Unable to install 9.10 Desktop on SATA drive

[kphill]

I am new to Ubuntu although I have used another Linux version for several years. I wanted to try Ubuntu after a couple of people recommended it to me.

I am trying to install 9.10 Desktop, i386, on a 500GB SATA drive. The computer uses AMD dual-core processors. I can't remember the type of motherboard off-hand; it might be an Abit. The drive has been zero-filled from previous installations of other operating systems. (I have also tried installing the 64-bit version. When I try this, I get a black screen with the cursor blinking in the top left-hand corner for several minutes before the screen goes blank. In this situation, the harddrive light stays lit continuously as if the drive is stuck.)

When I boot the computer I get the screen to choose the language. Then I get the screen for the various options (run without changing the computer, install, etc.). When I hit "Install", I get a screen with the Ubuntu logo in white which "pulses". After a few minutes of this the screen goes completely blank and there is no more activity. I have tried choosing other options without success.

I just wondered if there were any known issues with installing Ubuntu on SATA drives or if this is being caused by some other issue.

Thanks very much.

[goldshirt9]

i had a similar problem.
i couldn't install unless i ran the live cd and then booted from the desktop option.
no idea why but it worked for me.
i have similar spec to you so try that.

if you cannot run into the live desktop then burn at a slower rate

[oldfred]

First does BIOS see the drive? One user said he did not have it on, but I did not know there was such a setting, but it could be just setting it to IDE. The new versions seem to follow BIOS settings more where older versions and windows may have ignored them and worked anyway.

[quadproc]

...
I just wondered if there were any known issues with installing Ubuntu on SATA drives or if this is being caused by some other issue.

Thanks very much.

The system that I am using right now is running Ubuntu 9.10 with three internal SATA drives and sometimes one external eSATA drive. Additionally, this system has a "catchall" IO device that uses SATA to communicate with the mother board. The only problem that I have had was with a Buffalo external drive which doesn't work on its SATA port but that problem was with that hardware; I switched to a generic USB/eSATA housing and a WD disk(and scrapped the Buffalo hardware) and have had no problems with the eSATA since then.

Edit: The white Ubuntu logo which fades brighter and dimmer is normal. This lasts for a few seconds on this system and then the startup proceeds.

I have read of similar problems to yours so searching the web for your system's symptoms might yield some useful data.

quadproc

[kphill]

Some new information: I burned new disks using the slowest speed I could. I still cannot install nor can I run it as a Live CD (the same disk *will* run as Live CD on my laptop which uses Windows XP and is an Intel system). The BIOS of the computer on which I have been attempting to load Ubuntu has settings for "Auto" detection of harddrives or "None". I have tried both ways and neither work. Yes, the BIOS does see the harddrive but it does apparently list it as IDE. It sounds as if this may be a BIOS issue or hardware incompatibility. I had trouble with newer versions of Fedora and finally had to set the BIOS to *not* automatically detect the harddrive. Older versions (before 10) ran fine.