Hi,

I was given an older Sharp Mebius mini laptop - hdd only 20gb so quite old. It is a very light and tidy machine and it was running Win XP in Japanese. After unsuccessfully trying to change the language settings I decided to install Ubuntu as dual boot. During the installation there was a warning that there was not quite enough memory and asking if I wanted to proceed. I elected to proceed on the basis that if I could get it working I would add extra ram. The installation completed successfully but since then when I switch the machine on all that happens is that the battery light flickers. I cannot get to any set up screen.
I took out the hdd with the idea of re-formatting it with my USB adapter but it is a female IDE Ultra ATA/100 and I cannot find an appropriate adapter for it on line. So now my only option is to try to get some interactivity with it.
Has anyone had a similar experience?
Does anyone know what if anything can be done when a system has faltered so comprehensively?

In the past and with a different laptop - a Toshiba tablet PC I was able to do a rather sneaky installation of Ubuntu with dual boot by cloning the hdd from a separate device which already had dual boot installed. The recipient device could not load Windows but was able to load ubuntu without a hitch - wonders of that OS. However both devices were toshiba. Not sure that something like that would work with a sharp and in any case I do not have an adapter to connect the Mebius HDD to another computer for cloning purposes.


Any advice or guidance would be greatly appreciated.

Did you partition the 20 gig disk?

Did you do a Wubi install? ( Linux on the XP file system )?

I suspect your disk is full if it was a Wubi install.

Have you go a means of booting from a CD drive, or from a USB stick in a USB port?

Did you partition the 20 gig disk?
COULD NOT PARTITION

Did you do a Wubi install? ( Linux on the XP file system )?
YES

I suspect your disk is full if it was a Wubi install.

Have you go a means of booting from a CD drive, or from a USB stick in a USB port?
WHEN I TURN ON THE COMPUTER IT ONLY FLICKERS.
WILL TRY TO ENTER SET UP, CHANGE BOOT OPTIONS WITHOUT HDD AND SEE WHAT HAPPENS.
THANKS__________________
Cliff

Registered linux user 482242

Is it the disk light that is 'flickering'?

Hi,

Will put the hdd back into the device in a few days time, see what happens when switched on and get back to you. Thanks so much for your kind assistance.

Hi again everyone,

Sorry for the delay in responding. I have taken out the hard drive of this device and have purchased a device to read it to USB. I will re-format the drive and attempt to install Xbuntu on the laptop once the HDD is re-inserted. I am hopeful that a re-formatted hard drive and a single OS install will be tolerable for the Mebius.
Thanks for the very quick assistance. As with many other such laptop scenario there is no CD so I will have to install using a network type installation. I will come back to the the forum for help with this. Once again, many thanks.

bolware.