installation problem

[Mark Haney]

Francesco B wrote:
> Hello!
>    I am completely new to this list and to Ubuntu and hope that I can get some assistance. 
>    I wish to migrate from Vista (uuuugh!) to Linux and I received the installation disc for Ubuntu 8.04.1. I followed the instructions to install it inside Windows 


and rebooted. I chose to boot with Ubuntu. The screen with the Ubuntu 
logo appeared, but at this point the progress bar kept running without 
results. After a couple of minutes the pc restarted.
>    Attempts to boot with the Ubuntu CD in the drive are completely ignored.
> Any suggestion?
>    My hardware: Dell Inspiron 530 with 4GB RAM and 500 GB Disk.
>    Thank you in advance for any help!
> Sincerely
> 
> Francesco
> UK
> 


It's possible the system's BIOS isn't set to boot from CD.  You need to 
hit F10 at power on (I think it's F10 on DELL boxes) and select the 
'boot' tab.  (or option, Dell mucks with BIOS settings so much it's silly.)

That might get you an option to boot from the CD.

Although, are you sure the CD is bootable?  How did you get the media? 
Download it and burn it?  It's possible the media isn't bootable (but 
not likely).

You can also try hitting ALT+F1 to see if there is a linux console that 
loads that will display boot information for you.  One of the console 
sessions should display dmesg messages only, and usually that's ALT+F10 
or F12.  You can try them all, one of them should work to display the 
errors you are getting.  If you can post that output we can help you.



-- 
Libenter homines id quod volunt credunt -- Caius Julius Caesar


Mark Haney
Sr. Systems Administrator
ERC Broadband
(828) 350-2415

Call (866) ERC-7110 for after hours support