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Topic: GParted Live freezing up after main menu

I am trying to adjust partitions on my Sony VAIO VGN-CR320E laptop. I have tried to use GParted by both burning an iso image to a cd and by making a bootable USB drive (using the zip file/makeboot.bat method). Both times I tried the latest stable release (0.11.0.2).

My laptop boots properly via both methods and the GParted main menu loads (the blue colored one where you select which mode of GParted you want to use), but all the various modes fail to launch the interface of GParted. A bunch of commands fly by on the screen, but then it just freezes. In default mode, it freezes at a black screen (I can't tell what the last line is because it goes by so fast), and in fail safe mode, it freezes after the line: "0.0373300] NET: Registered protocol family 1" Looking at the info in the GParted Live manual, I never even make it to the keymap, language, or video questions it refers to.

Is there some sort of compatibility issue with my specific laptop? Any help would be appreciated.

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Re: GParted Live freezing up after main menu

Normally, you are asked to confirm (or modify) the keymap, the language and the video driver that the operating system will use to lunch X.
Especially for the video option, there are 3 further options:
(0) leave the system use what it detects.
(1) select some "safe" options, especially VESA and 1024x768 resolution.
(2) select graphics driver from a list.
Default option is (0).
You can select (1), that is usually much safer option.
This is valid mostly for the 4:3 graphics hardware, like the CRT monitors and related graphics cards. Every VGA/SVGA compatible graphics card is able to use some basic graphics modes. I am not 100% sure however if these modes are valid for the wide slim monitors (by the way, laptop computers had always much more compatibility issues that desktop computers).

I don't know if this black screen is an atempt to go for a wrong graphics mode.
You can try the following: press (control)+(alt)+(backspace).
This will kill the graphics mode and bring you to the command line. Then, you can manually run "forcevideo" by giving the command
forcevideo
or
sudo forcevideo
This will ask for the keymap, language, and video.
If this doesn't work, perhaps some boot parameter is needed (to enter from the boot menu). If so, then the creator of the Livecd could help   smile 

Did you try to use other Linux live cds on this computer till now? (Ubuntu, Debian live, Knoppix etc)

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

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Re: GParted Live freezing up after main menu

Have you tried some of the tips on booting GParted Live?

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Re: GParted Live freezing up after main menu

yes, I have looked at the tips. I burned an image of parted magic this morning and that loaded fine. I was able to use gparted within that program, so I was able to accomplish my end goal. I still don't know why gparted live wouldn't work since both are linux based, but like I said the workaround worked. Thank you guys for your suggestions though!