Install problems

[nalareddep]

Hi each  (remember I am just a blundering amateur)

Having successfully installed a copy of Linux onto one laptop I thought I would do the same on another !!

I must have got lucky as I seem to have previously removed XP completely and installed linux using the xp installation disk first to reformat the drive then booted up from the downloaded and burnt (demo) CD containing the linux os.  I then recall seeing an option to install the full version which I took.

I tried this process again but to no avail.  So my questions are:
Do I need to remove the other os i.e. XP from my laptop before my install of linux and if so how do I do this?

hope this makes sense to someone.

[Ramchu]

Can you run the Live CD on this laptop ?

[nalareddep]

No, but my question is.  What state does the laptop have to be in to run this CD?  i.e. XP installed or just BIOS to run the CD. 

[Ramchu]

Enter the BIOS and select CD/DVD as the first boot device .
save the changes and exit.

Then you should be able to insert the CD -reboot the computer and it should then boot from the CD.

[TerryN]

No, but my question is.  What state does the laptop have to be in to run this CD?  i.e. XP installed or just BIOS to run the CD.  

It's up to you whether or not you remove XP.  The only considerations are that you need have enough disk space to install PCLinuxOS to, so if you leave XP on there you may need to reduce the size of the XP partition in order to make space.  The PCLinuxOS installer will offer you that option (and set up the bootloader so that you can boot either XP or PCLinuxOS) or you can just wipe XP and let PCLinuxOS use the whole disk.

[nalareddep]

I have a new clean xp installation

When I boot up from the CD this is the error message I get which repeats as presumably it keeps trying to run the Linux disk !

gfxboot:
could not detect available memory size boot:

Any suggestions please

[menotu]

Hi nalareddep - how much memory does you machine have please?

When you boot your system with the LiveCD in place when does this error message occur - do you get to the login screen or is it before that?

[nalareddep]

Hi

The machine has a  11.2 GB HD with 3.8 used for XP and 7.39 free space.  I just did a new install, inc Service Pack 2 and latest updates from windows updater to see if this helped.

This is an old IBM Thinkpad I am using which reports 589248KB memory on start up with the IBM and Thinkpad logos.


It starts up with
ISOLINUX 3.85 2010-02-20 Copyright etc. etc. then goes to the error message I gave before i.e. gfxboot: Could not detect available memory size ......