Zorin 12.4 core gets stuck forcing shut down

I bought a Zorin disk from OSDisc in Denver. It sat around for a few months before I installed it. Zorin didn't seem to work properly so it got neglected for another few months. The following probably should have come first: I have a desktop computer running Win 7 64 that has an Orico switch box. The switch box is supposed to let you power down and connect to a second hard drive. I did this and put the install disc in. The OS started installing (minus a screenshot for passwords etc) In any case when I try to use Zorin it gets stuck forcing me to hold the power button in to shut down and go back to windows. I did choose to download updates during the install. Maybe that's not a good thing to do if you have a satellite dish, but there's no cable in this rural location. Should I try to reinstall it without the updates ? Passwords: why are there so many and do most people just write them down ? Thanks

When you say two Old Cars, how old are we talkin'?
See EDIT below (Sigh)
Oh right... On topic...
On passwords, you really only need one -Root.
If you chose to encrypt your disk on installation, that will add a second password- that is your encryption password.
On mine- I used the same password for both. Eh, I am lazy.
That encryption password is only used when you first boot up to open the encryption.
The Root Password is used anytime you take an action that makes changes to the system or puts the system at risk for changes. This simple bit of security is one reason that Linux is superior to the Other OS. But it's one password that you will use often. I can guarantee you will remember it. I usually suggest to people that they choose a Simple Password for their root password.
A PW like rGarfTp*7l!2# might be secure, but is unnecessary for your daily root access. Something that you can type easily and quickly is sufficient.

Do you know the Version of the Zorin OS disk? Even if you bought it recently, they may have sold you a pretty old version.
You also say you purchased this from a Third Party Vendor? Hmmmmmm.....
Definitely need to know which version of Zorin it is, though.

EDIT: Somehow... I missed seeing Zorin 12.4 Core in the title.
...it wasn't in the post...

Right off the bat, I hope the vendor did not charge you any hefty fee. I'm just being blunt, but Selling Free OS's is very bad form, aside from accepting donations or covering the cost of the DVD used to burn it on.

Since you JUST installed it, I wouldn't hesitate to try a Re-installation, using your option to Download updates as you go in this case.

Where does the hard drive "live" that you want to install Zorin to? Personally I would put the drive in your PC that has Win 7 on, disconnect the drive with Win 7 and connect the Zorin drive. After install, minus updates, and reboot just to ensure working OK, power down, remove drive then reconnect your Win 7 drive and put your Zorin drive into the external box.

Swarfendor437 wrote:Where does the hard drive "live" that you want to install Zorin to? Personally I would put the drive in your PC that has Win 7 on, disconnect the drive with Win 7 and connect the Zorin drive. After install, minus updates, and reboot just to ensure working OK, power down, remove drive then reconnect your Win 7 drive and put your Zorin drive into the external box.

Both are in the same box Each drive is 250GB. THEN there is an Orico Switchbox. Maybe it's causing a problem. With the switchbox setup I get the impression that somehow the bios is affected. When I power down and change the buttons so I can use windows again, windows comes back on but the the time in the lower right corner has changed. Why should Zorin affect the bios ?. I get the feeling these linux programs are a little too intrusive. They are also stubborn. Just for the heck of it I ran Zorin as a live disk and when I tired of that I tried to eject the disk and it wouldn't come out. I had to go back to windows to eject it. Zorin needs a lot more work and support. Last resort would be to get a mobo for a case I have and build my own Zorin computer. This would be a pain in the ..... I wish a friendly Zorin fanatic drove by every day and would swing in and figure this out. For now I'm going to reboot, copy down my bios settings and take the battery out and check it. I might ask Ramsey at OSDisc if he thinks Linux Mint would be better for me. Q. How do you delete a whole post ?

2OldCars wrote:
BOTH HARDRIVES are IN THE SAME DAMN BOX !

You shout this out as if knowing so was intrinsically obvious and a baby would know it.
Nonsense. It's quite common for people to have all manner of exterior hard-drives, self included.

2OldCars wrote:THEN there is an Orico Switchbox If you mean DON'T USE THE SWITCHBOX, YOU SHOULD SAY SO.

If you want valid responses from the volunteers taking their personal time to help you, I recommend that you do not swear, shout and act like a child having a temper tantrum.

2OldCars wrote: Why should Zorin affect the bios ?.

BIOS on a computer is merely the initial software of the Motherboard. Any operating system you use must interact with the BIOS in order to start the machine in full.

2OldCars wrote: I get the feeling these linux programs are a little too intrusive.

Interesting opinion.

