Most of the time this error occurs that is a bad disk or a bad drive (or a bad cable).
Ubuntu 8.10 seams (from own experience and google) to be commonly affected by this.
You can try the following (I try them in this order)
- If you only get buffer errors and no CRC errors, just try and wait (a few minutes) It might still be possible to install
- Try another installation CD [from the same installation image] – if this works, then the other disk is bad
- Try to swap out the cable to the drive (if you have a ribbon cable use one with 80 connectors, not one with 40)
- Try to swap out the drive
- Try another installation CD [from another installation image, old version, other dist, windows] – if this works then there is an issue with the installation image – there might be an issue worth reporting
If all this fails or you wish to install the version you have, then using a usb stick to install the image might be a good idea.
I’m getting from friends and associates, data that indicates this problem is likely caused by a seriously corrupt BIOS which can’t be cleaned easily. It probably needs a professional high-tech state of the art method of BIOS cleaning. Is there a way the novice can clean up a corrupt BIOS that DBAN, and pulling the battery doesn’t touch? DBAN doesn’t even clean it. Seems the BIOS needs something very aggressive to clean this corporate and political spies and bully stuff out of the chips, or the tower is essentially ruined for any secure and peaceful use.
Please post methods how to clean a corrupt BIOS.
@Linda: I am not sure about that statement. DBAN is supposed to wipe a hard drive so I don’t think that will have any impact on the BIOS.
If you have tried swapping cables, media (and drive) without any affect and belive your BIOS is corrupt, then you could check if there is a BIOS update available from your mobo manufacture and use that to get a uncorrupted BIOS.
Be careful though, if the BIOS is corrupt and the update fails you might be in even more trouble than before!