Please help

[Mainard]

Heres the deal. Had a guy I work with ask if I could download and burn a copy of dream linux for him. His burner isn't working. Downloaded and while burning got up to go do something else. Forgot about it. My wife shuts down our computer every night. Next morning she gets up and wants to get on the internet. Turns on the computer and goes to get something from the kitchen. Comes back in the room to see the words DreamLinux on the computer screen. She has absolutely no idea what linux is. Actually she probably doesn't really know what windows is even though it is what is on the computer. Anyway, she immediately thinks the computer has a virus and powers it off. When she tries to power it back up it won't continue to install DreamLinux (which I assume is what it was trying to do before she powered it off), nor will windows boot up. It just locks up. I decided to stick in my sony system restore cd. It ran for awhile before locking up also. I went to another computer in the house to try and do a little research on the internet. Ended up burning 2 live cds (Ubuntu and DSL). My hope was I would be able to at least boot up via the cd and format the hard drive and reinstall windows (the only thing I am familiary with). Again both of these just lock up. With all these things there are no error messages. They just lock up. I know they are locked because I have let them just sit for two or more hours each on the same screen. I am hoping that since this was caused by a interrupted linux installation there is someone on this forum who knows what caused this and knows how to fix it.

[tech_man]

Where exactly do the live linux cds lockup?

[netstrider]

I do not quite understand, what do you mean with 'lockup' ? Does the LiveCD not boot or what ? It did probably launch the installer menu because Laptops in general (It's a laptop right?) boot straight of the CD if there's something in the drive..

[Mainard]

In answer to the two questions. First it is on a desktop computer. Second, they all lock up before anything happens. When I boot the computer it shows my graphics card information, then it shows the word Sony, lastly it goes to a black screen and stops. It does this with the linux live cd's, the windows system restore cd, even without anything in the cd rom drive. It always just stops on a black screen. That is where I don't know what to do. IT doesn't matter what cd's I stick in the thing I never get any options. I have tried hitting F8 while booting and nothing. I have even checked my bios and made my cd drive my first boot option and I still lock up at the same spot every time. That is why I am going mad with this thing. I have had issues with computers before. But I always at least came to something that gave me the option to reinstall, reformat or something. I get no such option this time. I realize there is the possibility that the hard drive just crashed. But unless somehow powering it off in the middle of a dreamlinux install can cause that I've gotta believe it is something else because this computer is only a few months old and never given me a day of problem. Anyway, thanks again, and look forward to hearing more thoughts on this.

[pegazuz]

In answer to the two questions. First it is on a desktop computer. Second, they all lock up before anything happens. When I boot the computer it shows my graphics card information, then it shows the word Sony, lastly it goes to a black screen and stops. It does this with the linux live cd's, the windows system restore cd, even without anything in the cd rom drive. It always just stops on a black screen. That is where I don't know what to do. IT doesn't matter what cd's I stick in the thing I never get any options. I have tried hitting F8 while booting and nothing. I have even checked my bios and made my cd drive my first boot option and I still lock up at the same spot every time. That is why I am going mad with this thing. I have had issues with computers before. But I always at least came to something that gave me the option to reinstall, reformat or something. I get no such option this time. I realize there is the possibility that the hard drive just crashed. But unless somehow powering it off in the middle of a dreamlinux install can cause that I've gotta believe it is something else because this computer is only a few months old and never given me a day of problem. Anyway, thanks again, and look forward to hearing more thoughts on this.

I remember having this problem last year and it turned out my graphic card had burned out. Put in a new video card and it booted right up. If the hardware is intact than it should boot up from some boot CD whether it be a Linux live CD, Windows restore disk, or other commercial rescue fixit CD. fortunately they are relatively cheap and easy to replace. If it is under warranty ask them to check it out.