Arch Linux

wezza

Member

Registered: 2007-12-12

Posts: 5

Installation really impossible @laptop?

HI, I'm getting really frustrated about installing Linux on my new laptop...

1. Live CD's (from both Ubuntu and Fedora) boot up, but stop responding quickly. The DVD-drive spins up, and it never slows down. Nothing will work (what's not yet in memory), the only option is turn off my laptop. When I try to reboot i get the error: "VFS: busy inodes on changed media".

2. When I try to install Arch with CD, the installation hangs. I also tried to boot up with USB, but then I only see a black screen with the word "grub" in it, but i never get to see the real grub menu.

I'm out of options... I really don't want to use Windows all the time

The laptop is: Asus X57Vm (the motherboard is from M50Vm)
Intel P8400
Intel Mobile PM45 chipset
Intel Wifi 5100
GeForce 9600 M GS
HHD: Hitachi HTS543232L9A300 (320 Gb)
DVD +/- RW: HL-DT-ST DVDRAM GSA-T50N

SomeGuyDude

Member

Registered: 2008-10-09

Posts: 271

Re: Installation really impossible @laptop?

Sounds to me like something is screwed up with your drive, at least that's all I can imagine. I've never heard of someone being unable to even use the LiveCD, not just have difficulty installing.

Can you get anything working with your CD drive? Even a Windows installation disc?

---

And in the midst of such perfection,
I can't help but feel diseased.

wezza

Member

Registered: 2007-12-12

Posts: 5

Re: Installation really impossible @laptop?

The weird thing is that the laptop works without any problem in windows. My DVD-drive works in windows: installation, reading and burning without any problem whatsoever...

I feel really sad about this, I have absolutely no clue about how to solve it..

mcmillan

Member

Registered: 2006-04-06

Posts: 665

Re: Installation really impossible @laptop?

Sometimes burning a disk at too high of a speed can cause problems, if you didn't tell it to use a slower speed that might be one explanation for the LiveCd errors. I think I remember hearing some people having better luck with ubuntu's installer cd rather than the liveCd, but I think if that was the problem you'd get a little further and I'd be surprised if the Arch cd didn't work in that case.

Not sure what's going on with the usb drive, I haven't used it so I'm pretty unclear about what could go wrong. I've seen that kind of error coming up from other people but I don't remember how it was solved.

FreakGuard

Member

Registered: 2008-04-27

Posts: 83

Re: Installation really impossible @laptop?

You can't boot from USB? Would be worth a try.

---

In each heart, as pure it may be, there is a place of deepest and darkest abyss.
(by Apollo from archlinux.de, translated by a friend of mine who writes http://www.drunkduck.com/Captain_Communism/ )

iBertus

Member

From: Greenville, NC

Registered: 2004-11-04

Posts: 2,228

Re: Installation really impossible @laptop?

Have you tried the usual list of kernel optiona (noapic, etc)? My laptop required several options to boot and remain stable, and this didn't change until the 2.6.26 kernel series.

wezza

Member

Registered: 2007-12-12

Posts: 5

Re: Installation really impossible @laptop?

Thx for all your responses so far!

First of all, the CD itself seems fine. I have used the cd's succesfully with other computers, and I have checked the cd's for errors @ bootup: no errors.

Then I tried the ubuntu live cd with the options acpi=off and noapic, but the problem remains: total lockup in little time.

Are there more options which I can try @boot? Or could my DVD-drive be unsupported by Linux in general?

Somehow the USB installation of Arch is giving me a black screen with only the word "GRUB", and it remains like that..

UPDATE: Oke I am typing this message in a Live Ubuntu environment (Live USB stick): no problems at all!! So the problem seems to be related to my DVD-drive not working in Linux.. To me this sounds stupid...

How could my DVD-drive work flawless in windows and at the same time be unusable in Linux?

Last edited by wezza (2008-11-10 21:15:10)

floke

Member

Registered: 2007-09-04

Posts: 266

Re: Installation really impossible @laptop?

*Could* be a live cd thing, and not a dvd drive thing - if the USB install doesn't work either...
I've had distros that wouldn't work on LiveCD but ran fine from install.
You might try installing ubuntu from the alternative (text based) install (or the usb you have working) - if grub works there then you could install arch and use the ubuntu grub .... until you find a better fix.

Just some thoughts.

jkluebs

Member

Registered: 2008-11-17

Posts: 4

Re: Installation really impossible @laptop?

Just ran across this thread. I am having a similar issue with a brand new Asus G50VT-X2 laptop with the exact same model DVD drive. It seems that the SATA link to the DVD drive goes out to lunch very easily. This is especially the case when using the AHCI ATA support. By changing the BIOS setting from "Enhanced" or "AHCI" to "Compatible" or similar, the ata_piix (SFF) driver is used instead and things seem much more stable. I was able to do a debian netinst in fact. Unfortunately I am having the same stability problems with ata_piix once a heavy amount of CD-ROM activity is requested. I don't have any answers yet, but I thought I would inform those here that there does seem to be a libata/ATAPI issue that may be related to this DVD unit.

viga

Member

Registered: 2007-06-12

Posts: 112

Re: Installation really impossible @laptop?

are you trying to dual boot or just completelly erase windows and install linux?

wezza

Member

Registered: 2007-12-12

Posts: 5

Re: Installation really impossible @laptop?

Just ran across this thread. I am having a similar issue with a brand new Asus G50VT-X2 laptop with the exact same model DVD drive. It seems that the SATA link to the DVD drive goes out to lunch very easily. This is especially the case when using the AHCI ATA support. By changing the BIOS setting from "Enhanced" or "AHCI" to "Compatible" or similar, the ata_piix (SFF) driver is used instead and things seem much more stable. I was able to do a debian netinst in fact. Unfortunately I am having the same stability problems with ata_piix once a heavy amount of CD-ROM activity is requested. I don't have any answers yet, but I thought I would inform those here that there does seem to be a libata/ATAPI issue that may be related to this DVD unit.

Wow, "compatible mode" in BIOS seems to solve the crash in live mode :-)

It's not really a final solution, because in windows "compatible mode" gives blue screens at boot-time. But now I can finally install Arch again when I have the time for it... nice!!

I hope the problem with the DVD-drive will be fixed in time somehow.. but for now this workaround seems great.

iphitus

Forum Fellow

From: Melbourne, Australia

Registered: 2004-10-09

Posts: 4,927

Re: Installation really impossible @laptop?

You can set to "compatible mode", install Arch, and then set it back again. Windows can be configured to work with the "compat mode" but I can't remember how.

Mr.Elendig

#archlinux@freenode channel op

From: The intertubes

Registered: 2004-11-07

Posts: 3,528

Re: Installation really impossible @laptop?

Its a known problem that sata optical drives don't work under linux, when the controller is set to ahci.

---

Evil #archlinux@freenode channel op and general support dude.
. files on github, Screenshots, Random pics and the rest