Hey Cyber people
Im in great trouble! Im doing intensive math course and my laptop just broke down because of some virus! (im quiting windows for good now!) Its a Toshiba satellite 50D-b-132 I can access my Toshiba Setup utility screen as the only thing i can do! its impossibe to get into the windows system reset!
I need to format it and put on linux, how should i do this with only a USB stick? i dont have cd drive in the PC.
Thanks alot!

Hello!

Well, first of all, you need another (working) computer in order to download "linux". The reason "linux" is in quotation is that you did not specify a specific distribution. That is the next step; deciding what kind of "linux" you want.

Personally, I use several distros (distributions), the choice is obviously yours. A lot of people suggest Ubuntu or Linux Mint for "newbies", so that might be a good place to start.

As soon as you have downloaded whatever distribution, there are excellent guides on how to install from usb here:
Ubuntu: https://help.ubuntu.com/community/In...n/FromUSBStick
Linux Mint: http://community.linuxmint.com/tutorial/view/744

Best of luck,
HMW

Ok so i simply make the USB stick with Ubunto on it and then it will erase my harddisk while it install?

That is entirely up to you. You will get a choice to erase and to use the entire disk whilst installing.

ok thats wonderfull! i would like to erase it cause there is a virus on it! that made the pc break down so i guess its the smartest Nomatter if i loose my files!

No problem. The installer will wipe your disk if you choose to. See here (especially point 4):
http://www.ubuntu.com/download/deskt...ubuntu-desktop

Best regards,
HMW

When i run a integrety check (think it was called that it says error found in 4 files and when i tried to press start linux mint in the install menu it comes with some error with graphic or somethig that makes it stop. ?
Maybe i should try ubuntu or run in compability mode?

it says Buffer i/o error, on dev sda, logical block

and pop up says failed to start your x server(graphical interface)

I downloaded Ubuntu and it says 2 errors on the usb stick? should i install even if there is errors on the stick?
i can only go in live mode.... same error as before if i try to install... wtf?

I would definitely try another USB stick.

damn its fresh from the store....... only used it for this But thanks i hope its not my harddisk that have a problem

The integrity check reported a few errors? It's quite possible the disc image itself is damaged. Ubuntu should have supplied an MD5 checksum on the page you downloaded the image to indeed verify it downloaded correctly.

If the sums do match, you may have a bad stick. If they don't match, you have a bad download.

and check that against the supplied sum by ubuntu.

all i get is this page saying thanks for downloading and a iso in my download folder?
http://www.ubuntu.com/download/deskt...itecture=amd64
I dont understand how to check if its correctly downloaded?
where am i supposed to write that code in windows?

Ah.

Here are the hashes. Look for the filename of the ISO you downloaded, and next to it is the md5 checksum.

https://help.ubuntu.com/community/UbuntuHashes

See this page on how to check to make sure the download is good.

https://help.ubuntu.com/community/Ho...SUM_on_Windows

The information above applies for checking Mint and any other ISO as well.

Hmm... I'm not saying that this is the case, but since you get a warning for /dev/sda and not dev/sdb (which is normally where you would expect a USB to show up), chances are that it is in fact your internal hard drive that is acting up.

But, again, I am not saying that this is the case for sure, so don't go smashing your laptop to pieces yet!

It depends on the computer.

I'd had a mishap by not paying attention and trying to write a USB stick, and not checking device names. Turns out on my laptop if I boot, even from the internal drive, with a USB stick in a port, the USB stick gets assigned sda and the internal HDD as sdb. Guess how I found out the hard way.