Failing to boot amd64 iso (hangs with red screen full of white blocks)

[ster]

When running the live system (from USB), I get first to the Installer boot menu (with the kubuntu logo on top).
The option 'Test memory' works fine, but if I choose 'Run Ubuntu from this USB', 'Install Ubuntu on a Hard Disk' or 'Check this USB for defects', I run each time in the same problem:
Some log messages scroll by in text mode and suddenly I get a red screen with white blocks grouped on it, after some time this changes into a screen with red and white stripes but from than on everything hangs.
The screen looks as if it is in text mode (80x25) with some lines of text, but with the background switched to red, with all characters replaced by white rectangles and only the odd columns are used (even columns are completely red).

Can anybody give a pointer to what is wrong? Or give me a pointer how to analyze this? The log messages scroll by too quickly, is it possible to go through these step by step?

I use kubuntu-9.10-desktop-amd64.iso built on 20091027.

Perhaps some more info on my configuration:
Processor: Intel Core i5 750 2.66 GHz
Motherboard: ASUS P7P55D PRO (4GB of memory)
Graphic card: ASUS ATi Radeon HD 4350 Silent

[Teunis]

Re: Failing to boot amd64 iso (hangs with red screen full of white blocks)

The first thing to check is whether your disk is fine, so use the provide md5 checksum.
Even when the iso is fine it\ s still advisable to burn on the lowest speed.

Have you already tried some of the boot options (hit F4) like 'force=vesa?

[ster]

Re: Failing to boot amd64 iso (hangs with red screen full of white blocks)

I started from a usb stick, hence lowest speed burning is not an option.

How do I perform the checksum on the USB? Note that I mentioned that the 'Check this USB for defects' options resulted in the same behavior.


I tried your suggestion (hope I understood it correctly). I choose option 'help' in the Installer boot menu, which allowed me to press F4 to get onto a boot prompt. Typing 'force=vesa' resulted in the message:

Could not find kernel image: force=vesa

Typing 'live force=vesa', started the boot as before, sadly with the same result.

Thanks for your fast reply.

[Teunis]

Re: Failing to boot amd64 iso (hangs with red screen full of white blocks)

Ah sorry, I just checked the available boot options on a recent (X)ubuntu disk and noticed that through the Help menu you can select boot parameters and more specific for hardware issues.
VGA=711 is probably what you are looking for.

To come back to the md5 check, have a look in google for an appropriate application to do this check on the iso you downloaded.

[ster]

Re: Failing to boot amd64 iso (hangs with red screen full of white blocks)

I also found the VGA=711 option, but it doesn't change a thing.

I'll have a look at doing an md5 check on that iso.

[ster]

Re: Failing to boot amd64 iso (hangs with red screen full of white blocks)

The md5sum of the iso is ok.

One of the problems is that I cannot see the logs that are shown on the screen as they vanish when the screen turns red. Is there a way to step through the boot procedure?

[skunk]

Re: Failing to boot amd64 iso (hangs with red screen full of white blocks)

One of the problems is that I cannot see the logs that are shown on the screen as they vanish when the screen turns red. Is there a way to step through the boot procedure?

All the logs are saved in files in /var/log

[ster]

Re: Failing to boot amd64 iso (hangs with red screen full of white blocks)

Where are the these logs saved with a live system?
I cannot find anything on the usb I use (and when booted from cd it isn't even possible to write onto it).

[ster]

Re: Failing to boot amd64 iso (hangs with red screen full of white blocks)

In the end I wrote a Live CD and borrowed a CD reader from another system. This worked without a flaw.

I noticed that, although I used the same iso image to write to both USB and CD, the menu's on the CD were different from on the USB. Also on the USB the boot started with messages in text mode, while booting from the CD everything was done in graphic mode.