I have some old 'puters from work, couple of laptops and 3x desktops. All running XP Pro on either 256 or 512mb / @ 2000 Celeron's.

Work does not want to pay for more software, and the office pack is being used on the new PC's.

So the plan is to Ubuntu them for staff / guests to use.

But, one laptop is 'locking' me out of installing the software. I have admin rights, but cannot seem to see the setting to allow me to install. Even a forced re-start will 'stall' the XP start up / not bring up the Ubuntu install…

Any ideas?

Change boot order in the bios?

tried that. still 'stalls' on XP boot up screen.

As retro83 says, boot from the CD/DVD drive and run the install directly from the disc. Windose won't get a look in.

If Windoze is having something to say about things then you must be running the CD from within Windows. You need to boot directly from the Ubuntu Live-CD (change BIOS boot order if necessary). You can then access the Partition Editor and remove all the existing partitions on the HDD and create a fresh install of Ubuntu, creating the new partition (EXT3) that Ubuntu prefers rather than using existing Windoze NTFS ones.

Th eUbuntu disc, did you make it yourself?

Is it definitely a bootable disc, you have not just burnt the files without making bootable?

What Padowan said, I do it all the time….. but it has to be a bootable disk and booted from the cd.

yep, ISO burnt to disc and coming up as 'Ubuntu' and the installer from within XP.
*is confuzzled*

Go into bios, remove hdd from boot list
Make sure cd/dvd drive IS in boot list
Boot from CD, if it won't boot from CD either your cd drive is borked or your CD, replace whichever.
Install from disc then at first reboot go into bios add hdd to boot list again

edit- my point being if xp is having a fit over installing ubuntu (and you no longer need XP) remove it from the equation.

and coming up as 'Ubuntu' and the installer from within XP

This is your problem – the PC is booting up into the existing Windows OS on the HDD. If this is happening, then because Windows is running on the HDD you're unable to wipe the HDD and install the new OS.

So:
It *is* a bootable disc- used it before, and it starts to 'work' on my desktop. I have a spare I just burnt as well, and that does the same.
Bios changed to choice 1)CD/DVD, choice 2) CD/DVD choice 3) CD/DVD. When the laptop restarts it comes up with a 'boot device' menu that looks like the bios, with CD-ROM/DVD selected, I press enter, it flashes then returns to the menu….

Have you got an xp recovery disk?If so,format the drivefrm the recovery disk,then change to the ubuntu disk and install.
Ian

PSA no way back from this though

Can you confirm that the CD drive you are using is an internal one, or is it connected via USB or something?

In the BIOS, for each boot device sequence what options does it give you, obviously CD/DVD is one, but what are the others?

When it works properly you should get an Unbuntu menu giving you the options to Run Ubuntu from the CD, Install Ubuntu, and some other options

On a side note..you might want to consider trying Xubuntu for the 256mb machines if things are a bit sluggish

In the BIOS, for each boot device sequence what options does it give you, obviously CD/DVD is one, but what are the others?

1st Boot Device
Hard Disk C
CD-ROM Drive
Diskette A

Repeated three times (ie 2nd and 2rd boot device)

There are also tick boxes for PXE Boot and Boot from HDD only – both unticked and tried them (separately) ticked.

Its been a doddle the last few times….

Hmmm. If you set the first boot device to CD-ROM then it should work fine.

What you could try doing is pressing F12 a few times as soon as the machine starts to boot up, (depending on the make of the laptop) this can prompt you to chose the boot device and then you can select the CD from the list.

If you get to this point, or the BIOS setting works as expected and it still doesn't work then I'm out of ideas. If the CD wasn't bootable, then I would expect an error saying that the device isn't bootable, rather than just returning to the menu…

yep. pressed f12 loads. just will not boot off CD or install bootloader from within XP….cheers

I meant that to be cheers for your help.

Matt

I sometimes get this on really slow CD drives, the computer boots so fast that the CD returns "nothing here" before while it's spinning the disc up and the bios defaults to HDD.

Can you try installing from a USB stick?