I'm trying to install Ubuntu 8.04 (32bit) on my 4 year old PC (AMD Athlon, 1 Gig Memory, Ati inbuilt graphics on a ASUS Motherboard, 115 Gb HDD) and each time I try to install the disc I get an I/O Error saying Error reading boot CD ... Reboot. I tried it several times all with the same result. I also tried 8.10, 9.04 and 9.10 all failed with the same Error Message. Incidentally, Windows (the original OS won't install either.
Any ideas? Any solutions? Maybe, I have overlooked something due to my lack of computing knowledge?
Grateful for any help.

gael.

It could be a bad install CD. That it's happened with 4 suggests it's not, but if you've been burning them all at max speed on cheap media it might be. Burn at a low speed (4x or the lowest your drive offers if it's higher) on the best quality media you have, using the option to verify the burnt CD.

If that doesn't help, then it sounds to me like a problem with the CD drive in the old PC. It may need a firmware upgrade. Then you could open it up and check everything's connected properly, if you've been moving it around things can come loose. If you have another CD drive (perhaps the one in your main PC), you could put that in the old PC and see if Ubuntu will install from it. You can remove it if you want after the install is completed.

Bad CD, Bad CD Drive, Bad Hard Drive.

could also be bad cabling inside. My money is on Bad CD drive.

I have a CD/DVD player and a DVDR-W ... I've tried both drives and get the same result ... could it be a BIOS problem?
I'll try another drive later and check whether any of the cables are loose.
I'll keep you informed.

gael.

I had a similar problem with the ancient laptop, upgrading from 9.04 to 9.10 and it complained about the i/0. Perhaps when you put stress on your hardware its frailty shows up, finding the weakest point is another matter. Strip out the possible culprits and then reintroduce them and see if something shows up at that point. See the logs to find out when the problem first occurred.

Fred.

Hi,

This sounds like a hardware issue since both drives have the same issue. The first thing to check is the cable(s) for the drives. Then check the drives with disgnostic utilities from the manufacture or 'UBCD Ultimate Boot CD' which contains a lot of the utilities to test a system/peripherals. I hope you have access to another machine to get & burn the the LiveCD.

One thing that does come to mind is that you could remove one of the drives (alternately). Be sure to set the jumpers to set to proper configuration. This way you can be sure that one of the drives is not at fault by taking the channel. If you find one of the drives to fault then replace that drive.




The above link and others can be found at 'Slackware-Links'. More than just Slackware® links!

UBCD is a must have tool. I use it to test hard drives at work all the time.

My suggestion would be to replace the ribbon cables. They do go bad no matter what anyone says. If that does work check the hard drives for failures. If that does work check your ram next. If none of this is the problem try booting with only cd/dvd drive and one hard drive installed. Also make sure bios shadowing is off. Sometimes on older boards this caused weird errors to show.

Yes, I agree ... UBCD is a very good tool to have in the armoury.
I checked out all the usual tests, i.e. hdd, memory etc and nothing was found faulty. I then burned another Karmic Kaola 9.10 disk on a slow setting and low and behold the install worked like clockwork. My only conclusion is is that reading errors are sometimes misunderstood by the installee, thinking that it has to be something else, probably hardware problems.
Conclusion; When installing anything from a (quality) CD/DVD and it shows an error, always check the source disk first ... I'm not saying that this is the panacea for every install problem, but it is worth eliminating the source disk before taking the PC apart.
Incidentally, my computer is now working fine

gael.

I think all these suggestions are praise worthy, especially if you have first hand experience with this kind of fault. I suppose that like all things, ribbon cables will eventually break down in time just through normal degradation. Having said that, I would have thought that modern materials will have a much longer life span than those on the very early PC's.
Thank you for your input

gael.

Hi,

The problem with any connection is the use over time with degradation of the contact point of the connector to the edge. Normal operations do cause a problem via vibration. That's one of the justification in securing the cables. Contact preps were used for years, one to lubricate the connection with the other reason is to seal a connection. This technique isn't used in the consumer market because of added expense and that most users don't do preventative maintenance on a regular basis.

Most users will just pull the connector and replace thus wiping the contact. Temporary fix, since the wiping action does degrade the contact points.

Shotgunning the cables are a temp fix as the edge contact has been wiped therefore resulted wear which causes less of a contact surface.

I fault the OEM because of the technique in the way things are packaged. Open a Dell and HP desktop. You will see the quality vs expense in play. The Dell is package to sell quantity while the HP is packaged for quality and quantity. Anytime you leave cabling, wiring within the box unsecured you will soon have problems. Sure strapping is a added expense but in the end you will not have problems due to vibration or heat if the cables are route properly.