Hi,
I have an old Acer travelmate laptop on which I intend to install Ubuntu or Linux mint as a dual boot. It has Windows xp right now.

I downloaded the iso, burnt them to a cd and tried installing them. I can boot from the live cd without any problems. I can start the install process without any problems. However, when the process reaches 42%-45%, I get a i/o error saying that cd may be corrupted, or the the cd rom may be corrupt of there might be an error in the hdd. I tried this multiple times using freshly burnt cd's. I think the cd drive itself may be spoilt. Unfortunately, I don't have any external drives now which I can use. I don't think the laptop can boot using an USB pen drive

I read on the internet that I can install without burning to a cd using unetbootin or grub4dos.
The unetbootin is not adding an entry to c:\boot.ini file, so I'm not able to install using it. Can I add an entry manually?

Please help me install linux to the laptop.
Thanks

Hi,

this may not be related, but I once had an ACER Aspire 1501 lmi Laptop that crashed during installation of linux at roughly the same stage. I also tried to burn the cd multiple times but wasn't successful.

Then I realized, that the processor was always running in full speed because processor heat management was not yet installed. I could install only by letting it cool off completely and trying all to prevent it from overheating during the installation process, but then it worked well.

Not a funny experience, but then in hindsight, it was...

That may be the issue here(Its around 35 deg C here).

ya, could be heat. or did you check the MD5 before you burned it? or burn at a slower speed.