I am not exactly sure what the problem is. I have a dual boot system that I set up way way back. By trial and error almost. One OS is winxp home on the internal HD; the other os is ubuntu 8.04 on an ext HD. My bootloader is grub, now known as legacy grub.

I was trying to upgrade Ubuntu 8.04 to Ubuntu 10.04 when that failed and left my existing Ubuntu 8.04 unstable. I can no longer boot from it; my winxp is still ok. I want to proceed by installing the Ubuntu 10.04 on top of the corrupt/broken Ubuntu 8.04. Somehow I can't do it, and it's not obvious to me why I can't.

I installed Unetbootin and the Ubuntu 10.04 iso in winxp. I think they call this the "frugal install" onto an HD. This was only partially successful -- I can bring up Ubuntu via Unetbootin, but the process stalls when I request for a full install of the Ubuntu 10.04. Specifically at partition resize time.

I tried using Gparted Live to resize the partition for the Ubuntu 10.04. Gparted Live likewise failed. It stalled as well, midway through the process. What exactly is happening? Is there anything else I should be trying?

I'd appreciate very much any help/suggestions from you guys.

TIA

Try a different device. Could you burn the Ubunut iso onto a cd? Or use Unetbootin to install it on a USB flash stick? If that works, and boots, use the installer to partition and format the external disc.