dmi_string: cannot allocate 1025 bytes

[daveefarr]

Hi everyone!

My name is Dave and I am a 40 year old IT Manager who works in Derbyshire, UK. Most of my experience has been with WinXP and Win2000 but recently I decided it would be beneficial to start expanding my experience and looking at what Linux has to offer.

For good or bad I have learnt what I know "on the job" over the years with a bit of help from others in the biz so I hope here I will benefit from your better knowledge.

I have an old PC here at home which had a failed WinXP install on it so I planned to create an Ubuntu ISO CD (which I did) and install it onto the PC, which (so I understood from an article I read in ComputerActive magazine) would basically overrite what I have on the PC so I can start from scratch.

Upon installing the CD and selecting the option to install Ubuntu, I keep getting an error message which reads " dmi_string: cannot allocate 1025 bytes".

Is this a CD corruption or is there a problem with the HDD?

Any advice would be greatly appreciated.

Dave :0)

[D-cat]

Looks like an out of memory issue.

Try running the "Test Memory" option for a pass, see if anything comes up in the red.

[daveefarr]

Hi!

memory test came up clear and then I did a test CD for defects and it came up with the same error and finished with a prompt headed "(initramfs)_" ?

[devils casper]

Problem in Installation CD only. Try to reburn it at lowest possible speed supported by your CD Burner. Have you verified MD5SUM of downloaded .iso image?

[daveefarr]

Hi there!

I will reburn the CD here at work today and try again tonight to install the software. Will the Ubuntu O/S effectively overrite anything that's on the PC so I can start from a clean slate then? (i.e. like as if I was re-installing Win OS?)

As for "Have you verified MD5SUM of downloaded .iso image?" the answer is no as I hadn't realised there was a procedure for that until you asked the question! I have just googled that and have the details and will do that to the new disk I create!

I'll let you know how I get on!

[daveefarr]

Hi! Okay, I redownloaded Ubuntu and verifed the download with MD5SUM before burning it to a new CD.

Sadly I'm getting the same result. What if I reformatted the HDD so it was a proper clean slate? I've never had to wipe a HDD before. If this is the logical best next step, what would be the best way to go about it please?

Any advice greatly appreciated! If I had hair I'd be pulling it out right now!!!!

[D-cat]

1) Make sure all data you want to keep is backed up.

2) Boot a Linux Live Distro (in Ubuntu- Try without changing blah blah)

3) Once booted up, open a terminal.

4) type mount and note any partitions that are mounted. If any /dev/sda* partitions are mounted, run umount against them (sudo umount /dev/sdan)*

5) and now for the erase. Warning, after typing this, there is no going back. Your hard drive will be restored to "factory" status, not even a partition table. Normal recovery tools will not be able to recover anything (special dynastat tools might, but most people don't have access to these) as the whole drive will be "zeroed out":

sudo dd if=/dev/zero of=/dev/sda bs=1M

After that, when you reboot, the drive will be ready to accept a fresh install of any OS.

*These commands assume you are using your Ubuntu disc. For other distros, log in a root instead and omit the "sudo"s. Also, the "n" is the partition number. Older (even recently older) distros will see regular IDE hard drives as /dev/hda.

[daveefarr]

Ah, now then, I selected "Try Ubuntu without changing..." and I get the same error!

The "dmi_string cannot...." message comes up, then clears and I get the Ubuntu loading progress screen, and the the screen displays this:

[0.000000] dmi_string:cannot allocate 1025 bytes.


[0.000000] dmi_string:cannot allocate 1025 bytes.


[0.000000] dmi_string:cannot allocate 1025 bytes.


[0.000000] dmi_string:cannot allocate 1025 bytes.
Loading please wait,

BusyBox v1.10.2 (Ubuntu 1:1.10.2-1ubuntu6) built-in shell (ash)


(initramfs)_

any other ideas please?

[D-cat]

Does "Test the CD for Errors" pass?

[daveefarr]

actually, this am i just did a test the cd for errors and i've had the same message screen, what's that telling me exactly?