Not able to boot from live CD or install

[texhead]

Hi
Live CD Feisty
I am new to linux although I have had kubuntu/ubuntu and other distros installed on one of my boxes about a dozen times to get some experience. This box is a basic 700Mhz IDE machine nothing fancy.

I am trying now to run the live CD on my production box, 3.0Ghz 1Gig RAM with 160G IDE and 160G SATA. I have XP installed on the SATA which is regarded as Disk1 so the boot.ini file is on Disk0 which is the IDE.

OK so far? I am getting an error repeatadly during bootup to live CD about the HDD not being ready. Previously I have tried Edgy on this box with no success giving an error relating to IRQ 177 (nobody cares) and disabling this IRQ.

I have not been able to dump any error logs and so forth.

Can someone point me in the right direction to dual boot Kubuntu Feisty and Xp?

Regards
TonyE

[Fintan]

Re: Not able to boot from live CD or install

Just a suggestion. Have you tried the ubuntu herd live cd? I have found it to be more reliable. Don't ask me why but I have had similar expieriences with kubuntu herd cd's. I prefer kde but whatever works right?

Good luck
F

[texhead]

Re: Not able to boot from live CD or install

I tried the Ubuntu edgy live cd without success.

TonyE

[Fintan]

Re: Not able to boot from live CD or install

Okay so much for that idea. Sorry. Did you ever get a Kubuntu installed on a IDE / SATA setup? I am asking because Linux "sees sata as scsi, thus sda. If so maybe you have do change something on the live boot options.

CHeers
F

[texhead]

Re: Not able to boot from live CD or install

Hi
Not sure, don't know enough about linux to know what command line adjustments I would need to make.

The main reason that I want to install on my work comp is to see what a well spec-ed machine would be like as I would eventually like to go all linux at some stage.

Interested to know though.

TonyE

[dibl]

Re: Not able to boot from live CD or install

If your purpose is merely to run the live CD, and not to install, then follow the instructions for your box to enter BIOS and disable the hard drives. They have no function for the live CD session. You can re-enable them when you are finished with the experimentation.

Although I'm no expert on the subject, I can testify from experience that the combination of IDE + SATA drive can be very troublesome for the (K)Ubuntu installer routine. If you search this forum and the Ubuntu forum, using the terms "grub" and "SATA", you will find many posts on the topic of "How can I get Grub to install on the SATA drive?", etc., and the fact is there are some combinations that are not controllable with the CD installer -- manual editing and movement of the Grub file is required.

HTH

[texhead]

Re: Not able to boot from live CD or install

Thanks guys!
I have looked at the forums and did see that there have been problems with some EIDE/SATA combinations.
I still want to install on this machine but it looks like I will have to install XP on the EIDE first and then install Kubuntu.

dibl: I will disable the drives and try the Live CD as you suggest.

I wish I knew more about Grub to manually handle this situ.

Thanks again...

TonyE

[dibl]

Re: Not able to boot from live CD or install

If you will be satisfied with the Grub boot file installed on your IDE drive, in the Master Boot Record alongside the Windows boot files, then that will be easy and obvious for you -- that's what Kubuntu wants to do anyway. You can put the other partitions for Linux on the SATA drive in a fairly straightforward fashion.

If, however, you wanted to have either or both of them boot from the SATA drive, it gets way hard real fast. There have been a number of threads on this forum on the subject of how to move the Grub files and revise the references to the different file systems in the menu list, but it's not trivial work for the novice.

Good luck with it!

[texhead]

Re: Not able to boot from live CD or install

dibl
Thats what I want to do. But it looks like I will have to disable the SATA first and install Kubuntu on the IDE. but I can't even get to that stage.

The install disk wont let me see the drives, it just sits there and the HDD LED is lit up forever. So I have to hard stop the box and try again.

TonyE

[dibl]

Re: Not able to boot from live CD or install

I'm surprised -- is Windows installed on that PC, on the SATA drive perhaps? I think that would be most confusing to the (K)Ubuntu installer. It "naturally" wants to put the Grub menu in a Master Boot Record (MBR) on the IDE drive, and typically that is where folks have their Windows installed, so it goes very smoothly for that combination.

If you have your data safely backed up on external media, may I recommend you download and make a bootable ("live") CD with GParted? Here is your source:

http://gparted.sourceforge.net/livecd.php

Then go into you BIOS, and make sure of your boot sequence -- typically it should be in this order: floppy, CD ROM, hard drive (IDE), other drives.

Now boot your GParted CD, and re-partition your drives, after you've made a little study of the instructional material here, so you are clear on your desired results:

http://www.psychocats.net/ubuntu/partitioning

Make the first partition on your IDE "active", or "boot" as GParted calls it. Make sure you use the "Apply" button at the top of the GParted screen to execute your arrangements. For example, you could make a 40GB first (active) partition on the IDE drive for Windows, then the rest of that drive could be a partition for shared data, then your Kubuntu root partition could be 10GB on your SATA drive, your swp partition could be 1GB on your SATA drive, and your /home partition could be the rest of your SATA drive.

Once partitioned this way, I think you will find things installing more easily. You can install Windows first if you want -- that way Kubuntu will automatically set up Windows as a boot option after it is installed, and you won't have to manually do anything to have the boot menu that you want.

Good luck with it!