New installation of ubuntu 12.04.2 server edition will not boot from hard disk

[Andrew]

On Mon, 2013-10-21 at 21:57 +0100, Liam Proven wrote:
> On 21 October 2013 21:02, Andrew <andy.allen at virgin.net> wrote:
> > /dev/sda5 lvm2 37.01 GiB
> 
> 
> That's a possible problem.
> 
> You don't need LVM on a desktop, I would argue, but if you do want it,
> partition the whole drive with LVM, not just one (logical) partition
> inside an extended partition.
> 
> Looking at this review (by a former colleague of mine, as it happens):
> http://www.zdnet.com/dell-dimension-4300-3010000047/
> 
> ... The 40GB drive you are using is the machine's original drive. That
> is a 12Y old PC, very low-spec by modern standards, and that's a very
> small hard disk.
> 
Absolutely, but I just want to use it as a localhost server so hope the
spec will cope.

> For such a small, low-spec PC, I think full Ubuntu is going to be a
> bit too much for it, especially if it only has its original 256MB of
> RAM. Ubuntu Server should fit but it will still struggle a little.
> 
OK, that's noted

> I would also advise that you just use a single disk partition - make
> the whole drive sda1, formatted ext3 (you don't need ext4 on such a
> small drive). After installation, do:
> 
> apt-get install swapspace -y
> 
> This configures the kernel to create a swap *file* in /var and it will
> only use it if it needs the room.
> 
> If you don't want to do that, just go for 2 partitions: root and swap.
> Make /dev/sda1 the root, and just leave 4x your physical RAM
> unallocated at the end and make that your swap partition on /dev/sda5.
> 
> Well, that's how I'd do it, anyway. :¬)
> 
> 
Many thanks for that advice - I've installed several editions of ubuntu
from 9.04 onwards and never had this problem before so it's taken me by
surprise - I've generally left the installer to do the partitioning,
apart from using gparted when I wanted dual-boot. Yes, also good point
about fd0 probably being the floppy (compdoc) but no idea why ubuntu is
complaining about that!

Anyway I'll try again following the instructions above - thanks.
> -- 
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