Kernel Panic - unable to boot Linux from CD

ceecookie SG

Hi,im trying to give my old PC a new lease of life by say,donating it.
however,my PC can only boot up to the point before the XP loading screen.
At that point,the "Windows apologise for the inconvienence and blah blah about power failure" appears all the time when i boot up.

There's 3 options to start the PC from there.None works

Start windows normally/Start from previous good config - the PC will jam/hang after i click this option.
A message "Windows could not start because the following file is missing or corrupt - System32\Drivers\Pci.sys" will sometimes display prior to this.

Start from Safe mood - also cannot - the loading sequence hang at ....\system32\BOOTVID.dll

Start from Safe mood with Commant Prompt - cannot as well,sequence will hang at WINDOWS\AppPatch\drvmain.sub instead

Boot from Linux Ubuntu CD - ALSO CANNOT WTF!!!
After selecting Start or install Linux from CD(the 1st option),the loader will hang and the last command message was "Kernel Panic - unable to sync - attempted to terminate the idle process!"

Repeated tries to no avail.

This time,i tried booting the same Linux cd in my new PC and selecting the 1st option - success!,can boot all the way to the start screen

I'm going to reformat the old PC anyway and install Linux Ubuntu,but first i need to boot up normally to delete all our sensitive files as normal reformat is useless in removing them.

What should i do?

ceecookie SG

double post sry

ndmmxiaomayi SG

LOL, that error. Means the monitor resolution is a bit odd. Usually, when booting via Live CD, change the resolution options before booting up.

Since you could boot up now, just install Linux over it. Delete the partition, format it then install Ubuntu on it.

ceecookie SG

From what you say,if i boot Linux from live CD,would it be able to see all the files in the HDD?

Rockhound SG

from experience...linux need at least 512mb...

any less...

hard to impossible to boot from the CD

ndmmxiaomayi SG

Yes. But not touch anything there if I'm not wrong. You aren't supposed to edit them anyway, so the feature isn't there.

ndmmxiaomayi SG

You can do it with 128MB of RAM. But the thing is, it's freaking lag. To boot up, 20 minutes.

Compared with 512MB of RAM. 5 to 8 minutes.

And if you are going to install on a 128MB, it's going to take one whole day. 512MB takes about a few hours, something near the installation of Windows timing.

ceecookie SG

but i do remember my old PC(that has 256mb ram) booted up Ubuntu Linux ard 2-4mins only..

ndmmxiaomayi SG

It depends on how old is your old. My old is really old. I've got a PII, a HDD that spins at god knows rate and 128MB of RAM.

It booted up finally after 20 minutes.

Rockhound SG

hard to impossible…

YI SG

waste of time = not efficient = waste of electricity Neutral

ceecookie SG

I dont know why the darn Linux Live CD takes SO LONG to boot up..it keep showing the prompt "_" sign Mad

ceecookie SG

i really give up on this old crap.

Cannot boot Linux - fine,it stays with XP.

This time,its so difficult to install updates and SP2(since the XP data was pre-SP1) Whats more,after some complications i had to do another reformat since the com cannot boot to XP again.... Mad

ndmmxiaomayi SG

You might want to get the hardware check, especially hard disk, RAM and PSU.