(SOLVED) Difficulty Installing Zorin 9 OS Core

Ok. I was putting off this question for fear of showing my ignorance. Now that I have overcome my fear...

... I have an Acer Aspire One netbook with 8 GB SS HD. It had Windows XP on it which was very slow and worthless since it took up almost all of the HD. There is a storage expansion slot which I use with another 8 GB. I downloaded both UNetbootin and the lite version of Zorin 9 onto my desktop computer. Using UNetbootin I copied the OS onto a thumb drive. I then installed the thumb drive into my Netbook and turned it on.

Life is good. Runs like a charm.

Getting more ambitious I have a Sony VAIO with VISTA Home Premium SP2 on it. It always ran slow with a Dual-Core 1.6 GHz Pentium with only 1 GB of RAM in it. I tried to use a thumb drive to install Zorin 9 OS Core. Nothing. No prompt, no nothing. The computer just sat there on start up... then after a longer delay than usual Windows would open.

I created a boot DVD from the files on the thumb drive and included the packed ISO for luck.

Whether with the thumb drive or the DVD I get an error Missing operating system.

So I am at a loss. What am I doing wrong?

On machine start up I hit the F2 key to get into the BIOS Setup Utility. I moved the Boot priority of the USB Flash drive up to the number 1 slot, enabled it to boot and saved the configuration.

We'll see if that works.

I tried booting the computer as stated earlier with my thumb drive. I tried to boot with and install Zorin 9 OS Core with no success.

As I said before I was able to get my Notebook to boot and install with Zorin 9 OS Lite so I tried it on my laptop. No such luck.

Let's review:
Zorin 9 OS Core
Thumb drive installation failed
DVD installation came up with an error Missing operating system
Found settings in BIOS and changed to allow thumb drive installation and increase to the number 1 slot.
Tried to install the Lite version which was successful on another machine and the Windows blew right past it as if it weren't there.

I checked the USB port by viewing the files on the thumb drive in the file manager (Windows Explorer)

Anyone out there got any ideas what I am missing or don't get?

Going back into BIOS I decided to remove the internal hard drive for boot up purposes and was able to install Zorin 9 OS Lite.

The thumb drive with Zorin 9 OS Core was not recognized and the Missing operating system error showed up again.

For now I am going to assume the thumb drive with Core is corrupted. I will give it another go tomorrow after I reset the BIOS.

You stated 'Missing Operating System' on DVD - are you sure you did not burn the .iso image to the DVD instead of creating a Bootable Live DVD? The fact you get missing operating system a lot gives the suspicion of a failing hard drive!

Hi,

did you burn the ISO disk at the slowest possible speed?. Did you FULLY FORMAT the USB stick prior to using Unetbootin?:

viewtopic.php?f=5&t=4771

See also:

https://help.ubuntu.com/community/BurningIsoHowto

viewtopic.php?f=6&t=7171&p=34209#p34209

Thanks for posting back.

Swarfendor:
I actually tried both methods or I should say I think I tried both methods. Anyway now I have some new coasters. HD is good with the exception of one bad sector.

Wolfman:
I did burn at slowest speed and the USB stick was already in use (not new). Since the one stick with Lite on it was fine, I may wipe it and install the Core version of OS9. Thanks for the links I will look at them.
==============
I will look more closely at the other possible issues more closely in a few days. It's spring break here even though I am retired. Got teachers in the family.

Thanks again!

Wolfman:

I read your links and found them helpful. A new day, a new perspective.

I burned a new DVD and the Core install of Zorin 9 OS is now running on my Sony VAIO Laptop.

Even in retirement I feel like a kid discovering new stuff. I can hardly contain myself.

If the install is small enough I may put it on my Aspire One Netbook (mentioned above) also.

Thank you very much for those links, but most of all the time to post.

Now onto WIFI RADAR.

Hi Bob,

don't put Core on your netbook, use Lite!.

It is possible to put Core on a netbook but it will run a tad slow and you have to 'disable' most things in Compiz Config - you may also want to ditch LibreOffice and install GnomeOffice instead - Abi Word and Calc (word processor and Spreadshet that is a lot less memory hungry than LibreOffice. It would mean 'messing' about a bit - that is what I like to do - 'Tinker' - and no reference to 'Parallels' the movie! - What a poor ending - hope there is a sequel!

In Conclusion:

I followed all advice and appreciate the help of Wolfman and Swarfendor. Thanks very much.

I'm a little bit timid to admit that since I don't burn CD/DVDs all that often that I didn't understand the term "image burn" or even how to do it. Copy I get, Image not so much. Now I do. Thanks.

A couple of mistakes on my part.

1) I copied and pasted from the thumb drive to the place for files to burn the disk. I figure there were hidden files which didn't copy over and that is probably why I had that error message Missing operating system when using the disk drive to install.

2) I have a flaky USB port so when I tried to install that way I got the same error.

I was finally able to image the OS Core onto a DVD and install it on my Sony laptop with the help of you guys.

I was impressed that both the Core and Lite OS automatically recognised my home WIFI and connecting was very easy. I was also impressed that the Core OS recognised my printer wireless setup and connected with no problems. The Lite OS on my Netbook did not see the printer setup. I will go to the appropriate forum to seek out help there.

Thanks for your help. I am still pretty pumped about recovering these computers.

Since I am retired and been looking for something to do, I am going to contact the local school system and see if there is anything I can do to help under privileged kids get usable laptops for their school work. I am assuming Zorin supports this effort since they have an educational OS available on their website.

Nice one Bob,

now you have some time on your hands as you are retired, you can spend some time reading through the guides:

Update:

viewtopic.php?f=5&t=2247

Post install for core and Lite:

viewtopic.php?f=5&t=2054

viewtopic.php?f=5&t=4835

Happy Easter!.

Idjit BoB wrote:In Conclusion:

I followed all advice and appreciate the help of Wolfman and Swarfendor. Thanks very much.

I'm a little bit timid to admit that since I don't burn CD/DVDs all that often that I didn't understand the term "image burn" or even how to do it. Copy I get, Image not so much. Now I do. Thanks.

A couple of mistakes on my part.

1) I copied and pasted from the thumb drive to the place for files to burn the disk. I figure there were hidden files which didn't copy over and that is probably why I had that error message Missing operating system when using the disk drive to install.

2) I have a flaky USB port so when I tried to install that way I got the same error.

I was finally able to image the OS Core onto a DVD and install it on my Sony laptop with the help of you guys.

I was impressed that both the Core and Lite OS automatically recognised my home WIFI and connecting was very easy. I was also impressed that the Core OS recognised my printer wireless setup and connected with no problems. The Lite OS on my Netbook did not see the printer setup. I will go to the appropriate forum to seek out help there.

Thanks for your help. I am still pretty pumped about recovering these computers.

Since I am retired and been looking for something to do, I am going to contact the local school system and see if there is anything I can do to help under privileged kids get usable laptops for their school work. I am assuming Zorin supports this effort since they have an educational OS available on their website.

You could try and convince the school to do a complete switch!:

viewtopic.php?f=3&t=7474

You could try and convince the school to do a complete switch!:

viewtopic.php?f=3&t=7474

I used to think I could multi-task pretty well. I then realized people don't run on parallel processors. What you propose is a future consideration, but for now it is one step at a time.

Thanks