Can't install linux on an Acer Aspire 5610

[Steve509]

Hello again all, My wife has an Acer Aspire 5610 laptop, on 3 seporate occasions I've tried installing ubuntu 9.10, 10.04 and mint 9 all 32 bit and I keep coming up with error messages and have to abort install. Unfortunately I didn't write down the error messages and the last time i tried i had to use gparted to resize the hard drive back to where it was (160 GB). I even had trouble with that but finally got that working right. Is there a none issue with Acer that I'm not aware of? Any help would be greatly appreciated

Thanks

steve509

[whych]

Before resizing the partitions, use the windows defrag utilility to defrag the disk.
Now use gparted or whatever to shrink and repartiton the disk.
Choose enough size for the windows drive (depending on how much data you want in common with linux/windows) and then use gparted or whatever to create an extended partition with the free space.
Reboot windows and see if it complains and use its utils to fix the errors.
Now any new linux install should now work using the free space.

[Steve509]

whych, when I resized the hard drive giving me back the full 160GB's, I rebooted and vista wouldn't work. It would start to start to load but then i kept getting an error message that it couldnt load the desktop, the box was labeled: rundll32.exe on the very top left. I then put in the cd for kubuntu and used the live cd to check it out and was able to see all the files in vista. I copied the rundll32.exe to the system folder because it was missing there and tried booting back into vista with no results. Then i tried installing ubuntu 9.10 on the entire drive and that started up just fine, I thought ahhh I'm ok now but after an hour or so everything froze, then the screen went black and all of a sudden error messages started pouring down the screen. Now I can't do anything, I even tried reinstalling vista with the recovery cd's and couldn't even do that any more. I think I killed my wifes laptop...luckily I have a week to fix it, shes on vacation. Anyother suggestions from anyone???

[yancek]

You probably wrote over the mbr for vista when you installed Ubuntu. Ubuntu usually picks up/detects windows operating systems however.

Then i tried installing ubuntu 9.10 on the entire drive and that started up just fine

Does that mean you installed Ubuntu over vista? Did you successfully install Ubuntu and use it for an hour before things went bad? A suggestion. Since you are new to Ubuntu/Linux, I would suggest you keep a pen and paper handy to write down these error messages. They are usually quite helpful.

It would be helpful if we could see your partition information so we know what you have on the computer. If you are no longer able to boot Ubuntu, can you use the Ubuntu Live CD, open a terminal and type this command: sudo fdisk -l (lower case Letter L) and post the output which is partition information.

The vista recovery CDs probably won't work because they won't recognize non-windows code in the master boot record but that is something that can be resolved.

[Steve509]

yancek,, thanks for your help, it did see the vista partition when I tried to install ubuntu 9.10 but I had a lot of trouble, it, at one point froze. I have since then successfully installed kubuntu 9.04 and thats working just fine...well not everything, i cant seem to get the network to see my dlink router on the main desktop computer running ubuntu 10.04. I pluged the ethernet cable into the laptop and that works fine but not the wireless and I don't know what to do next. HELP!!!

[whych]

OK, you've got it working. The network issue is separate, so you should start a new thread.
What you need to do for the wireless, is to enter the network key in the wireless settings. If you unplug the wired network, click on the network icon and choose the the wireless connection. It should come up with a dialogue asking for the network key.
You can edit the connections by right clicking on the icon and choosing edit or preferences (I think those are the options, but have a wired system and don't use a network manager).
If you still have problems, start a new thread in:
Wireless Internet - Linux Forums