Ubuntu upgrade disaster with Zorin 6 Lite

Hiya, folks! I have an old Dell Dimension C610 laptop that I was just given recently. I upgraded it to a full 1GB of RAM and a 160GB hard drive, and it performs quite respectably from a hardware standpoint. Since Microsoft is about to begin phasing out technical support for Windows XP, I decided to install Zorin OS 6. My first problem was that the laptop only has a CD-ROM reader drive. (A DVD drive for this beast costs around $70 USD on eBay!) This forced me to install Zorin OS6 Lite, instead of the full version. Even so, things went well for a few weeks. I downloaded the inevitable upgrades as they came down the chute, so to speak. Things seemed to continue going well.

Then came the day when I was notified that version 12.10 of Ubuntu was available to download. At that point, I made the critical mistake of trying to download the upgrade using a damaged 3G mobile broadband dongle. As it turned out, some of the critical modules either did not get downloaded at all (most likely due to too much traffic) or somehow got messed up when they did download. To make a long story short, the file system apparently got so messed up that I was unable to recover any data on my hard drive! (Nothing critical, you understand; nothing that I did not alreadyhave on my desktop. Even so, it was aggravating, to say the least!) I repeatedly tried erasing the hard drive and reinstalling Zorin OS 6 Lite from my original CD. In every case, however, I got an error message saying something like "error: Out of disk," and the GRUB Rescue prompt. Finally, I went to the extreme of performing a low-level format on the laptop's hard drive, writing the whole thing to binary zeroes. That's where it stands now. As a result of this incident, I am actually a little afraid to try installing Zorin OS Lite again, although I will probably have to do so. If I do, though, I will NOT upgrade to Ubuntu 12.10--at least, not any time soon! I'm not quite sure how to do so, but somebody needs to let Canonical know about this so they can at least TRY to correct it! Any advice or suggestions would be welcome! Thanks!

Hi.
First of all, if I am not mistaken, zorin 6 Lite is based on ubuntu 11.10.
Secondly, unlike ubuntu, with Zorin you cannot upgrade from one version to another. You have to perform clean installations. This is why you need to set to "never" the release upgrades in your update manager (so you only get updates about your specific version).

Thirdly, even if you have only a CD drive, you can install the Zorin 6 core version by creating and using a live USB. Not to worry if your Bios does not support usb-booting. I have created a guide here: viewtopic.php?f=6&t=2113
To create a live USB you can use this guide/software http://www.pendrivelinux.com/universal- ... -as-1-2-3/

So my advise would be the following:
-You can try out creating a live USB of zorin6 core version (based on ubuntu 12.04) and see if all works fine with your laptop. If you are satisfied you can proceed in installing same. The same "release-upgrade" rule applies for Zorin 6 core as well. It must be set to "never".
-You can re-intall Zorin6 Lite (but again set to "never" the "release-upgrades".

Hi,

see also "Broken Upgrade" here:

viewtopic.php?f=6&t=2247

Regards Wolfman

Glad I read this. Out of curiosity the other evening I changed mine from NEVER to LET ME KNOW, and this evening checking for UPDATES, was offered the Ubuntu 12.10 update, which now I am using Zorin Lite. Started to say YES twice, canceling both times, and then thought better of it, going back in and changing it back to NEVER, not wanting to lose my Zorin LITE, which works well on this 900 MHz netbook. Did not want to all of a sudden see Ubuntu in its' place. I have seen both and personally prefer Zorin. Thank goodness for this thread. I might have opened up quite a nasty bucket of worms . In Zorin lite, they shouldn't even allow you to be able to change that from NEVER then.