Unable to install Ubuntu 10.4

Machine- Dell Inspiron 700m with 1.6Ghz processor 1.25 GB RAM
amar@lubappg:~$ lspci
00:00.0 Host bridge: Intel Corporation 82852/82855 GM/GME/PM/GMV Processor to I/O Controller (rev 02)
00:00.1 System peripheral: Intel Corporation 82852/82855 GM/GME/PM/GMV Processor to I/O Controller (rev 02)
00:00.3 System peripheral: Intel Corporation 82852/82855 GM/GME/PM/GMV Processor to I/O Controller (rev 02)
00:02.0 VGA compatible controller: Intel Corporation 82852/855GM Integrated Graphics Device (rev 02)
00:02.1 Display controller: Intel Corporation 82852/855GM Integrated Graphics Device (rev 02)
00:1d.0 USB Controller: Intel Corporation 82801DB/DBL/DBM (ICH4/ICH4-L/ICH4-M) USB UHCI Controller #1 (rev 03)
00:1d.1 USB Controller: Intel Corporation 82801DB/DBL/DBM (ICH4/ICH4-L/ICH4-M) USB UHCI Controller #2 (rev 03)
00:1d.2 USB Controller: Intel Corporation 82801DB/DBL/DBM (ICH4/ICH4-L/ICH4-M) USB UHCI Controller #3 (rev 03)
00:1d.7 USB Controller: Intel Corporation 82801DB/DBM (ICH4/ICH4-M) USB2 EHCI Controller (rev 03)
00:1e.0 PCI bridge: Intel Corporation 82801 Mobile PCI Bridge (rev 83)
00:1f.0 ISA bridge: Intel Corporation 82801DBM (ICH4-M) LPC Interface Bridge (rev 03)
00:1f.1 IDE interface: Intel Corporation 82801DBM (ICH4-M) IDE Controller (rev 03)
00:1f.3 SMBus: Intel Corporation 82801DB/DBL/DBM (ICH4/ICH4-L/ICH4-M) SMBus Controller (rev 03)
00:1f.5 Multimedia audio controller: Intel Corporation 82801DB/DBL/DBM (ICH4/ICH4-L/ICH4-M) AC'97 Audio Controller (rev 03)
00:1f.6 Modem: Intel Corporation 82801DB/DBL/DBM (ICH4/ICH4-L/ICH4-M) AC'97 Modem Controller (rev 03)
02:01.0 Network controller: Intel Corporation PRO/Wireless 2200BG [Calexico2] Network Connection (rev 05)
02:04.0 CardBus bridge: Texas Instruments PCI7420 CardBus Controller
02:04.1 CardBus bridge: Texas Instruments PCI7420 CardBus Controller
02:04.2 FireWire (IEEE 1394): Texas Instruments PCI7x20 1394a-2000 OHCI Two-Port PHY/Link-Layer Controller
02:04.3 Mass storage controller: Texas Instruments PCI7420/7620 Combo CardBus, 1394a-2000 OHCI and SD/MS-Pro Controller
02:05.0 Ethernet controller: Broadcom Corporation BCM4401-B0 100Base-TX (rev 02)

Did you MD5 test the Lucid ISO you downloaded?

What method did you use to put the ISO on the USB?

First of all format your USB drive using GParted.
Then check md5sum of your downloaded cd image.
Then Use latest version of unetbootin to make your USB drive bootable.
Reboot your Laptop and check again the boot device priority in BIOS(You might have done this but reminding you)

Hope this might solve the problem..

Sorry, i had deleted the .iso file after burning it on to the CD, so dont have a way to check the MD5 sum now. I used the System->Administration->USB Disk Creator utility in Ubuntu 9.4 to put the iso image on the USB.
I did select F8 and select the USB storage as the first place to boot from.

Is there anyway to check if something is wrong with the data burned on the CD? I have read some other threads that talk about using the nomodeset option during install. That did not work for me.

Any help you provide is much appreciated.

Thanks,
Amar

Put the cd in the drive and execute following command without quotes
"md5sum /dev/cdrom"

Check the calculated hash against UbuntuHashes from https://help.ubuntu.com/community/UbuntuHashes. Depending on your system, you may need to change cdrom to cdrom0 (or even cdrom1 if you have two CD drives). Sometimes boot from cd rom fails (it happened with me also!!)

Therefore I suggest you to download the image again and use "unetbootin" program to write image to pendrive. Get unetbootin from synaptic package manager. The usb startup disc creator doesn't work with new cd images so there is no use of that utility.
Please mark this question as solved after your problem is solved. This keeps launchpad helpful to others.

amar@lubappg:~$ md5sum /media/cdrom0
md5sum: /media/cdrom0: Is a directory

I will download the iso image again and burn it as per your instructions.

