Problem with version 9.1
 

my computer was working fine yesterday. Last night i opted to load the newest ubuntu os ver 9.1. Big mistake!
Now all i see after the initial booting takes place is a blank screen.
i have managed to look at the booting up sequence and at the end of the multiple lines of code is the message: 'Invalid RT chipset detected'. I do not know if this is significant or not.
I just want my computer back to working order! thanks

What were you running before you installed Ubuntu?

My advice is install something other than Ubuntu 9.10. It's a bit of a rubbish release tbh. Try the previous version, 9.04.

Please give some details of how you installed---eg did you tell the installer to use the whole disk? Did you set up dual-boot with another OS? etc...

Also some detail on your computer, including the make and model of the graphics card.

After you boot up, see if you can get a terminal by typing ctrl-alt-F1 (or maybe F2 or F3)

Thank you Cantab and Pixellany

ctrl-alt-F1 works! From a blank black screen I get a green screen with a the option to log in as normal.

When I do the option to connect to the wireless broadband appears and I do that as before.

However, the computer is now so slow it is virtually unusable!

One warning message appears at the top which tells me that my 30gb Hdd ‘has many bad sectors’

Should I try to install a previous version of ubuntu? I could use my other computer to download the os onto a fdd or cd.

Some more info about my laptop:
i was using an ubuntu os from sometime last year. i do not know the version. But before downloading 9.1 my laptop did not slow down to a complete stop.
i do not know anything about the graphics card either.
the laptop is a Compaq EVO N1015V.
I only have ubuntu on this laptop

Many thanks for your thoughts and assistance.

Hello cdscm and Welcome (although a bit late) to LinuxQuestions,

I assume you upgraded from Ubuntu 9.04 to 9.10 when Ubuntu proposed that to you. If that's the fact then you're in for the long run. If you have no data that you want to keep on this computer the fastest, cleanest and easiest way is to download the CD for Ubuntu 9.10 (or 9.04 if you prefer that one) and just perform a clean install. If, on the other hand there is data you need/want then you'll have to take it from there.

When you reboot, what shows in the grub bootup screen? Ubuntu 9.04 or 9.10? That might be a first indication of the Grub install gone wrong and thus calling the wrong kernel.

Kind regards,

Eric

Eric
All I can say is that when it rains it really pours! I have just managed to run a system check and now my computer is telling me that my hard drive has too many errors on it and that it should be replaced. I can only say that it was working fine on Sunday!

Before I throw this old laptop away however I will try your suggestion of a new in os and a clean install. Can you tell me the location of 9.04? I can only easily find 9.1 at http://www.ubuntu.com/getubuntu/download.

As for the grub boot up, when I press the escape key I get another window that says Grub loading stage 1.5 and then another window and the options there all refer to version 9.10, generic and recovery with different kernels.

If you recommend 9.04 I will do that but I would not mind using an even older version if it suits my purposes as I only am using it to access the internet wirelessly.

I have no data worth saving as I was only accessing the internet and reading files or drafting papers.

I will wait your further advice.
Many thanks
cdscm

Hi,

If you need to do a fresh install then go for the latest version 9.10. The problems occurred when you upgraded from 9.04 to 9.10 in my opinion (which has happened to a lot of people BTW).

So just download the CD from the location you pointed out and boot your computer from it. Let the installer take the entire disk and see where it leads you.

Kind regards,

Eric

I made the CD with iso image. The contents were verified. I put it in the laptop and nothing. In my ignorance can I suggest that I need a command line from the grub page which forces the laptop to read from the dvd player, otherwise it does not see it. I can get to the command: grub>

The other way is possibly once I am logged on to the computer is open the correct file on the cd. I tried a few obvious ones and nothing happens except that the files open in a text prog.

A third way is for me to make a iso image using a flash disk drive. I know my computer reads them.

Many thanks for your patience!
cdscm

oh,i put the CD in my working windows computer and it reads it as should, giving me the options to run the demo or to install the os alongside my xp os. so the disc seems okay to me.

To sum up.
I need advise about how to get my laptop to read the ISO image. either by
1. a command at grub>
2. click on the correct file once i open the disc
or
3. should i try the flash disc drive instead (but this would still leave me with the probs of 1 or 2 above)
thanks

First thing is to check is that in your bios, booting from the cdrom is higher priority than the harddisk: It might be trying to boot the currently installed but broken system resulting in nothing visible happening.

