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Hullo all.

I recently ordered 2 CDs from the Ubuntu website -- Ubuntu 7.10 x86 and Ubuntu 7.10 x86-64.
In the past I've tried to install Ubuntu numerous times. Each time would fail. For example, I wouldn't be able to get past a phase that seemingly used to be in the Ubuntu installer where after loading the kernel at the beginning, it'd crash at "loading vmlinuz........................." <Make note of those dots, there were many more>. Another time, I tried the text based installer and that would fail at the point where it requires me to choose an ATA (hard drive) driver.

Now, when I got my Ubuntu CDs I FIRST attempted to install the x86 version - because I read that was most compatible. Upon doing this I was actually able to get into the live CD portion for the FIRST TIME EVER. I was pretty happy about that, it looked beautiful. I even played around in the live CD for a little bit before I went to install it. So, when I went to click the "Install" icon in the top-left portion of the desktop, I was asked what time-zone I was in (Personally I find that redundent for installers UNTIL you actually get to the desktop for the first time, Vista and XP did this too with their installers I believe). I chose L.A. (I'm closer to there than any of the cities listed, if it matters any, I chose it from the graphical map at the top). Upon doing that I clicked Foreward, and was asked to select my keyboard layout. I chose the US keyboard layout, then clicked Foreward. Upon doing that, a message box appeared with a progress bar saying "Starting Partitioner". It was there for 3-5 seconds, tops. Then it went to the partition screen. Now here's where the trouble comes in. There were NO PARTITIONS LISTED. I know there was at least the following: A drive (Fat32-empty - 8 GB), C drive (NTFS-Vista - 12 GB), E drive (NTFS-All my files - 159GB), and 8 GB unallocated space. Yet nothing was displayed. So I opened the "System->Administration->Partitioning Tool" and in the status bar of that it claimed there were no devices.

So, I restarted my computer (Was confused at why it required me to take the CD out of the drive, I could have just chosen what to boot from when my computer started up again). I went into Vista and extended my E drive to 167 GB (By allocating that other 8 GB). Upon doing this I performed a CHKDSK and restarted my computer (So the CHKDSK would take effect). There were no errors with my HD. So I stuck the x64 version into my CD drive and restarted. I chose "Start or Install Ubuntu" and was surprised to find no graphics were appearing. I waited for another 5-10 minutes and I finally got picture on my screen -- it looked the same as the x86 version (Was relieved of this because I thought I wouldn't be able to use the x64 version). I then went to install again, thinking since my computer is a 64-bit computer that might help. It didn't, even in 64-bit mode I got the same partitioning errors.

So then I took that disk out and put the x86 one back in, restarted (Booting to the first hard disk (Windows Vista)), and opened the "Wubi-Install.exe" program. It installed (Without even asking me where to install at!). Then when I restarted my computer I found "Start Ubuntu-Linux" in the options and chose that. Even after starting ubuntu FROM the hard disk I got the same partitioning errors!. Of course I hadn't realised it at the time, but the CD was in the drive too, so it must have been reading from that.

When booting the ubuntu from the hard disk, however, I noticed it said "Warning! Invalid partition" or something similar to that. And while booting up (From BOTH CDs) it'd give errors like "[ 00.140] ata00: Buffer I/O Error on Logical Block 0" Or something like that.

My HD is a Maxtor 62000 with 250GB capacity. I have Windows Vista Home Premium installed and wish to allow it to boot with Ubuntu as well -- Dual boot Windows with Ubuntu. In addition to Ubuntu, I've NEVER been able to get any distro of Linux to install. I managed to get FreeDOS to install a while ago (Though it complained about a missing 'ntldr' file). I have 2 512 MB RAM sticks (Making a total of 1GB). I have a DVD/CD R/W drive able to read/write at 52x speed as well as a CD Read Only drive that I never use. My processor is an AMD Athlon 3800+ 64-bit 2.4GHz. I have an ATI 1950 XPress GPU with (I think about) 256MB on-board RAM. My computer is an HP computer.

Is there something I can do to get Ubuntu to install onto my HD without having to buy another HD? (If I did buy another HD it'd be an external one, in either case, does anyone know of a CHEAP one that works with Ubuntu 7.10?) If you can't tell from the last 2 sentences, I think the problem is with the HD. It might not be, but from the looks of it all my problems are coming from there.

Anyone interesting in helping me out? Thanks in advance.



Cheers,

-naota

Are you using RAID or external hdd controllers?

It obviously saw the cd drive. What type of connection is the hdd, ata or sata (I assume ata from your description).

What model is your computer?