Thanks,
Amar

Calculated hash on the CD Image (md5sum /dev/sr0) and the iso downloaded matched what was mentioned on the ubuntu site.
Used unetbootin program to create a bootable pen drive, changed bios settings to boot first from pen drive.
However, i get to the exact same point it was failing before. The purple ubuntu dots load for a while and then on pressing escape i see the logs scroll through. After a few seconds, screen goes blank and i have no options but to reboot(waited for 2-3 mins). The 2 major things that i see in the logs are:
1) GLIB Warning related to userpwd not being found (0)
2) Error related to not finding /dev/sr0 repeated on several lines.

Any ideas?

Thanks,
Amar

Why are you pressing escape while the ubuntu is loading?
let it load on its own....
Check your pen drive for possible bad sectors. MoserBear and transcend
pen drives are very error prone...

One more thing i would suggest is to download gparted.iso image and burn
it on cd then,
Check your hard disc for bad sectors using the GParted software..
==> DO THIS AS LAST EFFORT AS YOU WILL LOOSE YOUR EXISTING
SYSTEM==>"Format your existing ubuntu installation using the new ext4
filesystem and then try to install new ubuntu 10.04.."

Please tell me also that what is /dev.sr0 hardware???

On Mon, 2010-05-03 at 17:45 +0000, Amar wrote:
> Question #109193 on Ubuntu changed:
> https://answers.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+question/109193
>
> Amar gave more information on the question:
> Calculated hash on the CD Image (md5sum /dev/sr0) and the iso downloaded matched what was mentioned on the ubuntu site.
> Used unetbootin program to create a bootable pen drive, changed bios settings to boot first from pen drive.
> However, i get to the exact same point it was failing before. The purple ubuntu dots load for a while and then on pressing escape i see the logs scroll through. After a few seconds, screen goes blank and i have no options but to reboot(waited for 2-3 mins). The 2 major things that i see in the logs are:
> 1) GLIB Warning related to userpwd not being found (0)
> 2) Error related to not finding /dev/sr0 repeated on several lines.
>
> Any ideas?
>
> Thanks,
> Amar
>

1) I press escape to see what is happening in the background. I have tried it without escape and just get a blank screen after a while.
2) /dev/sr0 seems to be pointing to my CD/DVD RW drive.
3) The USB drive i used was an 8GB Sandisk Cruiser.
amar@lubappg:~$ sudo badblocks -s /dev/sdb1
Checking for bad blocks (read-only test): done
4) Will check with ext4 fs, but i would highly doubt if Lucid cant handle ext3.

Thanks,
Amar

On 04-05-2010 21:32, Amar wrote:
> Question #109193 on Ubuntu changed:
> https://answers.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+question/109193
>
> Status: Answered => Open
>
> Amar is still having a problem:
> 1) I press escape to see what is happening in the background. I have tried it without escape and just get a blank screen after a while.
> 2) /dev/sr0 seems to be pointing to my CD/DVD RW drive.
> 3) The USB drive i used was an 8GB Sandisk Cruiser.
> amar@lubappg:~$ sudo badblocks -s /dev/sdb1
> Checking for bad blocks (read-only test): done
> 4) Will check with ext4 fs, but i would highly doubt if Lucid cant handle ext3.
>
> Thanks,
> Amar
>
>
Lucid can handle ext3 but the default filesystem is ext4 since Karmic. I
think there are problems with your hard disk partitions. I would suggest
you to backup all data and redesign the partition table. You will need
the Parted magic to backup data and gparted is built in in the parted
magic software. If you still have running Jaunty, I can try remote
access if you wish to do so...

Scanned hard disk partition and did not find any errors.
Formatted to ext4 fs and tried installing with CD and USB drive. Same result as last time.
Using the Help menu with the USB boot drive, i see an error switching to console 80x30 and it drops me into initramfs command shell. Could this be the real issue? If so, is there anything i can change in the USB image config (it mounts sdb1 to /) to a diff setting so that i can see the console?
Pls let me know. Thanks for your help and patience so far.
By the way, i am back to 9.04 with ext3 fs since this is the only machine i have.
Regards,
Amar

I don't have any idea about the error you are having. Go to planet
ubuntu and mail someone expert. He may guide you..

On Sat, 2010-05-08 at 09:53 +0000, Amar wrote:
> Question #109193 on Ubuntu changed:
> https://answers.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+question/109193
>
> Status: Answered => Open
>
> Amar is still having a problem:
> Scanned hard disk partition and did not find any errors.
> Formatted to ext4 fs and tried installing with CD and USB drive. Same result as last time.
> Using the Help menu with the USB boot drive, i see an error switching to console 80x30 and it drops me into initramfs command shell. Could this be the real issue? If so, is there anything i can change in the USB image config (it mounts sdb1 to /) to a diff setting so that i can see the console?
> Pls let me know. Thanks for your help and patience so far.
> By the way, i am back to 9.04 with ext3 fs since this is the only machine i have.
> Regards,
> Amar
>

My graphics card "Intel 82852/82855 GM/GME" not work in kernel 2.6.31-21 and 2.6.32-22

Thanks Tonal. Workaround A: Re-enable KMS worked great for me. I am now on 10.4
Thanks everyone for your help and support.

Regards,
Amar

Thanks Tonal, that solved my question.