GryphElyse
July 13th, 2008, 06:45 AM
Hello,
I'm brand-new to Linux and it seems as if the computer gods are determined to keep me from ever using it. Here is my sad story.
I have a friend who convinced me to try it out. The first burn try of the Live CD was a failure - "I/O Error: cannot read from boot disk." I assumed it was just a burning problem and there had been an error somewhere. I burned the second LiveCD attempt in InfraRecorder and managed to get the Live environment started up, played with it, decided to install. And trying to burn a live disk for Kubuntu.... Twenty disks in my trash bin, all with either "I/O Error: cannot read from boot disk" when click "install", "try", or "integrity check"; or, if it managed to load ANYTHING past that splash screen, a sudden cascade of error lines all reading "buffer I/O error on device sr0, logical block [insert large number]".
The same happens with a Ubuntu 6.04 and 7.10; and now even my regular 8.04 disk that worked before is now malfunctioning in the same way. Either it is on the slider bar loading screen and suddenly freezes with the Caps and Scroll Lock lights flashing, or - once, ONCE, oh such blooming hope I had till it was shattered - I managed to get into "Install" and it froze right after Date&Time, not a kernel panic but rather another buffer I/O error. I know this because I was able to click "cancel" and right before everything went black, I saw that familiar cascading screen of errors.
I have Googled my problems repeatedly.
Some say that the boot disk read error is because of confusion with a DVDRW drive and they "set the mode in BIOS to UDMA2 and it worked perfectly"; I managed to find it in Bios and tried that, but it didn't really seem to work. There seemed to be TWO of each drive, one in PIO and one in UDMA, and the only options for UDMA were "enable" or "disable"; it was PIO that had mode options. Obviously fiddling around with this didn't work.
As for the kernel panic, that could be the same problem or related or something entirely different...
I know it's not a CD problem; I downloaded 3 different versions from 4 different mirrors, burned it with Alcohol, InfraRecorder, ISOrecorder... Gah. I have a stack of CDs in my trash bin 2 inches high. It's depressing.
If anyone knows how to fix this - the buffer I/O error OR the kernel panic - please, please help.
System information:
MSI K7N2 Delta-L mainboard, BIOS v5.9 (The most current BIOS; I just flashed it - that's how I managed to get as far as the beginning of the installation, but then it froze... and haven't gotten that far since, kernel panic every time)
AMD Athlon XP 1800+, about 1.5GHz
512MB RAM
40GB HDD, I think it's a Maxtor but not entirely sure what make; Secondary Master
Lite-On DVDRW, CDRW in Primary Master (should I switch it with the HD as far as primary/secondary goes? Not entirely sure what's optimal there)
NVidia GeForce FX5700LE, 128MB RAM
As you can see, it's a veritable FrankenPC patched together of cheap, now-outdated parts. It's years old. It was built mostly by my dad when I was younger, and I can't afford to buy any different parts.
It probably doesn't make any difference, but my current OS is WinXP SP2.
Thanks in advance!
I'm brand-new to Linux and it seems as if the computer gods are determined to keep me from ever using it. Here is my sad story.
I have a friend who convinced me to try it out. The first burn try of the Live CD was a failure - "I/O Error: cannot read from boot disk." I assumed it was just a burning problem and there had been an error somewhere. I burned the second LiveCD attempt in InfraRecorder and managed to get the Live environment started up, played with it, decided to install. And trying to burn a live disk for Kubuntu.... Twenty disks in my trash bin, all with either "I/O Error: cannot read from boot disk" when click "install", "try", or "integrity check"; or, if it managed to load ANYTHING past that splash screen, a sudden cascade of error lines all reading "buffer I/O error on device sr0, logical block [insert large number]".
The same happens with a Ubuntu 6.04 and 7.10; and now even my regular 8.04 disk that worked before is now malfunctioning in the same way. Either it is on the slider bar loading screen and suddenly freezes with the Caps and Scroll Lock lights flashing, or - once, ONCE, oh such blooming hope I had till it was shattered - I managed to get into "Install" and it froze right after Date&Time, not a kernel panic but rather another buffer I/O error. I know this because I was able to click "cancel" and right before everything went black, I saw that familiar cascading screen of errors.
I have Googled my problems repeatedly.
Some say that the boot disk read error is because of confusion with a DVDRW drive and they "set the mode in BIOS to UDMA2 and it worked perfectly"; I managed to find it in Bios and tried that, but it didn't really seem to work. There seemed to be TWO of each drive, one in PIO and one in UDMA, and the only options for UDMA were "enable" or "disable"; it was PIO that had mode options. Obviously fiddling around with this didn't work.
As for the kernel panic, that could be the same problem or related or something entirely different...
I know it's not a CD problem; I downloaded 3 different versions from 4 different mirrors, burned it with Alcohol, InfraRecorder, ISOrecorder... Gah. I have a stack of CDs in my trash bin 2 inches high. It's depressing.
If anyone knows how to fix this - the buffer I/O error OR the kernel panic - please, please help.
System information:
MSI K7N2 Delta-L mainboard, BIOS v5.9 (The most current BIOS; I just flashed it - that's how I managed to get as far as the beginning of the installation, but then it froze... and haven't gotten that far since, kernel panic every time)
AMD Athlon XP 1800+, about 1.5GHz
512MB RAM
40GB HDD, I think it's a Maxtor but not entirely sure what make; Secondary Master
Lite-On DVDRW, CDRW in Primary Master (should I switch it with the HD as far as primary/secondary goes? Not entirely sure what's optimal there)
NVidia GeForce FX5700LE, 128MB RAM
As you can see, it's a veritable FrankenPC patched together of cheap, now-outdated parts. It's years old. It was built mostly by my dad when I was younger, and I can't afford to buy any different parts.
It probably doesn't make any difference, but my current OS is WinXP SP2.
Thanks in advance!