ok, in the menu.lst, the new lines specify (hd0,0)

In boot.ini, the added command is copy-n-paste from the tutorial.

The other folders, files, were extracted and placed exactly as instructed.

Were there any other adjustments needed?

I still live with my ex!

On the FAT32 partition, sits only the ISO. All other extracted files and folders were deleted before the big reboot. Seem correct procedure to you?

I think the next correct proedure is to kick a big reboot right up She-Beast's ass!

As far as I remember no.

Oh dear God, that might be the reason.

Rebooted. Back to normal. WHEW!

After I complete the tutorial, by extracting and placing files, and after adding the lines to the menu and boot.ini,
...big question...
should I immediately restart the computer, or should I open the ISO?

I finished the tutorial etc, then rstarted. Shall I try the other way?

Hold on there! You extracted the two files needed from the iso and put them in C:\boot right? Next where is your iso located? It has to be on the C: drive also. From what you post here I'm getting the impression that you put the iso on one of the prepared partitions to install to. That's a bad idea since that partition will be formatted by the installer and you'll be left with what's running in memory up to the point of failure. Also check your menu.lst for what concerns the Linux boot part, that it points to the correct partition (same as Windows).

sorry for the late reply, couldn't access LQ for 5 minutes.

Kind regards,

Eric

After you complete the tutorial you should reboot and select the Linux environment. That should load the two necessary files you extracted from the iso and start the installer from the iso.

What do you mean by 'the other way'?

Kind regards,

Eric

Yea, my LQ was trippin too. Ok, I will remove NETINST from the other partition, and place it on the winderz desktop (or should it go on C:\ or...?). Then, follow the instructions again...

"The other way" would be, to open the ISO.

Do as it says in the tutorial. You should make a directory for example C:\linuxiso, something easy to remember because in the tutorial it states:
So, you have a C:\boot with the grub directory and the two files extracted from the iso, the C:\linuxiso which has the complete iso in it and the boot.ini file with the grub line in it.

When you boot you first get presented the grub menu to choose what you want to boot. There you choose Linux (as you put it in the menu.lst).
That will boot into the Linux environment and at some point it will ask you for the installation source (see above).

When these things are available the installer will launch.

At previous installs did you put the iso on one of the newly created partitions? Because that might explain very well the troubles you had.

Kind regards,

Eric

OK cool. Good to know. I will do it all again, but this time with the ISO on my xp desktop.
Do I need the ISO in BOTH places (desktop AND other partition), or just on my desktop?

Just in the C:\linuxiso directory you create. The installer will get all information from there and install to the new partition. The partition you will use to install Linux onto has to be empty or will be formatted by the installer. So there's no use to have anything on there.

Kind regards,

Eric

During all of my attempts, the ISO has been on the intended partition. The instruction #1 is a little bit grey on that...

During no setup have I ever been asked for the destination.

Ok, lets see what happens. The intended partition is now clean. The ISO is now in C:\
.

You're right, it's a bit grey since it only gets indicated in point 7 and not in point 1 so that is confusing. Most likely this has been the problem you encountered every time in the past. Look at the iso as a virtual CD which gets accessed by the installer when booted. Once the installer starts to run one of the first tasks is to format the destination partition hence deleting the iso. So next time the installer (which is running in memory at that time) tries to access the iso it gets an error and out you go.

Kind regards,

Eric

Repeat performance:
"The installation CD ROM could not be mounted. This is probably because the CD ROM was not in the drive. If so, insert CD ROM and continue."

This is the same roadblock every time. It's looking for a disc. I can hear my drive clicking, searching...

Would it be detrimental to have the ISO (not the NETINST ISO) in the drive? Good idea or no?

Are there any BIOS settings needed to be adjusted? I think as of right now, my CD ROM drive is in sequence 1. Should I move it down the list, move HD to #1? Does not seem like it would matter though...

You can try. Might be that something in the NETINST setup is always going to look for a CD. So if the trick with the iso in the drive doesn't work, retry with the KDE CD, but following the procedure as you did right now, meaning don't put the iso on the partition you are going to use.

Kind regards,

Eric

That has nothing to do with it in my opinion since you already past the BIOS boot sequence when the grub boot is showing.

Ok thanks. For my next trick, I will attempt it all again, with KDE in CD drive....

Ok, let's get the magic working.

ERIC!!!!!!!!! IT"S MAGIC!!!!!!!!!
Light from heaven beams down!!!!!
Chorus of angels singing!!!!!!

I'm in! I'm in! I'm in! I'm in!

Ok, get your plane ticket, I've got TWO BEERS for you!

!!! E r i c !!!

!!! E r i c !!!

!!! E r i c !!!

Look at the Debian swirl next to my penguin, under my name!!!
No more window-pain!!!

Hi Lorax,

Well done dude, welcome to the Wonderfull World of Linux!!!!!!!!

And to think it all came down to just keeping the iso on the C: drive. I should have thought about asking that sooner, but hey, you got it working and that's the most important thing.

BTW, nice swirl below your nick!

Kind regards,

Eric

There you are!!!

I just gave you your first Thumbs Up to thank you for hanging in there.

Congratulations all around!!!! And keep the beer on ice if you will, plain tickets are a bit expensive right now ;)

Kind regards,

Eric

Hey Eric! T H A N K Y O U !!!

I kept all the notes, from all your walk-throughs. So I felt confident in going into the console, and installing/loading, and making default, KDE!

Not only were notes used minimally, but I intuitively used apt-get, cat, touch, and nano! Hey it's no big deal to most Linux users, but to me, a REAL big deal. I'm only 3 hours old in linux world!

You're very welcome, I'm glad you got it up and running and seemingly enjoying it. You know, whatever problem, question or doubt, you can put it here on LinuxQuestions and I'm sure you'll get help at the blink of an eye.

