Linux Dual Boot DVD-R/CD-R Problem

[#1]

"Verifying DMI..." is a bit serious sounding.

DMI is a hardware abstraction layer in which the BIOS provides information about your hardware to a OS.

Usual suggestion would be to try a BIOS reset - but since you have a working version of Windows you might not want to do that.

[#2]

I've just about given up on this now.

I used Unetbootin to burn to a USB pen drive. Changed the boot order so thet 'USB-HDD' was the first boot option (it seems to to be the only suitable one available; choosing 'USB-FDD' just means that it boots through to XP) and rebooted.

When it came back up, the BIOS stopped at the 'Verifying DMI...' again (note that, when booting from the HDD, that line appears for a few seconds and then it boots normally into XP).

Loading optimised or fail-safe defaults means that it won't boot from the USB or from the optical drives.

I'm not prepared to do anything that will wipe my current installation, and will just have to disconnect the XP box from the network to avoid security issues.

Thanks to all for your advice so far anyway...

[#3]

@thejudge   Oh dear... what a shame.... Something seems to be a bit wrong on your HDD there....

So,.... maybe time to buy another HDD and install Linux Mint  ..... then go for the Virtual Box 6 install... and... if you have still got the original XP disc... you can load it on there..see my previous postings on this... 

seems to be the easiest way to do it.... and it keeps your existing set up on the original HDD, while you "play around" with Linux, WINE and Virtual box in safety ! ! ..

Winter is coming... days are getting wetter... something to do in the dark and dismal evenings when there`s nowt on the telly ! ! ! ..

[#4]

Ok Ive read all the posts and no-one mentioned "secure boot" or "UEFI".

So I.m gonna google your machine to see if your BIOS has these...... oh wait you didnt say, just the chip.

[#5]

The mobo is a Gigabyte GA-M61PM-S2.

I'd be pleasantly surprised if you found anything about secure boot or UEFI, 'cos I don't remember seeing those terms in the manual. Besides which, it dates from 2006/07 and is for XP, so I doubt if that would apply.

[#6]

Spec:- https://www.gigabyte.com/Motherboard/GA-M61PM-S2-rev-10/sp#sp

Says it can use 4 DDR2 DIMM memory slots (supports up to 16GB memory)

[#7]

I had a very similar issue with a machine of that same age a few years back.

The way I worked around it at the time was to download the alternative mini.iso network installer and that worked for me.

https://ubuntu.com/download/alternative-downloads

go down to network installer. then :

• Download the network installer for 18.04 LTS

then amd64 - For 64-bit Intel/AMD (x86_64)

then download the mini.iso it;s only 73M and if it works it will download what ever else you need during the install.

Hope this helps

[#8]

P.S. @thejudge 

Also if you boot from your existing install/live cdrom/dvd/usb-stick if you push the Esc key when the disk boots  , you should get a load of options. Including F6 for advanced boot options, such as, acpi=off and noapic. You could try using these options, one at a time and see if that works. You select an option with the space bar and Esc to return.

[#9]

P.P.S. @thejudge 

In the case of Ubuntu, push the Esc key when you see this sceen:

Then you should see this screen:

Then you push F6

[#10]

Unless I've misread the instructions, this seems to install Ubuntu when all I want to do is try it without installing it.

[#11]

Got that far, then it went to the splash screen (Kubuntu in this case), but started showing errors.

On a general note, is it worth trying to install Ubuntu within Windows using wubi? What pitfalls are there?

[#12]

@thejudge   When you choose to "try" Linux... from the "live" DVD or USB stick download.... it will "seem" to load up ... however. it is not "actually"  installing anything permanently...

So you need to "let it run" so that you get the main "desktop" with the menu etc... and then you can "try" it....

When you have finished trying it.... you go to the bottom left corner... click Menu  and will be given the option to "quit"

 choosing that will close the operation down, and remove anything that was used to give you an operating system to "try" ... leaving you with your original Operating sysem ( windows ) untouched.

Mint is excellent for trying and learning... very similar to Windows .... easier to understand than most other Linux distributions I think ...

[#13]

@thejudge maybe try the network install as above.... there is no splash screen on that....

[#14]

P.S. @thejudge if you do the network install as above, forget Kubuntu as as option. Kubuntu is only suitable for the absolute fastest & latest computers. Kubuntu is not even suitable to run on my machine. It would be so slow, it's not fit for purpose.

Pure Ubuntu on it's own is bloated and will give you a very slow experience unless you have a PC that is less than 5 years old and was fast then............. So on an old machine, when you get to the desktop options, choose Ubuntu-MATE. The only other options will either run stupidly slow or will be quite fast but be totally inadequate.

[#15]

I have Mint with a Cinnamon style Desktop running on a 4 year old dual processor netbook. It's a bit slow but boots in two minutes compared with about 15+ minutes for Windows 7 on the same machine.