10.04 installation on clean disc

[summerley]

Hi, small problem. I am a long-time, satified Ubuntu user and have been using various versions alongside Windows for many years with no problems. My machine has 2 discs and I have tried to keep them separate, (for well-known reasons!!) but over time both discs have become choked with old OS versions/ programmes/data,etc. so I decided to do a complete clear out and start again with a clean system.
The Wndows disc (this) now has Windows 7 on it and working well. It loaded with no problems by upgrading from an old copy of XP and among the applications, I have a copy of Acronis Disc Director installed. This "sees" the second disc and so I used it to delete everything on that, leaving it "unallocated". I then attempted to install 10.04 LTS on it, using a CD. (Boot Sequence modified to do this by accessing BIOS during Setup). No success at all. Lots of error messages....SQUASHFS mainly, but others. Tried various options in Acronis, such as formatting to 4kb clusters : setting whole volume (approx 40GB) to "primary"; converting whole volume to "ext3" file system etc. etc. No success with anything. Ubuntu installations crashes big-time
Anybody got any ideas how I can get Ubuntu onto this second disc (with option to Windows during start-up sequence) ???

[gordintoronto]

When you boot the CD, one of the options is to check the CD. Have you done this? It sounds like you have a bad download or a bad burn.

Could you jot down the exact contents of the first error message, and go from there?

[YesWeCan]

Yes, run "check disc" in the live CD menu. This runs an integrity check of the CD.

BTW it should not matter what the disk's partitions and formats are. The Ubuntu installer will simply overwrite them.
Make absolutely sure the installer puts the Grub boot code on the right disk, which I gather is the Ubuntu disk. If in doubt, disconnect the Windows disk while you install Ubuntu. Afterwards and after reconnecting the Windows disk, boot Ubuntu and run
sudo update-grub
to add Windows to the Grub menu.

[mörgæs]

Installing from USB is also worth trying.

[summerley]

thanks for comments guys. Quite helpful. Rather than try to sort out the 10.04 CD, I tried another one that I had handy.........9.04 Jaunty Jackanapes.... This behaved itself and installed easily, BUT ALONGSIDE WINDOWS 7 !!!! Whatever I do with the BIOS, it always reverts to the Windows disc. It does not want to know about the unallocated disc earmarked for UBUNTU.

[summerley]

.........SORRY, FINGER TROUBLE !!!
To continue, it looks as if my original 10.04 disc was corrupted and 9.04 is OK However, I need some way to force it to install on the unallocated Ubuntu disc rather than the windows one it seems to prefer. It is suggested that I disconnect Windows whilst trying to install on this second disc. How do I do that ?

[Blasphemist]

Follow the instructions on this link for the "something else" option. That will allow you to choose the disk to install to. http://members.iinet.net.au/~herman546/index.html

[YesWeCan]

It is suggested that I disconnect Windows whilst trying to install on this second disc. How do I do that ?
I don't know what hardware you have. If you have a desktop/tower PC just pull the power plug out from the Windows disk. If you have a loptop it is more complicated because you have to unscrew the cover and remove the disk drive; in this case follow Blasphemist's link. It is not necessary to disconnect but is a convenience as the installer is a little hard to figure out if you are new to it; but it is not a convenience if it is tricky to do.

[summerley]

Problem solved !!
Thanks for all the help. The steer from Blasphemist was really helpful by putting me into touch with herman546 in Australia. The detailed walk-through on manual partitioning was invaluable. Using that, I was eventually able to install an old copy of 9.04 on the second hard drive and then upgrade via 9.10 to 10,04. Funnily enough, neither 10.4 or 11.04 would install from disc.....hence having to go back 2 years.

[Blasphemist]

Great to hear! Herman's site is really good. You should mark this thread solved now.