HP DV6T won't boot Ubuntu Live CD

Guys, I have an Ubuntu ready on a DVD, I placed it on the DVD drive then restart. When I do that nothing really happens, Windows 7 would boot normally. I didn't changed anything on the boot settings, but the boot from DVD is enabled. Any help?

 

Did you properly burn the Ubuntu image? I use MagicISO or you can try InfraRecorder which is free InfraRecorder .

You can use Unetbootin UNetbootin - Homepage and Downloads to burn the image to a USB drive.

 

I had to set the DVD Drive on top of hard drive for the Ubuntu to boot. Sorry I have to make a thread.

It's my first time to experience Linux and even I haven't used it for a long time I think I'll like this.

When I'm running from Ubuntu live CD, there's an icon to install Ubuntu, would this remove the windows 7?

 

Yes there is an icon and it's up to you whether or not you install Ubuntu alongside Windows or by its self(you will be given a choice during installation)...
Good luck with installation.

 

If I have a windows 7 and Ubuntu installed, Can I use my recovery discs if I want to go back to my factory setup?

 

If you have a recovery partition on your HDD make sure that you don't delete it during installation. When you use your recovery discs you will simply return your DDV6T to the way it was when new...

 

The recovery partition does the same thing, right?

 

The recovery partition usually holds data needed to create your recovery discs. Did your computer come with them or did you have to create them and have you done so? If you plan to experiment with Linux I strongly recommend that you create/have your recovery discs before hand... You need to read the documentation that came with your computer to find out about recovery.
Good luck.

 

If the image was burned correctly it should boot from the DVD without booting into Windows. You would see the Ubuntu boot screen after it boots from the DVD.

As Steve mentioned it's imperative that you first make your system recovery discs, in case something goes woefully wrong. That way you can put in the recovery disc and the system will be brought back to the state when you took it out of the box for the very first time.

 

I burned my recovery discs the time I received this laptop.

I need a partition for Ubuntu since the Live CD doesn't have the "install alongside with Windows," but my laptop already have 4 partitions, can I just delete the recovery partitions? Since I have burned my recovery discs.

 

What's the size of your recovery partitions? I and others would suggest around 50GB for the Ubuntu partition, OS/Programs/Swap File

 

Total size with free space is 17 GB, then I still have 681 GB from C partitions.

Should I just delete the recovery partitions, then extend the C? After that I'll shrink another 50GB to be used for Ubuntu.

 

I would NOT DELETE the recovery partition just in case. I would shrink partition C: by about 100GB and use that as your Ubuntu partition.

 

I already have 4 partitions: System, C:, Recovery, and HP_TOOLS. If I shrink the C: for another partitions, it will make my partitions Dynamic.

 

I don't understand what you mean by dynamic?

If you shrink a volume then the OS creates a partition in the uninitialized state. You have to format it in order for Windows to assign it a letter.

With Linux Distro/Ubuntu it's going to see that partition as usable space so I would install it there.

 

Before committing to a permanent install on your harddrive, you might want to try installing live to a USB key with persistence. With persistence, all of your settings and installed programs, etc. will be saved to USB.

It's really great.

A simple program will set up everything on the USB stick for you:

http://www.linuxliveusb.com/

I'm running Mint 11 on a fast 8GB USB stick. The max persistence size is 4GB. It's plenty to install many programs in addition to the preinstalled and is enough for a lot of your data. There is a way to make a larger persistence space. Let me know if you really want to do that. Requires partitioning the USB stick using gparted.

 

I guess I'll just have to do this instead of dealing with partitions on my laptop.

How's the performanace when using it? And I don't have to do anything when I want to remove Ubuntu, right? Just remove the USB.

 

Most USB sticks are pretty slow, in the 10 MB/s range for sequential read for the cheapies. if you get a faster one you can get reads into the 30 to 50 MB/s range, and writes somewhat under that. While they're no competition to modern SSD internal drives with their 150+MB/s read speeds, they are competitive with modern spinning laptop HDs which are in the 30 to 70MB/s read speeds.

Since the USB drive will have nearly instant seek times, the overall performance on a good one can be quite pleasant. On a slow one it's a crawl, since once the sequential speed drops down to the 10 or so MB/s speed, it's noticeably slower loading large files than a spinning disk.

For persistent storage you can use the internal hard drive's windows partitions as well, as most modern desktop linux distros include the fuse / ntfs / hpfs drives needed to mount an NTFS drive and write to it. This means you can just use your windows drive as your general storage area for both Windows and Linux.

I'll recommend in addition to the previously mentioned linuxliveusb, unetbootin. It allows a persistent area on the USB key as well, AND has two main attractions:

1: It's available for most linux distros, windows, and mac.
2: It can create a friggin plethora of various linux distros as either live USB keys, or network install mode.

If you know you want say Ubuntu 10.04 on a machine, you can make a net install key and it does a network install from the Ubuntu online repos for you, and so on.

If you want to test you can create just about any Linux distro (and a few other odd things like BSD or FreeDOS, ntpasswd) that's live and works and has persistence. Useful for updating BIOS from a DOS disk etc. It will then download them from the internet for you.

-- OR --

It also puts downloaded .isos of any type onto a bootable, live / install USB key pretty handily.

 

Thanks guys. Do you know a fast USB flash drive? I'm going to purchase one on Amazon.

Amazon.com: Kingston Digital DataTraveler 101 Generation 2 - 32 GB Flash Drive DT101G2/32GBZET: Electronics

Amazon.com: SanDisk Cruzer 8 GB USB 2.0 Flash Drive SDCZ36-008G-A11: Electronics

Will the USB 3.0 make things faster?

 

Neither of those are very fast. This ADATA 16G on newegg is $25 and has much better numbers than either of those and good reviews. This Mushkin 32G is $60 and has some very high numbers and the reviews to back it up. If you want to save a little and have nice read speeds but mediocre write speeds, then this ADATA 8G drive for $15 might be the sweet spot. Last one to add, is this Team C101 for $22 which has a higher write rate and lower read rate but overall would likely be a better performer than the last ADATA listed.

 

Thanks! I don't mind spending $25 but the $60 is a bit too much for me.

 

Best thing about shopping for USB thumb drives on newegg is that all the fast ones have their read / write speeds in the main listing for them so it's easy to compare. Amazon hides it away down in the product description so you can spend all day finding what you want.

 

I'm using an old OCZ Diesel 8GB that gets 28 Read/17 Write and it is perfectly acceptable performance, IMO. Minimal stuttering. Boots in about 1 min give or take. Running Mint 11 off it.

Keep in mind that the Persistence file, Casper-rw, is max 4GB. It's good for me and all the software and data I use. But it may not be for you. There is a way to get around that limit. Involves using gparted (off live CD) and creating a partition on the USB stick of the size you want and naming it casper-rw*. I tried it but it didn't seem to run as fast as with just the 4GB Casper-rw file.

*best to Google the instructions for this as I likely oversimplified it.

 

Not sure if anyone's posted this before, but i had the same problem. Just use wubi to install. Works perfectly.

 

Guys, I have tried Ubuntu on a USB, and I didn't really liked it running that way. I guess I have to learn how to install it on my hard drive.