help to install ubuntu

[Robert E. Butts]

On Sun, 2006-07-23 at 13:00 +0100, appalaraju kalidindi wrote:
> Hello
> I got Ubuntu CD shipped by them and tried to install. But I am able to
> proceed up to step no. 5/6 where I chose manual editing of partitions.
> Box shows to allocate disc space. After that nothing happens. I see
> that the cd light is blinking and still nothing happens for a long
> time. Frustrated, I reboot the system to windows.
> I have 256mb ram, 2400AMD and 40gb hard disc with CDEF drives. C has
> WinXP and D has Win98. I wanted to install Ubuntu on E by partitioning
> with "Partition Magic" and provided sufficent space as recommended.
> I fail to understand why I am unable to proceed with the installation.
> Can somebody help me please. 
> Thank you in advance
> 
> ______________________________________________________________________
It takes awhile sometimes for partitioning to finish.  If there was disk
activity, the installer might still have been working.  Your problem
might also be a hardware issue, specifically, GParted can't read your
drive.  I've had this problem with other versions of Linux using
Qtparted.

One suggestion you might try is to delete the E drive you just created -
I am assuming it is blank because that's where Ubuntu was going to be
installed.  At the partitioning step, choose Automatic, and let Ubuntu
install into the unallocated space.  

If you are going to manually partition, it would help to know a bit more
about your hard drive, and to have a bit more information than "nothing
happens" ..  Does the monitor go black?  If not, is there a progress bar
on screen?  Are there any errors or warning messages that appear?  Can
you see the GParted window?  Is your disk activity light (not the CD
light) blinking?  When you created the drive with Partition Magic, did
you create a swap file as well?  What kind of filesystem:  ext2, ext3,
or Reiser?