I'm an idiot. (Mandrake problem)
 

Background: Dell Dimension 4550, P4, 2.52 GHZ. 512 MB ram. XP OS.

So tonight I tried to install Mandrake 9.2 to make my computer a dual boot system. Everything worked fine untill I got to the partions part. I have 2 hard drives and I tried install Mandrake on hdb. Given that windows is intalled in hda. I installed all 3 CDs and reboot the computer. After the startup screen passes my monitor just prints out L7 07 07 07 07 07 a bunch of times. This is where I am at now. What did I do wrong and how can I fix this?

Did it install/configure the bootloader? It usually does this automatically...

If nothing works, try getting your XP install disk... There is a way to re-write the MBR (master boot record), that should fix it. I dont remember exactly how to do it, but poke around, you should be able to figure it out.

I chose first sector of drive (MBR). Everything seems to work fine up to that point. My Windows OS is still fine, but it doesn't detect my slave 120 gig drive anymore.

Hold on, clarify: did you replace the MBR to try to get it working again?

I assume you told the mandrake installer to install the bootloader (LILO) to the MBR?
In that case to recover the boot process you will need an XP disc or a linux LiveCD.

You will either need to reinstall mandrake or use a Live CD (or rescue floppies) to recover mandrake.

The fact that Windows XP fails to recognize the slave drive (hdb) is because Microsoft refuses to acknowledge the filesystems commonly used on linux systems. XP does not understand the contents of the disk but can see it is formatted.
I assume XP just ingores the disc, or it wil claim it's unformatted/unusable and offer to format it for you.

Yup. Windows is back up and running again.

I think I'll wait for someone to do it for me. To scary at first.

Good idea. If you know someone who knows Linux that's the best way to start out. Learning Linux was MUCH easier and much less scary for me than a lot of people cause I have a very good friend who has been using Linux longer and helped me get into it.