Ultimate 1.9 Freezes on Boot

[Baphomet]

What I was trying to get across with my earlier post, was not that maybe your burner wasn't burning them correctly but also a possibility of the drive not reading your disc correctly. I know it sounds crazy, but I've personally experienced this and it drives you nuts!

Agreed. I'm still wondering about the 80 wire/40 connector cable, too. Talk about being driven nuts...

Another benifit to 1.6/1.7 is that you have/get back control of your xorg.conf file!!!!

Huge (and most excellent) point...

+1

[artifacts]

I recently installed 1.9 on a 2Ghz Celeron machine with 768Mb of ram, without incident. It is still running fine but I gave it to my son.

My primary machine has been a 3Ghz P4 with 2Gb ram, a Realtek Integrated Sound Adapter, Nvidia Gforce 6200OC video card, three 200Gb SATA hard drives and a Plextor 716A DVD Writer. I was running XP MCE and I want to dual boot with Ultimate 1.9, as I did with the other machine.

When ever I boot with the LiveCD and choose Run/Install, I get the bar moving back and forth, for several minutes, and then it freezes. The checksum for the DVD matched the one on the web site. I downloaded and burned the ISO file several times, at 4x, with both my Plextor 716A DVD Writer and an LG DVD Writer using both Nero8 Burning Rom and InfraRecorder. Same result.

After a few minutes of the Freeze, I get a Black screen with White text

Preparing Restricted Drivers
Setting System Clock
Starting Basic Networking
Starting Kernel Event Manager
Loading Hardware Drivers

then I receive6 or 7 lines of text with a path ending with "Abnormal Exit"

Any idea how to debug this problem and get 1.9 installed?

Try this disconnect all sata drives and try to boot the Ultimate 1.9 by itself. Live cd/dvd can run on ram. If it boots then go through process of elimination by try every sata drive by itself to if it boots. Maybe this will help locate the error.

Are you using a pci sata card?

[buschbarber]

Thanks very much for the suggestions. I will try each one.
My PC is an HP Media Center Edition M7060n. You can look up the specs on HP's site. The motherboard has 4 SATA connectors, 3 of which are being used by the hard drives. It has a Plextor 716a DVD writer and a Samsung DVD Ram drive/CD RW, in the drive bays. I also added an LG GSA-E60L External USB DVD Writer thinking that there may be a problem with the Plextor drive. I have tried booting the LiveCD from all three drives. The thing is, I installed Ubuntu successfully, when my Nvidia card was disabled or removed. Ubuntu works fine without the Nvidia card. As soon as I Enable the Nvidia card by switching the default in the BIOS to PCI Video Card, Ubuntu hangs upon booting. Doesn't that rule out the CD/DVD drives as the problem? I removed all the USB connected devices and I even took out the WinTV HD card and disabled the 1394 port and the parallel port. There is nothing else to remove except one or more of the drives. The sound adapter is a Realtek and it is Integrated.

[Baphomet]

Ubuntu works fine without the Nvidia card.

THAT, right there, is pretty much the rub methinks.

I say again, find a return-friendly brick and mortar Computer Haus and try swapping the card.

[DaddyX3]

The thing is, I installed Ubuntu successfully, when my Nvidia card was disabled or removed. Ubuntu works fine without the Nvidia card.

I would have to say, that you are having a hardware issue or the Hardy side of Ultimate Edition is having some issues with dpkg.

Once again, go try 1.6 or 1.7 and /or try a new card.

[buschbarber]

I downloaded and burned a copy of Ultimate 1.7. At a friends bequest, I also downloaded and burned a copy of Mandriva. Since Mandriva was in the DVD drive, I booted the PC with Mandriva,

Now keep in mind that the BIOS setting for the video is set to PCI. One monitor is connected to the 6200 Nvidia PCI card and one monitor is connected to the Integrated Intel video adapter.

I booted the PC twice using the Mandriva CD. In both cases, it ultimately hung with a Black screen and a fixed cursor in the upper left corner of the screen.

I reboot the PC, go into the BIOS, and change the default video setting to Onboard. I save the BIOS settings and reboot the PC with the Mandriva CD. As it boots, everything is displayed on the monitor connected to the Onboard video adapter. When the boot gets to the point where it hung before, the monitor connected to the Onboard video adapter goes dark and Mandriva loads successfully, displaying on the monitor connected to the 6200 Nvidia card.

Mandriva seems to be running fine.

My next step is to try booting Ubuntu 1.7.

