I've mentioned my tribulations getting Ubuntu working on PC with the BioStar P4M900-M4 motherboard before. Recently Ubuntu v 9.0.4 downloaded an update (or I installed new software) that corrupted a bunch of files - to the point where the system wouldn't work well enough to repair itself.
With a nuke & pave of the hard drive, it is working again today - I tried 5 different ISO CDs burned on at least 2 different drives, and I tried both the CD & the DVD on the host PC - I could never get a clean install. Sometimes GRUB would fail during the boot-up process, and sometimes I would get the GUI installed, but FireFox wouldn't run (preventing downloads of of updates etc.).
In the end, I got a system working well enough to get a command line (terminal mode) and used that to download some updates. They repaired the install well enough to boot into the Ubuntu desktop (GUI) with a working FireFox, and from there it has been busily downloading and installing fixes and software that should have installed from the CD.
Next, I get to go through 10 pages documenting installation of the required BioStar video drivers, and then I need to figure out a backup strategy - I don't want to be without this PC for multiple weeks the next time I download an update...
PS: this motherboard now boots from the SATA drive as long as it is the only hard drive installed. Probably time to start looking for another PC or motherboard before it flakes out again.
BTW - this update was created using FireFox 3.0.12 within Ubuntu 9.0.4 :-)
Showing posts with label hard drive. Show all posts
Showing posts with label hard drive. Show all posts
Wednesday, July 29, 2009
Saturday, May 9, 2009
IBM ThinkPad R31 laptop hard drive upgrade
Our ThinkPad has been acting really cranky lately, and I discovered it had only 3% of the (20 GB) disk space available. Deleting and zipping some files gained very little space – easily swallowed up by the next WinXP update. It was time for a new hard drive. Checking online, I found that “4 All Memory” had 160 GB drives available for the R31.
Like most, our laptop only accepts one hard drive at a time, so the common desktop method of installing the new drive and copying the old one won’t work. I downloaded the DriveImage XML software (free for home use) and started learning how to make a drive image. The plan was to copy the 20GB drive to an external, USB drive, and then copy that image back to new drive (after it was installed). Because there is no space left on the old drive, and because it wouldn’t be available to restore the image anyway, I decide to load the software on a bootable CD-R disk.
DriveImage XML recommends the Bart PE – PE Builder software because it creates a bootable WinXP disc that runs a graphical environment. The very first CD I burned was bootable, but I had forgotten to download and install the DriveImage XML plug-in. The 2nd disc booted, loaded DriveImage XML, and successfully created the drive image on the external drive – this took about 5 hours. After installing the new drive, I tried to restore the image – the software, quite reasonably, expected the new drive to be partitioned before proceeding. DriveImage recommended a couple of methods to partition the drive, but none worked for me.
I finally swapped the laptop's CD drive for a floppy drive and broke out the old Partition Magic diskettes. After a couple of false starts it began the partitioning process – this was about 10% complete after an hour, so I went to bed.
In the morning with the Primary partition created & set to active, I swapped the CD drive back in and rebooted to run DriveImage XML again. This time everything appeared to be working. The status screen didn’t show much, but about 5 hours later (about the same time as it took to create the image – probably limited by the USB 1 port speed) . . . It copied correctly, but wouldn’t boot. Fortunately, after googling a while, I learned I could boot from a WinXP CD and in the Repair mode, enter the "fixmbr" command. It now appears to be running as before, but with a much larger disk drive (and no cranky behavior).
Like most, our laptop only accepts one hard drive at a time, so the common desktop method of installing the new drive and copying the old one won’t work. I downloaded the DriveImage XML software (free for home use) and started learning how to make a drive image. The plan was to copy the 20GB drive to an external, USB drive, and then copy that image back to new drive (after it was installed). Because there is no space left on the old drive, and because it wouldn’t be available to restore the image anyway, I decide to load the software on a bootable CD-R disk.
DriveImage XML recommends the Bart PE – PE Builder software because it creates a bootable WinXP disc that runs a graphical environment. The very first CD I burned was bootable, but I had forgotten to download and install the DriveImage XML plug-in. The 2nd disc booted, loaded DriveImage XML, and successfully created the drive image on the external drive – this took about 5 hours. After installing the new drive, I tried to restore the image – the software, quite reasonably, expected the new drive to be partitioned before proceeding. DriveImage recommended a couple of methods to partition the drive, but none worked for me.
I finally swapped the laptop's CD drive for a floppy drive and broke out the old Partition Magic diskettes. After a couple of false starts it began the partitioning process – this was about 10% complete after an hour, so I went to bed.
In the morning with the Primary partition created & set to active, I swapped the CD drive back in and rebooted to run DriveImage XML again. This time everything appeared to be working. The status screen didn’t show much, but about 5 hours later (about the same time as it took to create the image – probably limited by the USB 1 port speed) . . . It copied correctly, but wouldn’t boot. Fortunately, after googling a while, I learned I could boot from a WinXP CD and in the Repair mode, enter the "fixmbr" command. It now appears to be running as before, but with a much larger disk drive (and no cranky behavior).
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