If you tried multiple sets of CDs etc. and each one ended with this freezing, it's indicative of something quite badly wrong, since the key to the vmlinuz bit is that it's trying to load the compressed kernel image into discontiguous memory chunks to overcome i386 limits. If it's failing, it could indicate a BIOS or memory issue (assuming it wasn't just a single CD that did this, because that probably just means defective media)

It could also just be a bad cd drive. I just recently tried installing both fedora and ubunto on an older compy and my cd's just weren't working. Turned out swapping out the cd drive fixed the problem

But since it's loaded, I doubt that's the problem.

It's the same exact code, recompiled in 64-bit with 64-bit libraries, I'm not surprised.


I doubt the problem is your hard drive, but the video card. Radeon shows love by releasing crap drivers, and there's certainly nothing you can do unless you actually install the system and get it working. Perhaps it may be your motherboard, but I really haven't heard of Ubuntu hating on specific drives.


I would seriously suggest that you get a hold of another hard drive and try Linux on that. It's just too much of a risk in trying to partition with your windows installation on the same drive. I know you said that you would rather do without that, but I have a feeling you'll run into serious problems.

Also, what motherboard are you using? Curious about its northbridge and southbridge chips.

Well first off, i don't think it's the graphics, since it can't read the drives.

Secondly, nvidia drivers are far more capable in linux than ATI, although that may not be for long now that amd took over

I run linux on an 8600gts, and 8400gs, an fx5400, and a geforce 4 and had no problems.

As for northbridge/southbridge chips, could be. Could also be propriatery hp mobo causing the issues.

try a different distro? some distros just wont boot on my laptop

(don't have time to reed your whole post right now)

I've had video cards causing all kinds of problems before, you never know.

I've not experienced any problems installing Ubuntu or Fedora except maybe the fan on my 8600GTS runs at 100 precent which was annoying. I would say stuff installs better on generic PCs than branded ones though. Most OEM PCs will have a copy of the windows system disks on a hidden partition that may be the source of your error if it don't recognise the format of the hidden partition it will claim it's bad, just ignore it.

Well, hidden partitions shouldn't hurt. The problem seems plain and simple to me: for some reason, Ubuntu fails to notice the HDD - assumably a driver problem.

I went out and got a set of tools and disassembled both of my XBOXs. I tried both HDs in my computer, and for some reason both were unreadable in Windows, but Ubuntu detected them. However, ubuntu was unable to get passed the partitioning phase (it failed at 0% or would stay at 0%).

Someone said they could give me their 60GB drive, hopefully I'll be able to use that with Ubuntu.

Thanks all, I'll keep you posted on what happens -- I don't have enough time to respond to everyone's posts at the moment, but I thank you all.


PS: I don't think the problem is with my graphics card either since Ubuntu will start up and I can see everything fine in 1280x1024 mode.


Cheers,

-naota

Sorry you're having a bad time, I'd recommend Wubi, but it hates HP's hard drives.

Update:
I got a free 20 GB hard drive from a friend and Ubuntu installed just fine!

One problem -- It says "Video Mode Not Supported" on my monitor once it boots past GRUB.

I assume the problem is it's trying a VESA method of using my video card rather than the acceleration drivers. I uninstalled it by formating the drive, I might try some other OS mean while and try Ubuntu later. I'm not worried about it but if anyone knows of a way past this I'd like to know. Something about specifying boot options I guess.

Cheers,

-naota

Told you ati cards and linux don't get along

Well, by uninstalling it you ruined any chance of fixing it. But reinstall it, and then we can offer suggestions on how to edit the /etc/X11/xorg.conf.

Specifically, you want to look at this:

http://wiki.cchtml.com/index.php/Ubuntu_Feisty_Installation_Guide

Further, to follow the guide I think you'll need x11 running (unless you can work around it), therefore, try changing the default resolution to something like 640x480 and see if it'll start.

You can modify files via the command line with vi, you'll need to google vi for a guide to using it, it's not intuitive.

Honestly, it's pretty tough to get a linux machine running if you have problems, and are a newb to linux. I'd recommend maybe finding a nvidia card you can use. An 8400gs is less than 50 bucks. And if you only have agp, an fx card will work as long as you don't plan on playing any games. 6 or 7 series nvidia cards should work well too in ubuntu.

Can you tell me where to get one for that much? The priciest one I've seen was $100. I do mean in USD btw.

Cheers,

-naota

newegg has 8400gs cards for a song and a dance.

But on second thought, with that guide, it tells you everything you need to know starting at the command line. Just type what it tells you

If it boots up but you don't get a command line, try typing cntl-alt-f2 and cntl-alt-f1 to go back to the first session.

Okay thanks.

Well, I also need the dx10 cards to develop for and use dx10.


EDIT: They have some for $40 at the nVidia site too, btw. Umm, I'm using a circuit city "demo" computer btw. So just so everyone knows, that's why it takes me so long to respond.

Cheers,

-naota