something happened to my HDD and a question

[aschueler]

I recently installed Mageia 4, and I do like this very much so far. I used to have gentoo a long time ago until it got unworkable, then ran kubuntu for a while. Can't quite get into kubuntu for some reason.

Anyway, first thing I noticed was that something hideous happened to one of my HDD's when I ran the live CD. I have 3 HDD, one is a SSD that does house windows, this is sda, and sdc was the one for mageia. This happened twice, so I know it was something I didn't do by mistake. When I loaded the installation program, and the partioning program came up, my sda was listed as totally blank. No partitions, information, file structure or anything. I did nothing to re partition etc. The first time I did this, after loading mageia onto sdc, I tried to boot the system; it's gone. Totally gone. No windows, no nothing. I re installed windows, and of course now mageia is sitting on a HDD with no bootloader to get to it. So I try again, because I figured I must have hit the wrong button to wipe out all partitions. Nope, same thing happened, this time I was paying keen attention. All partitions gone. This time, I lost less time as it was a fresh Windows install but dammit. I can't find anyone else with a similar story.

Anyway, the third install I unplugged the other two HDD's and there we are, I boot with the boot menu into Magiea

Next, the question. I am trying to download an old rogue-like game called Omega, but there is no RPM. It's a rather simple program, the link to a website that has it is here:

http://www.alcyone.com/max/projects/omega/

But the documentation for Mageia warns of weeping and gnasing of teeth if there is an installation of programs that are NOT RPM. Think I can safely install this game? It's an old favorite

Thanks, and just ahead of time I do NOT want to try to reproduce my HDD error.

[yankee495]

Ok, after reading that twice I still don't know what you have installed.

Your BOIS should have a key you can hit to bring up the menu to select which drive to boot to.

So, if you attach the Windows drive and install Windows that will be on one drive.

Then unplug the Windows drive and attach another drive and install Mageia.

When you hook up both drives hit the key for the BIOS boot menu and select the drive you want to boot to.
Both drives will have complete boot loaders and operating systems.

Still, you should be able to do it with all drives attached and install Windows, then Mageia and have the Mageia boot menu.

[benmc]

OK,

So you have added Windows to your Mageia bootloader menu and can now dual boot without resorting to the bios method....

If you haven' t already set your repositories to add updates and tainted, you should also get that done.
Then, if you install playonlinux from add software, you should be able to then run Omega on W.I.N.E as a windows /msdos game.

not an ideal solution but it " should " work.

[benmc]

Just a thought.

You could run a VM of Windows on your Mageia system. An advantage is you don't need to worry about dual booting. Run the program in Windows as normal and close your Windows completely when you have finished.

You will need to install virtualbox from Mageia Control Centre, and then install Windows into it.

Again not an ideal solution but the game should run perfectly.