz
1gb of ram
40 gb of hdd
windows xp home edition

thanks
odysseas

[pr9phet]

You can't install as a .rar

The image burned to CD needs to be an .iso

Unpack the .rar file (winzip will do so), then burn the .iso to CD.

It may be required that you make a boot disk if the CD won't boot into the linux install (seems to be common)

[odysseas]

thanks
odysseas

[danleff]

Also, just to clarity, don't burn the iso itself to the cd as a data file. You need to choose the "burn image" feature of the burning software. See my draft on burning iso's at this link.