1 Topic by sjdurfey (edited by sjdurfey 2007-08-23 01:50:07)

  • sjdurfey
  • New member
  • Offline
  • Registered: 2007-08-21
  • Posts: 1

Topic: LiveCD issues

i apologize before hand if this question has already been answered. i dont have the time to troll the forums due to being a full-time student.

im trying to get my HDD partitioned for both linux and win xp pro (im getting rid of Vista!)(my school's programming software also only currently works with XP, we use Visual Studio2005 so i dont know why it wont work, even though its supposedly supported under Vista, that and driver issues) but the problem i am having when trying to install from the XP install disc is after XP setup formats my drive and reboots it freezes. so ive been advised by my campus system administrator to use this program to destroy my current windows partition and start again. either that or use SuperGrub disc to restore my boot loader in case that was damaged at some point in time.

the problem i am having is this: the liveCD boots fine until it gets to the screen where it asks me what language i want, and thats where it stops. i dont think its freezing because the cursor still flashes, so im thinking it just wont accept keyboard input at that time, even though at the boot menu my keyboard works. this just leaves me confused.  i enabled legacy usb support incase that was an issue (i read somewhere about this being an issue with i think freeDOS maybe?). can anyone help me out? Thanks in advance.

2 Reply by class413

  • class413
  • Moderator
  • Offline
  • Registered: 2007-05-25
  • Posts: 2,376

Re: LiveCD issues

The system administrator is right. You can erase the current partition(s) with gparted Live. But you need also perhaps to wipe some MBs at the begining of the disk, because already existing data can cause problems (not only in win but also in Linux installs).

Can you please give me details about your computer hardware ?

I guess that you use a USB keyboard. First, you could try the BIOS options about USB (there is usually an option about USB keyboard support).
Next, you can try another version of gparted. Although it's better to use the latest version (0.3.4-8 now), you could also use 0.3.4-7 or 0.3.4-6 in a cdrw, as they differ in the boot-up process and hardware detection (the resizing/creating/deleting work is essentially the same).
If these options don't give the solution, you could try to connect another keyboard, especially a ps2 keyboard.

Another idea: to just erase the disk, you could use a Linux live cd, like Knoppix (*very* usefull tool for any advenced computer user), and do it from the terminal or with some of the s/w tools it contains.

Another usefull tool for diagnostics and recovery work on partitions, is "TestDisk". You can find the url with the search in this forum, because I recommended it to many users.

If you try to resize ntfs partitions (or any other partition type), please read carefully the documentation.
http://gparted.sourceforge.net/documentation.php
Just after resizing ntfs, you have to reboot at least 2-3 times into windows for check + system update.
I prefer to proceed by single steps, although it is possible to do many changes and then "apply". I like to control any step. It takes longer, but I love to be more secure in partition work.

*** It is highly recommended to backup any important files before doing resize/move operations. ***