What to do when Linux hangs on boot

[Hymavath]

I want to use Linux in dual boot on my machine hp compaq dx2000 MT. I have a 80GB disk with 512 MB of RAM. First I installed XP on partition C which has a 30 GB space. And then I installed Ubuntu on the rest with Grub in the MBR). But it appears just to start GRUB prompt and nothing else. When I boot nothing happens after that. Linux does not boot at all. Things work well at the time of installation with no error and other things. But later on this issue started popping out. Where I am doing mistake in this.

[windows_user]

You must be inconsistence in your disk partitioning work. How did you created partition on your hard drive. Have you used a tool like Partition Magic. There are several question you have to look for, to get the exact cause of hangs. To simplify things, you should install your boot loader in the / boot partition. Try that too in the rescue mode. The command for that is - grub-install --recheck/dev/hda. Also go in the BIOS settings and then check that if your hard drive is set on LBA. Try to reboot and then run back again the setup. This can be due to misconfiguration of the file.

[Elijah]

I had faced the same issue while installing a older version of Linux. Actually I just realized that I had damaged clusters on the hard drive. And I had create my partitions directly with software then I tried reinstalling. Because of that the bootable cd of Linux has skipped the step of formatting and this time the installation was blocked while installing the packages. This can be due to bad clusters. Simply test your hard drive integrity before installing Linux on that. There can be had sectors. Format your hard drive partition first before installing Linux on that.

[Luis234]

I have a laptop acer aspire 1310 windows xp service pack 2 which is now uninstalled from the machine, but it crashed so I decided to install Unbuntu Linux by booting from the CD I burned or Linux Unbuntu as an ISO image using the software InfraRecorder. So when I boot on the CD by booting, I started the installation it asked me for my language, time, how to partition the drive and all those stuff. The installation hangs at 24% and the cursor will not move at all. To be sure the download that there has been nothing changed on the iso file you got. Get a new file and run the setup back. This worked for me.

[Ernesto4]

Here is my case what I did. I remove my two Windows partitions, I formatted and then I reinstalled Windows on the hard drive. I then launched the Linux CD, then test the CD via the option that launches at startup of the CD, no problem, the CD was OK. I run Linux Live CD, then I start to install it. So I create, in the Free Space there was a swap of 1000 MB, then the rest in a primary partition in ReiserFS about 50 GB Then the installation, everything goes well up to 94%, installing grub on hda0. I turned left about 2 ½ hours, still stuck at that point. I thought that maybe the PC had freeze, so I quit the installation, rebooted the PC and tried again, but this is the same, it has been 30 minutes. This can be instability of the version you are using right now. It is necessary that your boot manager much install properly before setup.

[mesterio]

Swap and reiserfx is a good choice. I think you might have to use swap + partition + other partitions in each system. You will also need to optimize the reading speed of drive. It can be due ot mechanical element so very slow and the computer slowing sharply. This can be jammed or the MBR might be protected too severely that grub cannot write it. It is important that you must run the grub properly to get both the operating system load properly on boot. It can be due to some inefficiency of the operating system.