[SOLVED]Failed live CD boot

[hellfire25]

Recently I tried to boot Linux Mint 12 (32bit DVD edition) off the DVD to install only for it to fail. IT spent a couple of minuets loading and then got stuck on the background image with no icons and no activity form the drive. I have been wanting to dual boot Linux Mint and windows for a long time but cant do so until this is fixed.

Here are my computers specs if it helps.

CPU: AMD Athlon II P360 Dual core 2.3 GHz
Current OS: Windows 7 home premium (X64)
Ram: 3 GB
GPU: ATI Radeon HD 4250
Model: Dell Inspiron M5030

[NetCritic]

I Used uNetBootin to install off a USB flash drive, as far as I can tell that's the easiest way to do it.

I haven't tried it, but you can try using the program to burn the iso to to the DVD, made that might help.

Or just try to wait....

[hellfire25]

I booted of the usb drive successfully but was met with the same blank desktop. I waited but the usb drive showed no signs of life.

[HughT]

hi hellfire25, can you advise what preparation you did to your hard drive before installing eg partitions?

I'm not sure what you mean here

I booted of the usb drive successfully but was met with the same blank desktop. I waited but the usb drive showed no signs of life.

How do you mean that you booted successfully if you have a blank screen and no life from the usb?
regards

[hellfire25]

I prepared the Drive by making a 20gb partition advance. what i mean by botted up successfully was actually that it started good but froze on the desktop image. when i said i saw no signs of life i meant the usb drives activity light was inactive.

[HughT]

Does Mint work if you boot the DVD, ie using 'live' mode?

[hellfire25]

Thats what wont work. I try to boot from usb or DvD to install but it freezes on the desktop background and all drive activity stops

[HughT]

That's odd. Did you confirm the checksum of the downloaded image?

[sunewbie]

as I understand, booting failed from LIVE DVD

It seems to be a graphic card driver problem.

Try Ubuntu 12.04. If it works, then mostly Mint 13 will work.

If it is a driver problem, default kernel version might not be able to handle graphic card properly.

Try to google for it. I searched (using my searching engine - link in my signature) and found many posts related to it.

[HughT]

I agree with sunewbie, ATI Radeon do not offer good driver support for Linux, you might need to use Mint 11 instead.

[hellfire25]

Ok, I will try mint 11. In ubuntu 10.04 LTS I was able to obtain the drivers for the card and they performed as well as the widows version

[hellfire25]

I tried mint 11 and had the same problem. Then I tried mint 13 on usb and it didnt start up at all, simply skipped and went to windows(and yes I set boot priority).

[sunewbie]

It sometimes happens.

Try either solusOS and SalineOS.

Both are based on Debian stable and offer different kernel versions.

SolusOs is relatively new and has Gnome2, while SalineOS has XFCE.

I have SalineOS. Installation takes 5 minutes and it's fast and stable. Forums are quiet but friendly and helpful.

If you like KDE, then MEPIS is based on Debian stable.

You can also try rpm based distros like Fedora. It's a different side of world

EDIT:

Else, try LMDE Gnome or XFCE. I had tried XFCE as gnome 2 was soon going to R.I.P. It is generally stable, but according to definition, it is based on Debian testing and may break. Clem in release notes says the same. On the other hand, Crunchbang is based on Debian testing with openbox as manager.

I would not recommend both LMDE and crunchbang to new comers. So try SolusOS or SalineOS or simplyMepis

In rare cases some USBs, some CDs / DVDs and some CD / DVD drives refuse to work for no reason

[hellfire25]

It seems the software for instaling to usb drive was faulty, i am now installing linux mint 13 off live cd as i type this.

[sunewbie]

It seems the software for instaling to usb drive was faulty, i am now installing linux mint 13 off live cd as i type this.

It's a rare thing. Good to know that you caught the culprit

Enjoy Linux Mint.

If your problem is solved, kindly edit your first post and mark it as [SOLVED] but adding the word [SOLVED] in the beginning of subject line.