Debian installation: first-time boot from CD > see nothing but a black screen

[seafish69]

Hi All,

Just got a Debian 4.0 etch 3-DVD set from a distributor. Was over-excited to get my hands on this distribution. However, on loading the DVD n 1 (install) and rebooting from CD I was presented with nothing but a blank black screen. Exactly this: nothing happens after the BIOS asks me to "press F1 or enter to boot..." I press enter and... nothing happens.
This has been my experience with Debian so far.

I have defaulted the BIOS to the fail-safe state (except I changed the boot sequence to make the CD-ROM the first boot device), to no avail.

I had installed and re-installed SLED 10, OpenSUSE 10.2, Mandriva 2007 and something else many times over on the same laptop, with no problem whatsoever (well, at least I had been able to install the distro OK and then play with it).

My config is this:
Laptop Asus W1N
Chipset platform: Intel Centrino (CPU 1.5 Ghz, RAM 512 MB, HDD 60 GB)
Video: ATI Mobility Radeon 9600/9700 (64 Mb)
When booting from the Debian disk, I had no USB devices connected to the laptop, not even a mouse - just a plain "empty" laptop.

I've searched this forum and did not find a topic that would be discussing my issue. Any idea or assistance here will be tremendously appreciated.

Best regards,

Sea Fish

[jledhead]

so can you tell if its booting after the bios, like to you have harddrive activity and such just the monitor goes to sleep?

if so, after you see the bios, give it 10-15 secs to see if it boots, and then hit ctrl-alt-F1

if it installed and just didn't like your monitor then you should get a login prompt.

if thats the case report back and we will see if we can get you running

[seafish69]

so can you tell if its booting after the bios, like to you have harddrive activity and such just the monitor goes to sleep?

if so, after you see the bios, give it 10-15 secs to see if it boots, and then hit ctrl-alt-F1

if it installed and just didn't like your monitor then you should get a login prompt.

if thats the case report back and we will see if we can get you running

jledhead,

first, I don't have Debian installed on my machine. The problem I described in my post relates to the very first boot, the one when I insert the Debian Disk #1 and boot from it.
I can see the BIOS welcome, then the PC starts booting from the CD, and I see the Debian welcome message, the logo and words "Press F1 or Enter to Boot..."
I press Enter, and then is when the problem starts. The screen goes blank black and I don't see anything. Meaning, nothing happens and I don't see anything on the screen--no cursor, no messages, nothing. It's just like as if the laptop was completely frozen. As for the disk activity (the HDD diode), I did not notice any, as if really nothing was happening.

When it happened first time I gave it a few minutes, assuming the installer might be doing something in the background without notifying me (which would be strange but anyway). As basically nothing was happening I had to reboot the computer.

My last-resort idea is that maybe (maybe) the installation disk is faulty or something. Otherwise, given the situation I don't see a lot of ways to resolve this issue by myself.

Cheers,
Sea Fish

[devils casper]

I think its a faulty Installation DVD only. If you have good internet connection, I would suggest you to go for netinstall only. Download netinstall CD and Installer will walk you through Installation Process.
OR Download first two installation CDs from here.

[seafish69]

I think its a faulty Installation DVD only. If you have good internet connection, I would suggest you to go for netinstall only. Download netinstall CD and Installer will walk you through Installation Process.
OR Download first two installation CDs from here.

devils_casper,
I am downloading the first install disk already. No, unfortunately I have a pretty slow connection. Btw, I think in addition to many other reasons why Linux has not yet picked up well on the consumer arena is the lack of fast(-enough) connections around the world. For Linux, having a broadband DSL or cable is essential, and is still a serious barring factor, at least in my country and region.
Would be interesting if the disk I download eventually will work. I will then write a nice letter to the company from where I bought the set

[devils casper]

There are a lot of distros ( Fedora, SuSe, Mandriva, Sabayon, Debian DVD installer and lot more ) which have tons of packages available in Installation Media only. You dont have to download any package in those except codecs for proprietary media formats.
A few distros like Slackware, Linux Mint, Slax have those codecs too.

[seafish69]

The installation media appears to be OK. I was able to install Debian on my home desktop with no problem.

However, I have not been able to boot the laptop from the same disk. It's a DVD drive, and I had installed SUSE and other DVD-based distros in the past.

I don't know, maybe the problem has something to do with the DVD drive itself.

It is too bad I can't install Debian on my laptop. On my desktop, I was thouroughly impressed with Debian - especially with its out-of-the-box support of media codecs and mp3.
I have been hearing apt system is more comfortable to work with than SUSE's Yast, and what I've seen so far proves that point. There's a lot to learn about Debian still, and I do look forward to that.

Cheers.