Xp, Vista and Ubuntu ?

Zorba

I've got my computer dual booting Xp and Vista at the mo. Downloaded Ubuntu and burned to to cd and tried booting the computer with it, but i only get as far as the "enter help to see a list of commands" screen !

So is it possible to have the 3 OS's on one computer and if so what am i doing wrong with Ubuntu that it won't load from the cd or install ?

ethernet

So one partition for XP, another for Vista. Any recovery partitions as well?

Right, so it boots off the CD. You should see the screen with various options: install, run live, test memory and a few others. Need to set your resolution (F2 or F3, IIRC), select to install and hit enter and allow it to boot. Then you can proceed to install.

Zorba

ethernet wrote: »

So one partition for XP, another for Vista. Any recovery partitions as well?

Right, so it boots off the CD. You should see the screen with various options: install, run live, test memory and a few others. Need to set your resolution (F2 or F3, IIRC), select to install and hit enter and allow it to boot. Then you can proceed to install.

I've three partitions all together, one for XP, another for Vista and i made a third one that i was gonna put Unbuntu on. Yes it gets as far as the options menu but when i proceed to install it comes up with a dos like command prompt and says "type help for list of commands".

ethernet

I must say I've never seen that before. When you boot the CD, pick the option to edit boot options (think it's F6) and delete the words "quiet splash". This might give more info as to what's actually going on.

Zorba

Ok just tried it again, this time i tried to run ubuntu from the cd rather than install it and it was the same thing. got to a screen similiar to this and started the run from cd or whatever it is. It then loads linux kernal then comes up with the dos like screen with INITRAMFS in the command line. I then says type help for list of inbuilt commands when i do this it tell me REVALIDATION FAILED (errno= -5) !

Also been reading that cos i'm on a dual boot ubuntu might delete me Xp loader :eek::eek: Starting to think i might just be better leaving things as they are ?

Hotblack Desiato

Have you used the "check CD for defects" option? You could have had an error in the download or the burn.

Zorba

Tried the test and it brought me back to the dos like page with the initratmfs command, then i typed in help and same revalidation failed message came up !

Might try it on my old computer next week and see if it works on that.

ethernet

Zorba wrote: »

Ok just tried it again, this time i tried to run ubuntu from the cd rather than install it and it was the same thing. got to a screen similiar to this and started the run from cd or whatever it is. It then loads linux kernal then comes up with the dos like screen with INITRAMFS in the command line. I then says type help for list of inbuilt commands when i do this it tell me REVALIDATION FAILED (errno= -5) !

Also been reading that cos i'm on a dual boot ubuntu might delete me Xp loader :eek::eek: Starting to think i might just be better leaving things as they are ?

Here's a fix that works for some people. Like above, where I said to delete "quiet splash", enter this:

all_generic_ide floppy=off irqpoll

Worth a shot anyway.

Zorba

ethernet wrote: »

Here's a fix that works for some people. Like above, where I said to delete "quiet splash", enter this:

all_generic_ide floppy=off irqpoll

Worth a shot anyway.

I'm on a sata drive would that ide bit of that command matter ?

FruitLover

There's very little 'DOS-like' about linux.

TeaServer

I had a similiar problem when I first went to install Ubuntu. It turned out to be a corrupted CD.

Try burning another CD once you've confirmed the ISO is not corrupted.

ethernet

Zorba wrote: »

I'm on a sata drive would that ide bit of that command matter ?

Only saw your reply now. Nope, it doesn't make a difference. Even ATA drives are registered as SATA drives in newer kernels.

Oracle

You can check your CD ISO download for corruption using an MD5 hash. It's a way of checking the integrity of data files. There's a handy Windows app that can do this for you: http://www.md5summer.org/