I am trying to boot Ubuntu on a Dell P3 laptop with 256 ram
I got an error message;

[ 199.636000] Buffer I/O error on device fd0, logical block 0
[ 237.740000] Buffer I/O error on device fd0, logical block 0
[ 297.948000] hdc: drive not ready for command
[ 302.952000] hdc: drive not ready for command

Then it kept going and whirred and clicked for hours.
I tried it twice and it did the same thing.

Any help out there?

There's something that may be of help here.

Cheers,
Rob

I read the posts that Rob pointed me to (thanks Rob) and gather that the problem with Ubuntu loading on this Dell has something to do with not communicating with the floppy module. As a complete newbie, I have not tried to run anything from the command line interface yet, however I have had some experience with Fortran and Basic long, long ago. I have started "Rute user's guide", but I haven't a clue yet how to execute the commands like;

sudo kate /etc/modprobe.d/blacklist

Is there a 'how to' that will guide me through this process?

Forgive me for being the greenist of the green newbies. bt

What model Dell notebook do you have?

The first 2 lines usually just mean that the floppy disk drive is not plugged in during boot and can be ignored. I have only gotten the next 2 lines when a HD is bad or I have deleted the partitions before booting linux for install.

If you have the original diagnostic/driver cd, then boot from it and run the diagnostic. It will tell you if your HD or Bus is bad.

I have put Linux Mint (Cassandra) on about a dozen older Dell PII and PIII notebooks. I have a few more to do. They make great gifts for school age children that otherwise don't have a computer.

I don't get much time to read this forum, but you can PM me if you need further assistance after checking your HD.

I have two Dell lapatops that I am working with;
One is a Latitude mobile Pentium(R)III-850/700Mhz
256 KB ram
ATI M3 video controller
ESS Maestro 3 audio controller

The other is an Inspiron 4000 Pentiium(R)III-1.00Ghz/700Mhz
256 KB ram
ATI M3 video controller
ESS Maestro 3 audio controller

The floppy disc drive can’t be in the machine when the cd drive is installed. The other slot seems to only hold the battery. Since I am booting from a cd, I need that drive to boot from.

I suppose the original partitions were deleted, since I bought used hard drive from my local neighborhood laptop store where the genius kids work.(They look at me like I’m from Mars when I go in there(severe age gap))

I don’t know if I have the original diagnostic/driver cd, I am booting from a cd that was in the back of a how-to book on Ubuntu. I just put the cd in and had a go at it.

I bought a stack of desktop PIII’s (a dozen) where I work ( a medical equipment refurbishing company) and I saw these old laptops lying around the warehouse gathering dust. I thought since I was going to be working on the old desk top machines to do things like be juke-boxes and whatever, I would try to get the laptops going to be part of a legacy system of PIII’s that might have a lot of other uses.

I will attempt to check my hard drive and also find out what PM means.
TNX bobtom