Help: Upgrading to 8.04 deleted all OS

[mafaldaspeaks]

My friend's netbook was running on 7.04 or 7.10. Since it has no CD drive and we couldn't find or add the usb creator feature, we decided to upgrade via internet using the upgrade button shown in the update manager.

All the required steps being shown seemed to be going well (creating new channels, downloading upgrades, installing upgrades, etc) until the step "restarting computer". When it restarted, it went into the memory test for almost 2 hours so we decided to stop it. when we restarted, at the "Grub loading", we pressed Esc to see the OS installed: there wasn't any excpet for the "memtest".

What are the options to re-install an OS? I have to say that we don't have an external CD drive. I just have my laptop with a CD drive and which uses Linux Mint 9.

I'd appreciate all your help!

[bodhi.zazen]

Try installing Ubuntu 10.04.

You can create a bootable usb with unetbootin.

[kerry_s]

What are the options to re-install an OS? I have to say that we don't have an external CD drive. I just have my laptop with a CD drive and which uses Linux Mint 9.

linux mint 9 is ubuntu based, look in synaptic for "usb-creator-gtk", you can use that to make bootable usb installer.

you'll need a ubuntu iso.
http://www.ubuntu.com/netbook/get-ubuntu/download

[mafaldaspeaks]

Try installing Ubuntu 10.04.

You can create a bootable usb with unetbootin.

Thanks for the reply! I tried unetbootin on my linux mint 9 to create a usb installer for ubuntu 10.04 but the netbook won't recognize it. At startup, it would say something like "remove disk or other media then press any ke to restart". I used "start up disk creator" instead and it worked.

[mafaldaspeaks]

linux mint 9 is ubuntu based, look in synaptic for "usb-creator-gtk", you can use that to make bootable usb installer.

you'll need a ubuntu iso.
http://www.ubuntu.com/netbook/get-ubuntu/download

I was able to create the usb installer using "start up disk creator" on my linux mint 9 laptop. Installation was successful except for something that's quite inconvenient: the labels of the desktop icons can't be read and the icons themselves don't respond consistently to the touchpad and not at all to the mouse. I tried the monitor settings (guessing among the icons) but it does not resove how the desktop is. Would you know how to fix this?

[mafaldaspeaks]

I was able to create the usb installer using "start up disk creator" on my linux mint 9 laptop. Installation was successful except for something that's quite inconvenient: the labels of the desktop icons can't be read and the icons themselves don't respond consistently to the touchpad and not at all to the mouse. I tried the monitor settings (guessing among the icons) but it does not resove how the desktop is. Would you know how to fix this?

Well, I didn't really get to fix the problem with the ubuntu netbook desktop (the launcher). I just switched to the gnome desktop and now the netbook's working fine.