Help installing Ubuntu 8.04 (manually)

Hi guys I am a complete noob and need help installing Ubuntu 8.04.

This is my current laptop(desktop replacement) that I will be using

SAGER NP9262
intel core 2 Quad Q9550 2.83GHz
4gigs ram
2x Nvidia 9800m GTX (512mb) SLi enabled
Realtek Hi-def audio
3x 320GB

I was trying to install Ubuntu 8.10 but kept getting

MP_BIOS bug: 8254 timer no connected to IO-APIC

I tried the solutions I found online such as pressing F6 and replacing the "quiet splash" ending with "no apic" but then I receive X server [fail] on the gnome display

I then tried disabling IOAPIC in bios but I dont get that option

I also tried replacing "quiet splash" with "ro single" which gets me to the recovery panel but that is all

So after hours of searching and getting same answers I decided to install an older build. I had the Ubuntu 8.04 dvd desktop with me so I decided to insert that and strangely I did not get the above message. So I decided to install this build rather than 8.10 since I cannot find a solution.

Preinstall, if you look at my specs above I have three hard drives. The first is running XP SP3 (32bit), second is running Vista 64bit and third is meant to be running Ubuntu if I can get the thing working.

I found this tutorial on youtube and its pretty good except the options I am presented are different and I think play a major role in installing Ubuntu. Here's the site

www dot youtube dot com/watch?v=PEadY...eature=related

Following the instructions on the video, I edited and resized my third drive (320070mb) to 157987mb formated as NSTF but it is not mounted to anything.

That's another thing, in the video the guy has all his drives show up mounted to some area but during my installation process, I see my three drives but neither are mounted to anything. Is this ok?

Anyhow, I resized the drive to 157987 and then created a new partition with 2000mb to use as swap. Finally I created my last partition (the actual one that will be running ubuntu) with the remaining available space I have and used it as ext 3 and mounted it to /

I stopped here and cancel the whole installation process since I am a bit concerned about the fact that my original drive (320070mb) and the window partitions are not mounted to anything. I wanted to know if I need to have them mounted?

So if anyone can provide some input on what I should, I would greatly appreciated.

Thanks

 

It's all right not to mount them. As long as you don't accidentally delete your data on those drives.

8.04 is fine. It's supported to 2011. if you want to try 8.10 (which is supported to 2010) again, you should try re-burning the iso again but at a slower speed.

As for your partitions, I recommend putting / and /home in two different partitions. This is beneficial in case something is wrong with your system, you can install Ubuntu again but leave all your data(music/videos/etc) in your /home.

Give / about 8-10Gb of space, it'll be enough. And the rest to /home. As for swap, since you have 4Gb of ram, you should put your swap to 4gb as well ONLY if you hibernate/suspend often. If not, the minimal swap size (256Mb, I think) is good enough.

 

if it was me I would check out wubi
http://wubi-installer.org/