Ok. On Saturday I built a new computer for the first time. When I powered it up, everything seemed to be alright - lights come on, fans start turning, monitor works, BIOS loads, and shows all my hardware running just fine. That was all good, so I decided to install an OS. Initially, I'd intended to download Linux, but didn't have time so I put in a version that I had free off a computer mag (which contained the current Ubuntu release). The LiveDVD loaded fine for a bit until freezing on something like: Code: Unpacking Linux... ok Booting kernel... I reset the PC and tried again a few times before taking the disc to a working computer and trying it (to check whether the disc was faulty), but it worked fine. I didn't really have anywhere to start on the problem so I tried a different OS. This time I used a borrowed copy of Windows XP SP1. It got as far as running setup before effectively crashing and telling me that my hard drive may be corrupted, along with some customarily indecipherable codes. So I ran Seagate's DiscWizard utility and tried a full disc wipe - this took the whole night leaving me to conclude that the hard drive was probably faulty. But why did the LiveDVD fail? As far as I know, they only use the DVD drive and the RAM. I tried another distribution, this time a Gentoo LiveCD. This time it works until I get this: Code: The root block device is unspecified or not detected. Please specify a device to boot, or "shell" for a shell... boot() :: Does this mean that it's not recognising the DVD drive?! or am I completely wrong (it sounds absurd to me)? I cannot test this disk unfortunately because I only have access to one PC that runs AMD64 processor architecture. Anyway, that's most of what I tried. Any ideas as to what on earth is going on?
might be that your dvd's lazer is dirty. open it up, and clean the lens with a non-lint fabric, q-tips are great.
Turns out that for the SATA, IDE and floppy ports to be recognised properly you need to install drivers that are on a floppy. Isn't this a bit of a catch-22? because the floppy drive that I've just installed won't be recognised by the OS because the drivers that are on the floppy can't be installed because it's not recognised etc. Surely someone else must have had this problem before... or is it that my drives actually are faulty?
