Q I'm running Mandrake 10.1 on one of the partitions of my PC. At the third disc a dialogue box appeared stating that there is insufficient room to complete the installation. I am totally stuck, as I can't get back to Mandrake - it's just a black screen.
A You have not given us a great deal of information to go on, but there are a few possible causes for the symptoms you describe. Are you trying to perform an update or a new installation? If it's an update, the installer should just replace your existing software with newer versions, so the space requirements would be about the same. If it's a new installation, the installer should reformat your partition (assuming you told it to install on the same partition that contained Mandrake 10.1) before starting to install the software. I suspect that this partition is fairly small - probably only just large enough to hold your previous system - and Mandriva is trying to install more or larger packages.
Your first priority is to get your system working again. I suggest you run the installer and select only the minimum number of packages. The bottom of the package selection window shows how much space your selected packages will occupy. Make sure that this is less than the size of your root partition - keep well under to be on the safe side. Once Mandriva is running you can easily install any extra packages you need from the Mandriva Control Center. An alternative is to use the custom partitioning option during installation, and resize your other partitions to leave more room for Mandriva.