[SOLVED] Can't install on 8510W

Greetings, gentlemen.

I've spent most of today trying to install 64bit Core 9.1 on my HP 8510W (Core2Duo, Quadro 570M, 4GB RAM, 200GB HDD).

I've been using a live USB made with UNetbootin and also tried UUI. Booting into live everything seems to work fine, but trying to install directly or from booting into live was met with varying degrees of, well... failure. I've encountered numerous issues.

First, the installer would hang at "almost finished copying files".
Swithching from UNB to UUI the installer would crash before even getting to that point.
I went into live and deleted all partitions, rebooted, then tried installing again, which got me a ubi-partman crash (code 10).
I deleted the partitions I made in that process again and then switched back to UNetbootin.
I booted into live and ran the installer. For once it actually didnt hang on the file copying, but I was greeted with a black screen. Common for nVidia, or so I read.

I've read about solutions involving something called "nomodeset", but the term itself and everything mentioned in association frankly confuzzles me. I lack the basic knowledge here, and googling around just makes matters worse. I've yet to find a step-by-step that actually applied to my case, even though it doesn't seem uncommon.

Hi, First off did you check the md5sum of the downloaded iso before running from USB to ensure there was no corrupt download? I suspect it should be good as you state you can run it good in 'live' mode. Do you ever get a 'boot' menu? Have you deleted all hidden partitions as well on this machine? I say this as HP tend to create 1 viewable partition in Windows which is 'C:/' - they usually come with three more - quick boot on the newer models, restore partition (hidden) and recovery disc creator partition - all made Primary so you can't add anything to what is there aleady (I know as I tried with my HP Mini Netbook!). Instead of letting the installer do it for you, go for the 'something else' method then use the partition editing tool to - Best to click on the 'Install to hard drive' icon from live mode rather than install directly by the way:

1. Create a 'root' file system - create a Primary Partition of 15-20 Gb and format to 'ext4' and mark it as '/'

2. Create an extended Partition, and at the END, create a 'swap area' of 4 Gb - you don't need to state file system type as it does this automatically when you decide to create a 'swap area'

3. Everything at the beginning of the extended Partition, mark as '/home' where all your data will be saved.

Then click on 'Install now' after highlightinig the '/' partition.

When you reboot you should see a Boot Menu (GRUB - GRand Unified Bootloader) - Edit this by pressing the 'E' key and enter:

Code:

acpi=off nomodeset xforcevesa

then press the Enter key to continue booting.

Keep us posted!

Thanks for your reply.

>Did you check the md5sum of the downloaded iso before running from USB to ensure there was no corrupt download?
No, I tried downloading it again at some point but there was no change. As Live runs fine, I have little reason to suspect any problems here. I never checked the md5 of any windows .iso images I ever worked with, which have been quite a lot, but maybe linux is more prone to errors? If you still think it's necessary to check the md5 I'll look into that.

>Do you ever get a 'boot' menu?
If you mean the one that lets me choose between booting into Live or installing directly (and some other options) then yes.
If you mean a boot menu after a failed install, tbh I haven't checked for lack of expectation of such.

>Have you deleted all hidden partitions as well on this machine?
With the amount of complete erasures, formats partition deletions and recreations I've done over the years this drive is pretty much sterile of anything HP. The "something else" method is the only one I've used.
I made a 25GB root, 4GB swap and what's left over of the 200GB drive became /home, in that order. Does the swap partition need to be at the end?

I do not get the chance to reboot. The installation goed from "almost finished copying files" to a black screen in which my cursor, curiously enough, can still be moved but the system otherwise seems to ignore any other input. After giving it a while, just to be sure, I forcefully turned off the system by holding the power button for five seconds.

EDIT: checked for GRUB boot menu - I don't get it. There is only a blinking cursor, implying no OS was found on my drive to boot into.

Ahh, right - if you are using the stock Zorin 9 then it DOES take forever - forgot about the black screen that takes ages to come back to life! There has been plenty of discussion as to where the 'swap area' goes - on Ubuntu and other derivatives apart from Zorin I noticed that 'auto' install on a machine with no other OS always puts swap at the end - that is why I do it that way but it should still work your way.

As to the GRUB - my bad - forgot you did not have a clean install.

As regards md5sum it is just good practice - also only use Firefox or Opera to download and DON'T use any Accelerator Manager!

If you have another machine with Linux on it, use MultiSystem that I posted here:

viewtopic.php?f=4&t=8933&hilit=+Multisystem#p43425

Hi,

when booting the live disk, press the "Tab" key when you see the Zorin menu, then type "nomodeset" and enter twice, then it should boot oky!.

