Failure on loading live CD.
 

I am trying to update an Acer Aspire 5736Z from Mint 10 to Mint 14 using a live CD which installs happily on other machines.
The CD/DVD runs for a length of time, stops and hangs with a black screen.
I have tried using unetbootin with a newly downloaded ISO both with 32 bit and 64 bit and the same thing happens.
I then tried using a different distro with the same results.
Would appreciate some discussion.

This looks like a graphics issue with your hardware and not a iso burn issue to the dvd

What 3d "chip" is used
the acer site says
http://support.acer.com/acerpanam/no...5736Zsp2.shtml
see this Kbuntu post
http://www.kubuntuforums.net/archive...p/t-58849.html
-- bug --
https://bugs.launchpad.net/linuxmint/+bug/1082647

If you already have Mint installed there I believe you could just do a release upgrade that will give you the latest mint in your computer.

Good luck to you!

Assuming you verified the md5sums of the .isos you have downloaded, it could also be a failure of the optical drive.

Question: have you tried the cd/dvds you have burned on another computer to see if they work? If they do work, you should consider optical drive failure unless you can verify that it works under other conditions.

It looks like I'm out of luck, as there is no way I can use the terminal to make the changes suggested by John VV, can't see anything after I start the install, all black.
I think that 'bigrigdriver' missed the point, unetbootin is a USB boot method which also resulted in a black screen at finish, side stepping the CD/DVD.
So unless anyone has more suggestions I'll say Thanks for your efforts and call it a day. No Mint 14 for this machine!!

open up a terminal and type press enter and type your password
let us know if that works.

The Mint disk menu has a safe-graphics mode available: have you tried it?

In a word No. Didn't know it was available, mainly because up to date haven't had a problem.
Could you please supply more information for a relative newbie, as I'm in a real bind?

As a desperate last attempt I tried your suggestion. All I got in the terminal was a load of 404s Not found. I think I have to give it up.
I cannot upgrade this machine and I cannot install anything without running into errors, so it looks like I have to re-install Win 7 and forget Linux.

Re safe graphics. When the Mint disk tells you something like "Booting in 10 seconds", press a key and you get a menu. Then you can choose to boot in the safe graphics mode. The archive on the disk contains masses of video drivers, but the unarchived startup files make do with a few: the safe graphics mode uses a simple driver (vesa) that give you a basic screen (no acceleration) with anything.

what DavidMcCann is telling you is exactly what I did on a gateway NV51M laptop. When I tried to install Linux Mint 13 from the default set up this machine would start up and than went into a black screen and hang there for ever.Booting in video safe mode was the solution, try it it might work for you too.