You'll learn pretty fast what it's about and soon you'll be looking into other distros, desktops and so on. The more you experience the more you learn. The book that was posted earlier by another LQ user is a pretty complete reference, although sometimes a bit heavy if you're new at Linux. Nevertheless I advice you to read, try, experiment, ....

Make the She-Beast scream in agony......

Kind regards,

Eric

HAAA! Deb-KDE lookin good! Konquerer real smooth. Actually, Konquerer operating better than Firefox (bless its heart) on xp!

He heee! She's SINGIN, brother!

Now, how much time do you have? I have a clean 60GB HD to bless with Linux! HAA! J/K!
Actually, not kiddin! I like the Debian, but Kubuntu still kix Deb's butt!!!

EDIT: ...IMO

That's the spirit, keep it up. I'm always around, even connected when I'm at work. The only time when I'm not connected is when I'm sleeping, eating or on the road.

So, bring it on!!!!

Opinions are a personal issue that differ for a lot of people. I've tried a lot of distros when I started out with the Linux Desktop and right now MY personal favorite is Slackware.

Kind regards,

Eric

If you consider your problem solved then you can mark this thread as solved using the thread tools.

In doing this you can post any new problem/question/doubt you have in a new thread, making it easy to follow for everyone.

Kind regards,

Eric

I will do so. I'll find you when when I have another issue/thread.
I feel one comming on as we speak: changing menu and boot.ini when winderz and a linux are already present...
Well' I'll wait till I have a problem with it, before I bug you about it.

Man thanks so much for putting up with me! As a hater/avoider of proprietary restrictions and corporate control, this starts a new era for me! LIBERATED!

I can see the Linux community as a social movement. In a way, we are activists :-D
Linux users are free-thinking individual human people.
The others, are, well, wolf-lead sheeple!

I might just kindly ask the author of the tutorial to edit step #1. Or, I just might personally go to his office, and force him to read EVERY SINGLE POST in this thread, noting the days and times that was required to sort out this one little detail!!! THEN, I'd have him edit the tutorial !!! :-P

Adding another Linux distro on another disk/partition isn't that hard to do, neither is changing the boot menu. As you said, handle that when you get to it.

Love your point of view!! And again, no problem, glad to be of assistance. I'm just trying to return the favor and meantime learning a lot too.

Kind regards,

Eric

:D Sounds like a man with a plan !! :D

Conversely, without his inattention to a minute detail (that only the greenest of newbz like me wouldn't infer), I wouldn't have made a friend :-]

Thanks again, friend!

You'll find out that a lot of friendships are build upon the foundations of LinuxQuestion amigo.

Even though I marked this thread SOLVED,
I'd like to add more, and possibly UNsolve it.
I am having more problems, very similar.

I anyone thinks I should start a NEW THREAD, please say so, and then I will. No offense taken. But I think the solutions will go hand-in-hand with the problem as above.

After much research, I have found some interesting, simple-yet-confusing documentation for the remedy of GRUB error 17.

I seek advice from Eric or any other qualified person to guide me so I don't blow out my system.

I am getting error 17, when trying to install Kubuntu 9.10.
Here is the link to the site with what seems to be a remedy. It is Ubuntu Forums. Entry #9 is of particular interest.

My system specs are on page 1 of this LQ thread.

Again, if anyone thinks this belongs in a new thread, just say so. Thanks!

so whats the exact problem
its not booting at all?

whats your BIOS type?
Phoenix?

Please explain exactly when the install fails?

Is Kubuntu using Grub2?

Ok hold...
Gettin the kid outta bath!

Ok, Linus :-)

The issues up to post 242 are solved. I successfully Installed Debian KDE, next to winderz in a crappy old 20GB HDD. The Most prominent, or maybe only, error, was that I was leaving a copy of the ISO on the partition-to-be, and not leaving a copy in C:\

So, I switched HDD, to a 60GB. I installed winderz, and created partitions, and formatted successfully. The only thing different is that Im not using a NETINST. Before I go any further, you think I should try it?

I'm an idiot sometimes....

So after meticulously following instructions for the Grub4Dos trick, I restarted, as instructed:

1. I selected Start GRUB
2. I selected Install Linux
3. Just 5 seconds after, the screen spits this:
"Booting 'find /menu.lst'
find --set-root /menu.lst
error 17: file not found"

I started Goooogling this issue. Read the Ubuntu forum above. Thought, what-the-heck, I'll just poke into the BIOS n have a looky. Doingso, and seeing my DVD drive listed there reminded me that the DVD unit was NOT plugged into the IDE cable during the successful install.

Powered down.
Uninstalled DVD.
Rebooted.
Results:
1. I selected Start GRUB
2. I selected Install Linux
3. Just 5 seconds after, the screen spits this:
"Booting 'Install Linux'
kernel (hd0,0)/boot/v,linuz
[linux-bzimage, setup=0x3400, size=0x3b26e0]
initrd (hd0,0)/boot/initrd.gz
error17: file not found"

Although only a small change, removing the DVD made a change. My unqualified opinion says that #9 on Ubuntu forum may be right. But, I don't really know....

well
something' wrong


its not finding the initrd.gz

However, if you installed Ubuntu or Debian
it should be looking for vmlinuz-2.6.??.?-generic
or some such

not vmlinuz/initrd.gz

98% of the time vmlinuz/initrd.gz
are the kernel/initrd found on livecd's
not installed systems...

what kernel and initrd.img is in your /boot folder??

and what system(ubuntu?) do you have installed and HOW did you install it??

vmlinuz & initrd.gz

what about the other questions-
and what system(ubuntu?) do you have installed and HOW did you install it??

also, whats your partition layout?
like

hda1 =
hda2 =
etc