See also:

http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=1613132

Did you follow this advice?:

viewtopic.php?f=5&t=4771

So you're saying the black screen is normally supposed to take a while?

In any case, I checked md5 and it seems to be fine. I used chrome.

It can take a while for the system to boot in live mode even on a fast PC!.

Did you solve your problem?.

No I dont have any trouble booting into Live, it's just that the installer starts tripping at various points depending on which Live USB maker I use... I cant even reach the black screen anymore right now. Either the installer itself crashes or it fails to mount the USB drive (while already in live) or it hangs at copying files. There is no consistency to any of this. I'm just following walkthroughs and on-screen instructions here. This is kind of ridiculous if I'm honest, I'm trying to give Linux a legitimate chance here and it doesn't seem to want to be loved.

EDIT: Let's begin at the beginning.

>I downloaded the Zorin 64bit Core 9.1 ISO from sourceforge through the main Zorin site.
>I confirmed the md5sum to be correct
>I formatted my 8GB USB drive to FAT32 in Windows Disk Management
>I run UNetbootin and have it write the ISO to the USB drive to be bootable
>I plug the drive into the laptop
>I turn it on and press F9 to select the boot menu
>I point it to the USB drive and boot from that
>The UNetbootin menu comes up
>I select Try Zorin OS without installing
>After booting I go into Preferences > Disks and delete all partitions created during the last failure
>I run the installer from the desktop shortcut
>I select the preferred language, log in to WiFi, tell it to download updates while installing
>I go for the Something Else option to create partitions manually
>25GB becomes /
>4GB becomes swap area
>171GB (the rest) becomes /home
>Device for boot loader installation is set to ATA [serial number] (200.0GB), not to any of the sda#, although I have tried this as well at some points.
>I give it my location, keyboard and account details
>It starts the welcome video and says it is "almost finished copying files".
>for a while it's responsive, but at some point the mouse cursor disappears and the system hangs

I've managed to get past this once out of a few dozen tries by now, and I dont recall doing anything fundamentally different. I feel more like I'm trying to perform a dark magic ritual than installing a computer.

I should buy some incense and candles.

EDIT2: It just went black after copying files again. This attempt was identical to most previous attempts. It doesn't show anything at all. I'm going to leave it like this for a while.

[dark prayers intensify]

OK, see if decalman's text install method works for you:

viewtopic.php?f=4&t=8004&p=38810&hilit=text+based+install#p38714

Ah, I'll leave it running the way it is now for an hour or so just to be sure but I'm sure I'll need to give that a try, thanks.

Hi,

did you format the USB stick fully?:

viewtopic.php?f=5&t=4771

Ah, it looks like I just did it.

I did it as previously posted, but I decided to give nomodeset another try.

It took three identical attempts with varying results, the latter obviously being the successful one. Why three identical attempts can give different results I cannot say. This is the first time that Einstein's quote on insanity hasn't rang true for me.

Full method below in case other users ever encounter the same issue. Differences from previous method marked in red.

>I downloaded the Zorin 64bit Core 9.1 ISO from sourceforge through the main Zorin site.
>I confirmed the md5sum to be correct
>I formatted my 8GB USB drive to FAT32 in Windows Disk Management
>I run UNetbootin and have it write the ISO to the USB drive to be bootable
>I plug the drive into the laptop
>I turn it on and press F9 to select the boot menu
>I point it to the USB drive and boot from that
>The UNetbootin menu comes up
>I move down in the menu to "Try Zorin OS without installing" and press Tab to edit the option
>I add a " nomodeset" to the line of code that appears (including the space after the opening quote but obviously not the quotation marks themselves)
>After booting I go into Preferences > Disks and delete all partitions created during the last failure
>I run the installer from the desktop shortcut
>I select the preferred language, log in to WiFi, tell it to download updates while installing
>I go for the Something Else option to create partitions manually
>25GB becomes /
>4GB becomes swap area
>171GB (the rest) becomes /home
>Device for boot loader installation is set to ATA [serial number] (200.0GB), not to any of the sda#, although I have tried this as well at some points.
>I give it my location, keyboard and account details
>It starts the welcome video and says it is "almost finished copying files".
>for a while it's responsive, but at some point the mouse cursor disappears and the system hangs
>When the installation fails, Istart again from right after where I plugged the USB drive in the laptop

I had tried this before but I guess I just needed to try again until it worked. Praise Satan And thank you all for your generous help and support!