I'm installing Ubuntu and my screen went black.

I don't know if I hit the power cord by accident or not but I don't know what to do now. It was installing and I went to see if the progress went up from 0 percent and the screen was black. The laptop is still on. What do I do

 

Try again?

 

Ok it came back up I just had to move the mouse or close the lid for a bit. Don't know which worked. Defragged my HDD and now trying again.

 

I can't seem to resize the partition. It goes to partitioning and doesn't move from zero percent and has an error screen. I defragged because I heard not defragging could cause programs and it still won't let me resize.

 

What option are you using to partition? Manual, or guided- resize existing partitions?

 

Guided, resize partition.

 

In Windows use some sort of utility to look at the disk layout. It may be the page file, make that guy static!

Easiest way to install is to image your current Windows install, backup the gho, img or tib to a external storage medium then wipe the drive clean creating 2-3 partitions. One for Windows, one for Linux and one for whatever stuff like movies, music etc. Then just point the Windows image to the first partition and point the ubuntu installer to the second partition and let it do its work.

HTH

 

Would a CD or DVD + RW big enough. I tried using Actronis True Image personal 8 but I could not do ANYTHING with it.

 

the point of defragging is to move all your windows files to the front of the drive so there isn't some file right near the end getting in the way of the new linux partition. at least that's what i always thought.

 

I tried defragging and it STILL would not go past 0 percent.

 

you're trying to partition your drive?

partitioning can be very temperamental, i've had more trouble with partitioning than anything else. you know vista can resize partitions? you can also try parted magic if your internet connection is fast enough for the download and you want to try another livecd - a partitioning distro. http://sourceforge.net/project/showfiles.php?group_id=248002&package_id=302801&release_id=648596

 

It is normal for the screen to blank during install. A blank screen is the default screensaver. Just move the mouse or hit the space bar.

 

Boot the CD. If your Windows C drive mounts and shows an icon on the desktop, unmount the drive. Start the install. Do NOT choose the default option of letting it resize the Windows partition. Choose Manual and the Partition editor will be invoked.

Because you interrupted an install in progress, you should already have a Linux ext3 partition and a swap partiton created.

Highlight the ext3 partition and click "Edit" and choose ext3 as the filesystem and / as the mount point. Click OK and proceed with the install. This can take a lot of time so unless it is stuck on 0% for 15 minutes, don't panic.

 

After panicking if it is stuck what should I do Also I don't think I interrupted it. I just let it go and it said that it could not install and undid teh changes.

 

How many partitions are you planning on?

I would wipe off that half installed Unbuntu, then start over..

Try this. the dual boot.

https://help.ubuntu.com/8.04/switching/installing-partitioning.html

Don't panic ...
doesn't help!

You could also use Gparted.

HTH

 

I don't know if any of it got installed. The resizing never got past 0%. If it DID install some of it how do I get rid of it?

 

I don't understand, I would say Gparted in Ubuntu is among the best partition tools, I have installed Ubuntu on my machine in dual boot configuration many times as well as others and not once has it given me any trouble. I would say boot off XP CD and the delete the partition which has been created by Ubuntu, reboot with the live CD and select Guided>use largest contiguous space and it should work out fine.

 

I'm saying if the resizing NEVER got past 0% did it not do anything at all

 

Then you need to burn the disk again, this time using a program like ImgBurn and burn it at slow speed, slowest possible.

 

It's hard to say, but it would appear that nothing was done, and it just hung up somehow.. I prefer not to let some program resize any of my partitions, particularly a Win partition. I'm not saying it doesn't work fine but I just don't trust stuff like that. I prefer to set things up myself manually from the start, just the way I want it.

If you encounter a problem, you'll have to experiment and try different things till you figure it out. It's hard to diagnose something like that without actually being there and seeing and doing it yourself...

 

Time to wait 5 days till I get back to burn a new CD.

 

The way to find out is to follow my instructions. If there is no ext3 partition then you can proceed to Edit and resize the Windows partition MANUALLY and then add the ext3 partition to space you freed on the Windows part.