Reinstall Ubunutu 12.04 (Help me please)
 

I am having a hard time. I have an old dell laptop (Inspiron 6000 1.6ghz). I have Ubuntu 12.04 LTS installed but I am not able to get it to update any of the programs. It is giving me an error "requires install of untrusted packages" it will not update any programs even if I only select one program.

I have downloaded the 12.04 LTS and burned the CD but when I restart the computer it just boots up into Ubuntu. I am trying to reinstall it but I am do not know of any other way then to put it in the drive and reboot. I tried to put in Ubuntu 11.10 in and it was going to try and install it but there was a problem. Then when I put the 12.04 cd back in, it acted like it was going to reinstall but never went anywhere. It just sat at the cursor. I waited for about 15 mins and never got off the cursor.

Does anyone know how to reinstall Ubuntu other then just putting the cd in?

Is there a command prompt command that I could use to initiate the installation?

Normally this is a BIOS option - make sure the CD drive is before the hard disk.
Else with Dells you can usually force it to give you a boot device choice by hitting F12 - watch the bottom of the screen on boot; it should tell you the key to use. Then you can force it to boot the CD drive.

has the disk been verified? it could be corrupt. Another thing to consider is to remove all removable hardware during install as I've had issues with the live cd's hanging with certain hardware.

I have tried to use the F12 and force it to boot from the CD drive but it just goes to booting from the hard drive. I think it is because it sees there is already 12.04 on the computer but I am not sure.

I have check the disc and it works just fine on my other laptop. I was able to run the live CD on my acer just fine.

I have been trying to make a boot CD with minitool partition wizard but there is no instruction on how to make a bootable CD. I keep find that they say that you can create a boot CD but I can't find out how. I spent 1 hour and 1/2 trying to get a bootable CD. I am trying to just get a bootable CD so I can format the hard drive on the Dell and then reinstall Ubuntu. Does anyone have any suggestions for formating my drive without Ubuntu (I can't even boot up anymore).

Like was said, boot order needs to be changed in the BIOS. If you can toggle the select boot device menu, go to the BIOS itself and manually change the boot order to CD first- you can always change it back once you have it installed.
Another thing, be sure you don't have a 64 bit CD on what I assume is your 32 laptop.

Sorry I forgot to post that I did check that the CD drive was the first to boot. I checked that before I posted. I think that there is another problem with the computer because I used my XP disc to format the drive and then try and reinstall Ubuntu but when it was trying to install it said that there an internal error and was asking to send information. It never completed the installation. I am think that graphics card might have been fried but I am not sure. \

Thanks for your help.

moparcrazy: Here's my suggestion. Now its something totally different than the others.

I know what you are talking about with that cursor, actually. I experienced that once recently with Linux Mint 13 but anyway... Here's two things I suggest:

1) It sounds to me like Ubuntu 12.04 is having problems finding the right Xorg driver to use for your Dell. The fact you got that message about "untrusted packages" suggest it might be you need a proprietary driver to get your display running. Also, if your Dell is as old as you say, since Ubuntu's Unity is based on the Gnome 3 shell or something like it, it would next to impossible to install Unity 3D on such an old Dell. Unity 2D could work better. Maybe try downloading Lubuntu 12.04 perhaps and see if it works any better.

2) If you want an alternative for an installation medium, if you have a USB flash drive, you can download and use "Unetbootin" and have it make your flash drive able to hold and install Ubuntu instead of a CD.

Well, these are my two suggestions. You sound like a nice guy and so I want to get this helped out for you. Keep us posted and don't get frustrated. There are always fixes for anything in Linux. :)

---------- Post added 06-14-12 at 07:35 PM ----------

moparcrazy: Here's my suggestion. Now its something totally different than the others.

I know what you are talking about with that cursor, actually. I experienced that once recently with Linux Mint 13 but anyway... Here's two things I suggest:

1) It sounds to me like Ubuntu 12.04 is having problems finding the right Xorg driver to use for your Dell. The fact you got that message about "untrusted packages" suggest it might be you need a proprietary driver to get your display running. Also, if your Dell is as old as you say, since Ubuntu's Unity is based on the Gnome 3 shell or something like it, it would next to impossible to install Unity 3D on such an old Dell. Maybe try downloading Lubuntu 12.04 perhaps and see if it works any better.

2) If you want an alternative for an installation medium, if you have a USB flash drive, you can download and use "Unetbootin" and have it make your flash drive able to hold and install Ubuntu instead of a CD.

Well, these are my two suggestions. You sound like a nice guy and so I want to get this helped out for you. Keep us posted and don't get frustrated. There are always fixes for anything in Linux. :)

When ubuntu got to the disk partitioning section did you choose "Erase & use whole drive" or "Other"?

EDDY1- I selected to erase everything. I didn't partition.

I think that my hard drive has gone bad. I was not able to install Lubuntu but it did boot up into live cd mode (as did Ubuntu) and I was able to check my drive with SMART drive and it said that there was 2 bad sectors.

One of the questions I have now is a hardware question. Does anyone know if I would be able to replace the hard drive with a solid state drive? I would think that this would speed up the operating system and accessing my files. I have not been able to find a clear answer searching google as to if there is any adapter from ATA to SATA for laptops. I believe that all the SSD are SATA.