No way to install Ubuntu on my Toshiba Satellite A215

[Joanna_Moreno]

I've been trying to install Ubuntu for the last 3 days and went through dozens of topics but nothing works for me, so I hope you can possibly help me here...


My laptop model is Tohshiba Satellite A215. Few months ago I had Ubuntu 12.04 installed on this machine (from LiveCD, everything worked perfect) but then I had to format my hard drive and install Windows 8. Since that time, no hardware nor BIOS version changed. So now I want to install Ubuntu, to have it along with Windows. But every time I run the installer some problems appear. Here is what I tried:

• starting installation normally -> gets me some strange lines about Pnp Bios. The last line says "Pnp Bios version 1.0, entry 0xf000 :0x9afb, dseg 0x400"
• starting installation with pnp bios=off -> the same
• starting installation with nomodeset -> gets me black or gray screen (depending if I use CD or USB)
• starting installation with nomodeset + acpi=off + noapic -> gets me blinking cursor
• starting installation with pnp bios=off AND I delete quiet splash -> WORKS. The files load, there are some fails, though there's no time to note them down and finally the installation screen appears. I choose a partition to install the system, click Next and AGAIN i get black screen or black screen with a blinking cursor.

I also tried:

• running different versions (12.04, 13.04)
• running both from USB and CD
• running from an alternate installer

In every case the same things happen. I would really appreciate any ideas...

[oldfred]

I have nVidia on desktop and Intel on my old Toshiba laptop, but for AMD one of these 3 may be better than nomodeset?

• Generic: xforcevesa or nouveau.modeset=0
• Radeon: radeon.modeset=0

[Joanna_Moreno]

• Generic: xforcevesa or nouveau.modeset=0
• Radeon: radeon.modeset=0

Thank you Sir! Nobody could help me and then finally pnpbios=off+xforcevesa worked! Ubuntu has been installed properly.
The problem now is that every time I boot my laptop, Ubuntu won't boot untill I add these two parameters. It's not a big deal, I've edited a grub file with GRUB Customizer so I don't have to enter these every time I run my laptop. So my question is, should I be worried about it? The system works fine, but I'm not sure whether those parameters won't do any harm to my machine? Is it all safe??

[oldfred]

I think vesa is the lower level video driver that the liveCD uses. Not sure what your pnpbios setting does.

Often with AMD you have to install drivers but I am not current on AMD. They obsoleted some older chips/boards and you then have to use a legacy driver.