My USB test drive hangs on boot. How can I get it to boot with the right options?

Question

I try to install 64bit Ubuntu 11.10 on a Toshiba Satelite notebook with AMD E350 processor. The installation USB successfully tested on an Acer Aspire desktop although I only ran a try out. On the notebook it started to show just one line of text on the top of the screen for haft an hour and did not proceed further.

Answer 1

Your'e probably not passing the right boot options. Boot from the USB. When the screen with the keyboard and stick figure comes up, press any key. Use the arrow keys to select your language and press enter. Press F6 for modes, and try combinations of nomodeset, acpi=off, noacpi and nolacpi until the computer boots successfully. I wish I could tell you which combination, but it varies from computer to computer and so you'll just have to do some experimenting. Hope that helps!

Answer 2

With laptops, most common freeze-points are the AHCI, VGA and PCMCIA. The best way to go ahead is to use minimal/safe settings. Please follow below steps.

1. Disable AHCI option in BIOS Setup
2. Boot from the installation media (CD/DVD/USB)
3. When the menu appears after selection of language, highlight the "Install Ubuntu" option and press F6
4. Check all options by pressing space-bar while moving to each option with arrows (cross should appear on all options), then press Esc
5. A line with boot options will appear with 2 dashes at end; now type the below text (it should appear after the 2 dashes) and press Enter

vga=normal fb=false hw-detect/start_pcmcia=false

Your system should hopefully install without hanging up. I tell from personal experience of trying many combinations of the options, but finally turning off all options did it.

Also, once installation is successful, connect to the Internet and do a System Update without fail.

There is also an option of setting up the Internet connection within the installation process and having it update Ubuntu as part of installation.