With regards to the SATA drives, I will try booting Ubuntu witn the SATA drives disconnected. If that works, the one problem I will have is this: Windows is installed on Drive1 and Ubuntu is installed on Drive 2, Drive 3 has Vista on it. Since the Grub loader is on Drive1, I will always have to have two Drives connected as I do not want to give up Windos just yet.

For testing purposes, however, if the Ubuntu DVD loads OK with all SATA drives disconnected, I can try booting Ubuntu connecting one Drive at a time until I run into the Problem. If I find that the problem is caused by the SATA drives, I can always use the HP Boot Loader to boot off either the Drive with Windows on it or the Drive with Ubuntu on it and not have the Grub Loader on a different drive than Ubuntu is installed on.

[DaddyX3]

I reboot the PC, go into the BIOS, and change the default video setting to Onboard. I save the BIOS settings and reboot the PC with the Mandriva CD. As it boots, everything is displayed on the monitor connected to the Onboard video adapter. When the boot gets to the point where it hung before, the monitor connected to the Onboard video adapter goes dark and Mandriva loads successfully, displaying on the monitor connected to the 6200 Nvidia card.

Why exactly are you doing this again? What doest this prove?
Here is the thing ..... your onboard solution works and your 6200 does not. Why are you keeping your other video card even plugged in to the MB? You should have it disconnected from the PCI slot and definately not hooked up to the monitor while trying to install or even run a live session. Heres the facts: Your onboard works and your PCI slot video card does not. Here is what you should do: Unplug your card from the MB and repeat your steps that you outlined above. If your screen goes black .... you have got some problems. If it stays on - your onboard video works with Ultimate Edition and others of the Debian base Linux derivative.
next test:
Turn off the computer install your 6200 Video card again and plug one monitor into it and disconnect you monitor from the onboard video output, reset the BIOS to onboard video "off" - save to CMOS and exit (F10 usually).
What does this step do for you? This will be your answer to weather or not your card is going to be happy with Ultimate Edition. If you card still throws fits at you, then you have a couple of choises:
1. Update your BIOS firmware to the latest (not recommended to the inexperienced)
2. Get a new card and see if it works.

Here is what we do know:
1. You install discs are fine if you are making it past the black screen
2. Onboard graphics works
3. Nvidia 6200 does not work while your monitor is also plugged into the onboard output for video (so un-plug it and try it again!)

Hopefully this will get you on the trouble-shooting path that needs to be taken here to properly diagnose your problems. These steps cannot be fudged in any way, or you screw up the process.

[Baphomet]

Why exactly are you doing this again? What doest this prove?

I have to agree.

If you insist on down the same path, over and over, you're going to keep arriving at the same location.

[buschbarber]

Let me explain!!! I retired from Kodak after 34 years. The last 20 years I spent in IT. I now enjoy building and flying my model aircraft, teaching others how to fly, helping my friends with their computer problems, in this case, exploring Linux

I am an avid Radio Control Model Aircraft builder, flyer, and competitor. My models are not TOYS. I have a turbine jet that can reach speeds of 250mph. I have a Windows based RC Flight Simulator that I can connect my RC Transmitter to and work on improving my flying skills. With my Nvidia 6200, I can connect my PC to my 50" HDTV, which makes my flying experience even more realistic.

I only have one PC, so for now, I need to Dual Boot between Windows and Linux. Since up to now, I could not boot both Windows and Linux, using my Nvidia card, I found it easier to connect one monitor to the Nvidia card and one monitor to the Onboard Intel adapter. Since I had to reboot to switch back to Windows anyway, it was easier to just pop into the BIOS and switch the default for the video adapters.

I have a friend who also as been involved in IT for many years and is still employed in that field. He has extensive knowledge of Linux and in fact was one of the reasons I chose Ultimate. While describing the problems I have been having, he suggested I try Mandriva, because he was able to get around a problem he had, with Ultimate, on one of his PC's.

As it turns out, I set the PC BIOS video default to Onboard, and I booted the Mandriva LiveCD. During the boot process, it automatically switched from the Intel adapter to the Nvidia adapter and loaded the Nvidia drivers. I subsequently installed it on my hard drive. I can now run either Mandriva or Windows and still use the Nvidia card for both OS's, without and Freeze Ups.

My IT friend tells me that If I can do this with Mandriva, I should be able to do this with Ultimate, after we discover what is causing the incompatibility.

[buschbarber]

Interestingly enough, when I reboot and choose XP Media Center Edition off the Grub menu, Windows starts loading, displays it's Splash Screen on the monitor connected to the Onboard Intel adapter and then switches to the monitor connected to the Nvidia card, to display the Windows login screen, just like Mandriva.

I tried Ultimate 1.7, but it still will not boot when the Nvidia card is set as the default in the BIOS of the PC.