2OldCars wrote: They are also stubborn. Just for the heck of it I ran Zorin as a live disk and when I tired of that I tried to eject the disk and it wouldn't come out. I had to go back to windows to eject it. Zorin needs a lot more work and support. Last resort would be to get a mobo for a case I have and build my own Zorin computer. This would be a pain in the ****. I wish a friendly Zorin fanatic drove by every day and would swing in and figure this out.
Here's a question: Doesn't SOMETHING stay in the ram after you turn it off ? My computer tech says no, but I think he's wrong.

Random Access Memory does not retain any information - that is its nature. It is temporary memory.
Nothing stays in Ram after you do a reboot.

This is a Forum, free with the free exchange of information. However, no one on here is paid, much less obligated to accept any forms of abuse. We will be glad to help, to ask questions to help troubleshoot or to offer advice, tips and fixes. No one has all encompassing knowledge and no one here can see inside your home to see your computer set up without asking you questions. Sometimes troubleshooting takes some time.
Keep it polite and civil and you will meet plenty of Friendly Linux Fans right here on this forum.

I must agree with Aravisian. People are here to help. We are not mind-readers. This is a community of amateurs doing their best to help each other. Abuse is never appropriate. Whatever your problem is, it is solvable. Please have patience and civility, and your problem will be solved.

Ahh - the time machine bug! Fix it following this guide (as an aside I was involved in applying the local authority's preferred Y2k fix, the vendor of which advised me that Windows (regardless of the version) is that to cater for leap year occurrences, Redmond adds and takes away midnights!:

http://www.webupd8.org/2014/09/dual-boo ... tween.html

....................................................................................

.....................................................

Aravisian wrote:When you say two Old Cars, how old are we talkin'? ............. 91 GEO metro = 50 mpg ....... 1971 VW day camper
See EDIT below (Sigh)
Oh right... On topic...
On passwords, you really only need one -Root.
If you chose to encrypt your disk on installation, that will add a second password- that is your encryption password.
On mine- I used the same password for both. Eh, I am lazy.
That encryption password is only used when you first boot up to open the encryption.
The Root Password is used anytime you take an action that makes changes to the system or puts the system at risk for changes. This simple bit of security is one reason that Linux is superior to the Other OS. But it's one password that you will use often. I can guarantee you will remember it. I usually suggest to people that they choose a Simple Password for their root password.
A PW like rGarfTp*7l!2# might be secure, but is unnecessary for your daily root access. Something that you can type easily and quickly is sufficient.

Do you know the Version of the Zorin OS disk? Even if you bought it recently, they may have sold you a pretty old version.
You also say you purchased this from a Third Party Vendor? Hmmmmmm.....
Definitely need to know which version of Zorin it is, though.

EDIT: Somehow... I missed seeing Zorin 12.4 Core in the title.
...it wasn't in the post...

Right off the bat, I hope the vendor did not charge you any hefty fee. I'm just being blunt, but Selling Free OS's is very bad form, aside from accepting donations or covering the cost of the DVD used to burn it on.
$8.00 + postage = $10

Since you JUST installed it, I wouldn't hesitate to try a Re-installation, using your option to Download updates as you go in this case.

Tried that. Made no difference

Off topic: Why don't I get a notificaton in my email after answers are posted ? Uh Oh .... Another thunderstorm is coming. cuts off my lousy satellite dish. It's all you get when you're rural.

2OldCars wrote:Just for the heck of it I ran Zorin as a live disk and when I tired of that I tried to eject the disk and it wouldn't come out. I had to go back to windows to eject it.

This is normal. If you run Live CD, then you are running the operating system off of that disk. Ejecting the disk while it is acting as the operating system is like force crashing your computer.
When you are finished live testing, you will want to shut down the PC as normal, then reboot, go into your BIOS and select the drive you wish to boot from.

2OldCars wrote:Last resort would be to get a mobo for a case I have and build my own Zorin computer. This would be a pain in the ..... I wish a friendly Zorin fanatic drove by every day and would swing in and figure this out.

Zorin has teamed up with a computer manufacturer (Star Labs) to offer Made For Linux Computers and that offer your choice of Distro- including Zorin 15.

This is quite a New Thing. Currently, as far as I know,only two notebook models are available. It may also be an option:
https://zorinos.com/computers/

Since the disk you have was purchased from a third party-I won't deny I have some concerns about the validity of the disk.
It's most likely fine but... I would go ahead and download a fresh copy of Zorin from the Zorin OS website and use that, instead.
To help you to troubleshoot, you will need to tell what you mean by "stuck," is there any kind of error message, whether it is after installation that this happens or during the process of installation and so on.

