can't install Ubuntu 11.10 from USB disk

[CleveRuse]

Ok, so i was running Ubuntu 11.04, and I found it was quite buggy, so when I was prompted to upgrade to 11.10, I enthusiastically hit the "ok" button, but towards the very end of the installation my battery died. After I rebooted I noticed that my new OS was very, very screwed up! I couldn't see many files or folders in many of my directories/folders. Neither the "show hidden files" option nor 'Ctrl + H' fixed this. Also my folders/files on my desktop would continuously disappear; I couldn't "split screen" view folders, etc...

So after backing up important files to an SDcard, i attempted to do a fresh installation of 11.10. I DL'd the standard .iso file, made a start-up disk from USB, edited my notebook's BIOS, then booted into 11.10 from a mSDcard + card reader plugged into my USB port.

After booting up into 11.10 I chose the option to "TRY" it and everything seemed fine ...so i then tried the "Install Ubuntu" option and from there I chose the 'wipe/fresh installation' option (or wutever its called)

But here's where it starts to go bad:
Towards the end of the installation I received an error that read similar to this: "an attempt to update 'apt' in order to install additional packages failed" (not sure bout the "update part". Maybe "verify, sync, install, upgrade, etc.... Who knows.) I did make sure that I had a good internet connection ...I also checked the boxes to install 3rd party apps, and download updates during installation. (sorry, typing from memory)

Anyway, after completion of installation, o chose the reboot system option (u didn't think to default my BIOS first) ....so after it booted back onto USB, I edited my BIOS, and rebooted again ...but this time it just hanged on a blank screen with the curser blinking in the top left corner.

Since then I've tried reinstalling and rebooting dozens of times, but the result wad always the same. I could boot into USB, but not my Hard Disk

So i tried downloading another .iso file from another Ubuntu version but am always told that i don't have enough memory (days I only have 10.3MB) ...even tho I had almost 8GB left on my card!

So i chose option "other" to try and partition my drive myself -even tho i have no clue as to how to do that- and i see that my ext.4 is completely full (158GB), and the last tiny bit was full with swap. Ext.3 was also filled, but how much, I can't remember (30% maybe). My '/' was completely empty and the screen option said it was "undefined" ...I think was the term used.

And lastly, I noticed that lately I can't even boot the option "Try". afterwards, now that screen also hangs on the blank screen w blinking curser.

So now the only thing I can do is boot Ubuntu from USB to see the install options, but if I choose either one. The screen goes blank.

Note: on 11.04, for the last fee months, I was always receiving errors that I didn't have "enough free swap" so i guess my memory's been Macedonia for a while, buy shouldn't that have all been wiped when i chose to fresh install 11.04?

So can anyone help me? As I'm sure u can all tell, I'm not very "tech" savvy!

I was thinking bout using my brothers Mac to make another start-up disk on USB but figured I'd wait for a response from the community fitst. ....I just wanna get back to theming android!

Note: my laptop doesn't have a cd drive in case that hasn't already been inferred.

[yancek]

Can you post some information on the hardware you are using, particularly RAM?
I would suggest that you boot the usb stick and open a terminal and run these commands:

sudo fdisk -l(lower case Letter L)
df -h

but if you can't even boot the Live CD on the usb, don't know.
Which was the last version of Ubuntu you tried to boot?
Sounds to me like Grub bootloader was not installed properly.

[Kloschüssel]

do a clean fresh installation of 11.10. if a previous installation failed with a harsh shutdown due to power loss you've got a problem that is generally not easy to solve.

if there's data to be backup'ed, you should be able to boot with a live linux on your usb dongle, mount the local hard drives and copy over the data to some save place.

cheers and good luck!

[CleveRuse]

Can you post some information on the hardware you are using, particularly RAM?
I would suggest that you boot the usb stick and open a terminal and run these commands:

sudo fdisk -l(lower case Letter L)
df -h

but if you can't even boot the Live CD on the usb, don't know.
Which was the last version of Ubuntu you tried to boot?
Sounds to me like Grub bootloader was not installed properly.

here:

"Intel Atom N270 processor (1.60 GHz), 1 GB RAM, and a 160 GB hard disk"

...and i can try again when i get home but I'm pretty sure I tried opening the terminal and i can't cuz I can't boot into anything. The only options I have are on that one screen: "try" and " install Ubuntu".

the last version I tried was 11.10.

should I try to make another start-up disk from my brothers Mac OSx? Will that work -making a disk from a Mac, but for a PC? I don't see why not ....its the only thing i can think to do.

[CleveRuse]

yeah, I've tried choosing that option bout 20+ times, lol. It just hangs on a blank screen every time!!!!!

....and i can't download another version/iso or make another startup disk cuz i can't boot into anything!!!!!!!

[yancek]

The only options I have are on that one screen: "try" and " install Ubuntu".

Are you saying that when you get to these options with the install usb and you select either, you just get a blank screen with a blinkingcursor?

You might try creating a bootable Ubuntu on a flash drive with unetbootin, a program which you can use from Linux, windows or your brothers Mac. You don't need a startup disk, just download the unetbootin and run it after reading the instructions. See the link below.

UNetbootin - Homepage and Downloads

[CleveRuse]

[QUOTE=yancek;866609]Are you saying that when you get to these options with the install usb and you select either, you just get a blank screen with a blinkingcursor?

You might try creating a bootable Ubuntu on a flash drive with unetbootin, a program which you can use from Linux, windows or your brothers Mac. You don't need a startup disk, just download the unetbootin and run it after reading the instructions. See the link below.


[Had to remove link to quote in this reply]

Yep, that's wut I'm saying ....and I believe u may have just helped me immensely!!!
(...and yeah, I had heard of that b4, but couldn't remember the name, nvr knew much about it, ...and also just plain forgot to ask but that was one of the questions I originally meant to ask, lol. Thnx again. I'll try this ASAP when I get home and report bak)

[CleveRuse]

Apparently Unetbootin doesn't work very well from a Mac -i know I did it right ...pretty tough to screw upa ....but I've got some other ideas. I'll post back when I fix it. Mostly the problem is that somehow my partition folders got screwed up and '/' (root) was deleted