How did you install ubuntu last time?

Cheers,

Evo2.

Hi,

Did you burn the CD from the image or just copy the iso onto the CD and then burn it?

Kind regards,

Eric

Evo2 and Eric
1. the laptop came from my friend with ubuntu. I did upgrade last spring and there was no problem, just click the button to upgrade and install. No problem until I tried it again this last week with 9.10
2. I cannot check if the laptop is reading the disk first. But it does not look like it since I put it in the drive, then turn on the laptop and it goes through the normal boot sequence. I am ignorant of how to change the boot sequence. I can access the setup on the laptop though. What do I do then?
3. I followed the instructions to burn the iso image onto the CD. When I put into my good computer and via windows explorer I click on the wubi.exe I get the options of demo, install or learn more. So it seems there is nothing wrong with the disc. Is there not a similar file I can click when the disk is in the laptop? the disc name is ubuntu 9.10 i386. The folders I see are casper, dists, install, isolinux, pics, pool, preseed, ubuntu. The files I see are autorun.inf, md5sum.txt, readme, and wbubi.exe
4. But having sown doubt in my mind I actually re-copied the cd again. The burn prog said ‘Write ISO image’ and then ‘writing to disk’, so I believe all is well there.
5. but with the same result: nothing!
6. the ½ second that I see the boot sequence it says ‘boot from (hd 0,0) ext 3’

but are these not valid suggestions:
1. write a command at grub> which will force the computer to boot from the cd drive
or
2. click on the correct file once i open the disc

thanks for your patience
yours in perseverance!

Okay, I've got an Acer Aspire 3610 WITH the CD/DVD combo. What you need to do to get the laptop to boot from the CD is catch it in the first 1/2 second after power up when it mentions SETUP (F2) and hit F2 at that point. Once there in Setup, you have tabs, one of which is BOOT. Arrow over to that and hit Enter, it will shows you the boot devices and the sequence that they are used. Move the CD to the top, Exit and Save. Reboot, and it should see the CD first, and you'll get startup screen of the ISO.

Yes, checking the CMOS has been suggested, I'm just giving you the instructions for how to do that.

theiron
thank you for your advice. i managed to re-set the order of the boot sequence. But no joy. It sort of kicks into gear and then moves to the usual booting of the hdd.
that leaves typing a command at grub>
or
clicking a file on the disc once i get into the computer, but i do not know which one to click.
I know I am running out of solutions/options!

Hello cdscm,

It seems to me that you're still unable to boot from the CD correctly, since normally when you boot from CD you should get a language selection. So I imagine that something is still wrong in the way you burned your CD or for some unclear reason your CD cannot be read by your laptop. Can you indicate what software you used when burning the CD? And at what speed did you burn the image? In the past I've had strange errors when a CD was burned at a high speed. So if you burned it at a high speed or auto, try burning again at the lowest speed possible. Let us know how that works out.

Kind regards,

Eric

Making a bootable CD-R
 

CDSCM:

I had a bit of trouble burning CDs when I first started, but I found InfraRecorder and that fixed it. The first couple of CD's that I burned have the contents of the ISO on them but are not bootable. The half-dozen CD-R's that I burned with InfraRecorder processed bootable Live-CD for 5-6 different flavors of Ubuntu and Xubuntu (some folks don't like the "DUNE" background) and all have booted into the Linux startup/intall screen. Give that a whirl and see what you get. So far, Ubuntu has been treating me, a recent convert from Windows, with kindness. Most problems have already been seen and there are them's willing to help out a newbie.

Oh yeah, burning at a slower speed than max improves the integrity of the image that is burned, but the last time that I burned, I couldn't change the speed from max.

Good luck!

On Linux, I've found that Brasero - GNOME's default CD writing GUI - doesn't let you change the speed. KDE's K3b, however, does. Once I switched to K3b and slowed the speed I stopped getting coasters.

So even if you don't use KDE, give K3b a go for your cd burning needs.

I have burn the iso image in very slow mode. The prog I use is the one recommended by ubuntu site, i.e. express burn by nch.

Still the same problem. The message on the computer is also a recommendation to change the hard disk drive due to too many errors. So it is slow to the point of being unworkable, it does not boot from the cd, the hdd is shot and of course I cannot connect to my wireless network. But everything was working fine before I downloaded 9.10! the moral of the story is do not fix it if it ain’t broken. Thank you all for your patience and advice.

Anyone want a old defunct laptop?!