[Cialug] Install Troubles

[Matthew Nuzum]

On Feb 13, 2008 1:08 PM, <murraymckee at wellsfargo.com> wrote:

>  OK, I've finally taken some time off and I'm trying to get Linux running
> on my old PC.
>
> The install on what was the "D" drive got as far as trying to start the X
> server and failed to go any further.
>
> I seem to have trashed something because to proceed any further I had to
> remove the old "D" drive from the boot sequence or it just hung at a black
> screen coming up.  Something happened to my "C" drive as well as Windows no
> longer boots either.
>
> Do you still want to boot from Windows occasionally? If so I would
strongly suggest this gets worked out before you proceed. In my experience,
if there's something wrong with the hard drive configuration you're not
going to make any progress with a new operating system. Hard drive
configuration problems can sometimes be undetected (or merely produce poor
performance or reduced capacity) by Windows. Of course one way to work that
out is to completely wipe out all remains of the old system but even then
I've seen some odd problems occur.

Please tell us how your computer is configured... how many hard drives do
you have (real, physical hard drives, not different partitions - typically
there's just one but it can be split into a C and a D drive). Also it would
be useful to know how much system RAM you have.

If you boot off of the Kubuntu CD you can open a terminal and run this
command and gain some information:
sudo fdisk -l (that is a lower case L)

That lists your partitions. The list may look something like this:

> Disk /dev/sda: 120.0 GB, 120034123776 bytes
> 255 heads, 63 sectors/track, 14593 cylinders
> Units = cylinders of 16065 * 512 = 8225280 bytes
> Disk identifier: 0x0f5c0f5b
>
>    Device Boot      Start         End      Blocks   Id  System
> /dev/sda1   *           1        3223    25888716    7  HPFS/NTFS
> /dev/sda3            3224       14593    91329525    5  Extended
> /dev/sda5            3224        6360    25197889+  83  Linux
>

You'll really be most interested in the Device, Boot and System partitions
of the bit at the end. The stuff at the top is of little interest unless the
size it reports (in my example 120G) is very wrong.

In a typical dual-boot setup like mine, the first partition on the drive
will be for Windows and there will be an asterisk in the Boot column
indicating that the computer will try to boot the marked partition. Having
no asterisk present for any of the partitions would certainly prevent you
from booting.

We'd be able to help more if you told us what happens when you try to boot
the computer into Windows (with the Kubuntu CD removed from the drive).

> So I tried to install Kubuntu over what was installed on the former "D"
> drive.  I chose the option to use the whole drive and reformat the partition
> table and 'loose everything on the drive'.
>
> Then I got:
> Error: Kdesktop process for the file protocol died unexpectedly
> I clicked "OK" three times before it went away and stayed away.
>
And finally I'm getting
> Failed to create a file system - the ext3 file system creation in
> partition #1 of SCSI1 (0,1,0) (sdb)
>
This is happening during Kubuntu installation? Or has Kubuntu said that it
successfully installed and this happens after the first reboot?

 If you have the means to download the Ubuntu 7.10 CD and burn it I can help
more since I've done the Ubuntu installation numerous times. I've never done
a Kubuntu install. In theory they're not too much different so if you want
to stick with Kubuntu it should work out OK.
-- 
Matthew Nuzum
newz2000 on freenode
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