2OldCars wrote:For now I'm going to reboot, copy down my bios settings and take the battery out and check it. I might ask Ramsey at OSDisc if he thinks Linux Mint would be better for me.

There are many choices of Distros and only you can decide which suits your needs best because only you have the best understanding of those needs.

2OldCars wrote: Q. How do you delete a whole post ?

You can only delete a post within a short time after making it. This is to allow for mistakes like Double posts, etc.
To do so, the delete function is located in the upper right of your post where the Edit Button is.
After the post has been posted for a while, the record stands and that button disappears.

2OldCars wrote:$8.00 + postage = $10

Tried that. Made no difference

Well, Zorin 12.4 is provided Free by Zorin. You can download it free from their website or Sourceforge...
Would you be willing to try a re-install using afresh copy, just in case the burned disk you have has an error on it?

mdiemer wrote:I must agree with Aravisian. People are here to help. We are not mind-readers. This is a community of amateurs doing their best to help each other. Abuse is never appropriate. Whatever your problem is, it is solvable. Please have patience and civility, and your problem will be solved.

Sometimes poor explanations (which may include grammar) feel like abuse to me. HOWEVER Maybe that switch box is a piece of junk. I wish I had originally put a larger hard drive in this computer, then I could just choose which OS to use at startup. I'm not sure how easy that would be. I'm good at grinding and polishing telescope mirrors (home made optical machine) but not nearly as good with computers especially if features are hidden
Now I can't find the draft I made

2OldCars wrote:Sometimes poor explanations

You have yet to give a good explanation detailing what you have experienced.
So far, all anyone knows is that you have an HDD switcher and that you have had a vague problem with Zorin not working right. You have offered no accounting for what didn't work right, only that it 'didn't' and therefor sat a few months.
You then state that you tried three installations and that at some point, something got stuck. You are unclear of what stuck means (Stuck in a loop; Crashed computer, Frozen screen...), when it got stuck (during or after installation), whether there was an error message or some other notable symptoms.
Whether it's your mechanic, your doctor or computer help, you must provide clear symptom descriptions.

2OldCars wrote: HOWEVER Maybe that switch box is a piece of junk. I wish I had originally put a larger hard drive in this computer, then I could just choose which OS to use at startup. I'm not sure how easy that would be. (snip) but not nearly as good with computers especially if features are hidden

If you dislike hidden features, then moving away from Microsoft and into Linux sounds like the right choice.
I cannot vouch for the switch box EDIT Can you provide some information on the Orico Switch box like Model Number or Name of it that will allow us to look up the design specs on it? Searching the Orico Website, the closest I find to what you described looks like the HDD Dock.

2OldCars wrote:I'm good at grinding and polishing telescope mirrors (home made optical machine)

Astronomy?


Please detail what you experienced when you said "something went wrong." What happened? What did you see?
When you say the OS gets stuck, do you mean that the screen freezes up and you have no control over the computer anymore? Or do you mean stuck in a loop?
You could be quite right about the Switch being the problem. It seems to me that that the switch would need to communicate with the computer BIOS and determine the Boot Order. If you then try to load a Linux OS that uses GRUB, the switch, designed for Windows, may not know how to communicate with that. This is Speculation: I do not know because I would need to research Orico Switch boxes to really figure that out.

2OldCars wrote:Off topic: Why don't I get a notificaton in my email after answers are posted ? Uh Oh .... Another thunderstorm is coming. cuts off my lousy satellite dish. It's all you get when you're rural.

Email notifications apply to threads that you are subscribed in.
To enable notifications, when you make a post, look right below the window you make your post in.
You will see an Options tab. It holds
Disable BBCode (Should be unchecked)
Disable Smilies (Personal Preference)
Do not Automatically parse URLs
Attach a Signature
Notify me when a reply is posted --- This one is the one you want to Check Mark in threads you wish to subscribe to.


To Change this later, you can look at the far upper right of your screen and you will see in the area where you would log in at, wher eyour Screen name is, "User Control Panel."
Clicking that open will take you to your user control panel. (You may prefer to Right click, then open in new tab).
In the User Control panel, you will see a series of options on the left including "manage Subscriptions". Clicking there, you can remove threads you have subscribed to if you wish.

Aravisian wrote:Zorin has teamed up with a computer manufacturer (Star Labs) to offer Made For Linux Computers and that offer your choice of Distro- including Zorin 15.

This is quite a New Thing. Currently, as far as I know,only two notebook models are available. It may also be an option:
https://zorinos.com/computers/

This would be expensive as the OP lives in the US? StarLabs is based in the UK - US users might be better ordering from: Thin Penguin, Zareason or System76.

Especially with Trump's Tariff Taxes!