12.10 Partitioned Install, No Windows OS

Three days ago, my laptop fell. It was still running and didn't think of anything. Next morning, it was shut off. When I tried to boot it up, Windows 7 gave me this:

Quote:

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A disk read error occurred Press Ctrl + Alt + Del to restart.

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Around in circles I went, until I decided to open her up to make sure everything was plugged in. Sure enough, same message. So, my friend told me to install Ubuntu side-by-side to see if I can fix it.

When I went to install it, it would fail and give me a message, something about "third party." I didn't write it down.

So I ran the Disk SMART Tests and it would tell me it would fail, but the threshold was not exceeded. So I now just ran GSmartControl, which it tells me that my HDD is fine, but has this under Attributes:

Quote:

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SMART Attributes Data Structure revision number: 16
Vendor Specific SMART Attributes with Thresholds:
ID# ATTRIBUTE_NAME FLAG VALUE WORST THRESH TYPE UPDATED WHEN_FAILED RAW_VALUE
1 Raw_Read_Error_Rate 0x000b 100 100 050 Pre-fail Always - 0
2 Throughput_Performance 0x0005 100 100 050 Pre-fail Offline - 0
3 Spin_Up_Time 0x0027 100 100 001 Pre-fail Always - 805
4 Start_Stop_Count 0x0032 100 100 000 Old_age Always - 3123
5 Reallocated_Sector_Ct 0x0033 100 100 050 Pre-fail Always - 69
7 Seek_Error_Rate 0x000b 100 100 050 Pre-fail Always - 0
8 Seek_Time_Performance 0x0005 100 100 050 Pre-fail Offline - 0
9 Power_On_Hours 0x0032 065 065 000 Old_age Always - 14032
10 Spin_Retry_Count 0x0033 162 100 030 Pre-fail Always - 0
12 Power_Cycle_Count 0x0032 100 100 000 Old_age Always - 2413
191 G-Sense_Error_Rate 0x0032 100 100 000 Old_age Always - 2374
192 Power-Off_Retract_Count 0x0032 100 100 000 Old_age Always - 143
193 Load_Cycle_Count 0x0032 090 090 000 Old_age Always - 101516
194 Temperature_Celsius 0x0022 100 100 000 Old_age Always - 41 (Min/Max 8/53)
196 Reallocated_Event_Count 0x0032 100 100 000 Old_age Always - 65
197 Current_Pending_Sector 0x0032 100 100 000 Old_age Always - 184
198 Offline_Uncorrectable 0x0030 100 100 000 Old_age Offline - 0
199 UDMA_CRC_Error_Count 0x0032 200 253 000 Old_age Always - 0
220 Disk_Shift 0x0002 100 100 000 Old_age Always - 19
222 Loaded_Hours 0x0032 075 075 000 Old_age Always - 10288
223 Load_Retry_Count 0x0032 100 100 000 Old_age Always - 0
224 Load_Friction 0x0022 100 100 000 Old_age Always - 0
226 Load-in_Time 0x0026 100 100 000 Old_age Always - 357
240 Head_Flying_Hours 0x0001 100 100 001 Pre-fail Offline - 0

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It specifically has a problem with ID # 5, 196, 197.

I know I have to get a new one, as this one is 7 years old, but i don't have the cash. I just need this one to last for another 2 months, at most.

So now, Windows has been wiped off of my hard drive and what I would like to do is just partition a portion of the hard drive to Ubuntu.

I was thinking 30gb Ubuntu, 10gb Swap (I would mark it as /swap, rest (190gb left) as storage. Reason being is to avoid the broken sectors, if I can pin it down, unless I can repair those sections in "Try It" mode.

I know that NTFS and FAT32 Offer bad sector marking, but, I am not sure that EXT FS be it 3 or 4 offer the bad sector marking. The easiest way to deal with this would be to look around for a cheap 80GB Laptop drive to run ubuntu on. A used one would be super cheap, like, less than $20 if you find a deal. New the smaller ones aren't that expensive either. But, I don't know of a way to mark bad sectors in the EXT filesystem, which, is appearently at the beginning of the disk, and if it is where the MBR is located, the disk may be useless anyways. This is from experience as a technician not necessarily a linux user, as I have not that much linux experience, only about 5 years or so.

No harm trying. But anything slightly important I would immediately backup.

I always install in 25GB / (root) partitions and have all data in other data partitions.
If you have over 3GB of RAM use the 64bit version if a 64 bit system. And if over 3GB of RAM you do not need much swap. It will be swap not /swap (only exception as not really a mounted file system - its unformulated & just used).

I also have a full install in my 16GB flash drive used more as a install test on my laptop. Flash drives have dropped a lot in price lately.

alternatively! you could boot the disc in try it mode, download Wattos (based on ubuntu) or Antix (based on debian and lightest) which would be light.

install Unetbootin, then use it to create a bootable usb stick with persistence. this means you would have a live usb stick instead of a dvd, it would save your settings.

it could be you temporary system. but dont over-do the multitasking etc if you have small RAM.