Ubuntu installing.... HELP....!

I have an old desktop pc which ran windows xp home sp2 but it started to blue screen of death about a year and half ago each and every time i tried to boot it, the registry was basically fried. I replaced the old machine with a vista laptop shortly after and the old desktop sat in the corner gathering dust.

I have decided to fix the old pc, its an asus p5vdc-x motherboard with 2x pentium 4's installed, 190gb hd, 1gb ram, 3000ghz (if that is of any help). as i have long since lost the xp installation discs i decided to convert the machine totally to ubuntu as i have never used a linux based system before and am keen to learn and try on an old computer.

as the registry was pooped i firstly booted active@killdisk and overwrote the entire C: with zero's. i then managed to use gparted live cd to format C: to ext3 which i understand is the file system of choice for ubuntu. when i did this i noticed a small partition which said msdos which i simply left.

next i tried to install ubuntu via the live cd, i had changed the bios to boot from the dvd rom drive i had burnt the live disc on (i used the vista laptop to burn the iso incidentally). everything appeared to be going well, an ubuntu screen popped up with an install option. when i tried to install it asked me where i am and for a user name and password. then it seems it cannot install anything, language failed, disc partition i think it was called also failed, i then for a few other fail warnings for what appeared to modules the installation was attempting to install. the whole installation then appears to go into a loop, from screens 3 of 7 up to 5 of 6 then back again. each crash has the options to try again, quit or something like ignore/continue.

what is going wrong? is it the bios is not compatible as the bios is from an old xp machine? i noticed on the asus website for my motherboard there appears to be a different download section for drivers and bios for linux based systems?

any help would be much appreciated.

 

if the normal installation with the desktop live cd is not possible u can try the alternate install cd with a text based installer.also do visit the ubuntu forums for similiar issues.u could also try to use the safe boot options aswell disabling the acpi/apic etc..

 

Did you allow Ubuntu to do an automatic partition or did you manually partition once that option came up? Assuming you have a valid DVD (with verified checksums), there should be no issue getting it to install.

 

It seems like a hardware issue. Can you just try running Ubuntu from the live cd...surf, play games, run the media play...etc?

 

i will try the the text based installer tomorrow disabling acpi and post back, its 4am here now and i've given up on it for the night, thanks for the advice lol

 

no partioning has been done, i am not using it as a dual boot system so i figured i'd dedicate the whole drive to ubuntu. the iso was downloaded directly from the ubuntu website so it should be fine; also ubuntu works fine from the disc in the 'try' mode, its only the installation part that keeps screwing up

 

ubuntu works fine from the live cd although it wouldnt load the partition tool as i figured i'd probably be able to format the disc from that. i used a different iso - gparted live cd - to do the format then rebooted the ubuntu live cd which worked fine but again the partition thing wouldnt load and the installation hits crashes. i will try disabling acpi in bios if it is enabled and try the other installer then post back. again thanks for the help.

 

If you were constantly getting blue screens in XP, you probably have a hardware problem. It could be bad memory sticks, bad harddrive or even a bad PS.

If the LiveCD booted OK, and you can use it to get to the internet, then it isn't a compatibility problem. If you chose to let Ubuntu use the entire disk when you started the install, then it isn't a partitioning problem.

One of the options on the LiveCD is Memtest. Have you tried running it? When you say the LiveCD "pratitoning" doesn't work, do you mean the stage in the install where the partitioning occurs or have tried /System/Administration/Partition Editor prior to starting the Install?