[ubuntu-uk] Lenovo N500 will not load Ubuntu

[Rob Beard]

On 03/08/10 11:50, Rowan Berkeley wrote:
> On Tue, 3 Aug 2010 10:04:33 +0100, John Stevenson <john at jr0cket.com
> <mailto:john at jr0cket.com>>
> wrote:
>
>  >On 3 August 2010 10:00, Rowan <rowan.berkeley at gmail.com
> <mailto:rowan.berkeley at gmail.com>> wrote:
>  >> Hello again,
>  >> I have figured out how to load from the Live CD; I had to follow a
>  >> slightly unfamiliar sequence, using Lenovo's own  BIOS; I couldn't see
>  >> how to do it from GRUB. So now I am installing !0.04 from scratch,
>  >> meaning I lose all my user files, but this is OK because I have them all
>  >> backed up on an external hard drive.> --
>  >
>  > Hello Rowan,
>  > I was thinking of getting a Lenovo, can you let me know what the
> problem was
>  > with loading the Live CD. Thank you. John Stevenson
>
> I just couldn't find an option inside GRUB for loading from the Live CD,
> never having done it before, but it's probably quite obvious. Anyway,
> the Lenovo machines have an option built in for entering their BIOS at
> start-up, and it is quite easy to do from there, by just telling it to
> load from "other DD" instead of HD", which is done by using the down
> button and moving to the second option on the BIOS menu, so it could
> hardly be simpler. I am now back on my Lenovo, having installed 10.04 on it.
>

I believe there isn't an option in Grub by default, at least I've never 
seen it.  That's not to say it isn't possible.

Generally the idea is you set your machine to boot from another device 
other than the hard drive.  On a lot of machines these days it can be 
done as a temporary option (say only once) by pressing one of the F keys 
on the BIOS screen.  IIRC on IBM's (and Dells) the key you need to press 
is the F12 key, it will then come up with a boot selection menu where 
you can select the device to boot from (CD, USB, Network etc if 
supported).  If you haven't got a Dell or IBM machine it's still worth 
trying the F12 key, although there could be other key combinations (I've 
seen ESC and F8 used).  Usually a message will flash up telling you what 
key to press.

Failing that as you mention you can set it in the BIOS anyway (and just 
about all machines manufactured since the late 90's support booting from 
CD at least).

If you have a really obscure or old machine and happen to have an 
internal floppy drive you could also try Smart Boot Manager.  There's 
some details on it here:

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

Rob