I'm trying to partition the hard drive on my old mac (model 4,1 running OS X 10.5.8) so I can dual boot Ubuntu. The problem is that when I go to Disk Utility and and select to partition the drive I get an error saying that the partition failed because there's no space left on the device, even though I have lots of space. This happens no matter how small I make the partition. [more inside]
posted by el chupa nibre on Apr 15, 2013 - 4 answers

I have an Acer laptop with an i3 chip and the standard amount of RAM, probably 4GB that I bought in 2011. Just over a year after I bought it, and just weeks after the end of warranty, the hard drive died. I'm wondering how hard it would be to buy a new hard drive and install Ubuntu or something like that. Is it possible? If so, how much of a pain is it to set up drivers? Would I have to manually install drivers for nearly everything (USB ports, wireless receiver, etc)?
posted by KokuRyu on Jan 10, 2013 - 13 answers

I accidentally booted my two mismatched WD SATA AHCI drives in a RAID0 array and now the audio output from the media stored on those drives is static-filled and echoing (when it plays at all). Have I hosed my mp3 collection completely? [more inside]
posted by carsonb on Dec 31, 2011 - 17 answers

Memtest says the RAM is clean. So why might my Eee PC 1000 be repeatedly rebooting? [more inside]
posted by randomination on Sep 23, 2011 - 16 answers

My desktop crashed, and won't boot windows xp from the hard drive. I managed to get into BIOS and set it to boot from the CD drive, and got a live session of ubuntu 8.10 running. I tried to mount the hard drive in ubuntu, but to no avail. Is there some sort of utility that ubuntu can run to look at or diagnose my hard drive? [more inside]
posted by Shohn on Jan 13, 2010 - 14 answers

There are currently 4 File Browsers open on my desktop, all displaying either the contents of my external hard drive or the folder where it's mounted (/media/). I didn't open them—they just showed up. This morning when I woke up there was 40+ File Browser windows open of the same. Another window just opened; it seems to occur at random intervals. I'm running Ubuntu Linux 8.10, wtf is causing this? [more inside]
posted by carsonb on Apr 2, 2009 - 11 answers

Whats the Difference between a file system and a partition in Ubuntu? [more inside]
posted by complience on Feb 25, 2009 - 13 answers

I'm using Terminal (Ubuntu 8.04x64) right now to overwrite a 500g external hd with random information. There's been no action aside from a blinking cursor (by itself on a line, not in front of any prompt) since I entered the command yesterday afternoon:
[sudo dd if=/dev/random of=/dev/sdc bs=8m]

I understand it's going to take a while to finish. In the meantime, is there any way to monitor the progress of the operation?
posted by carsonb on Nov 8, 2008 - 18 answers

How can I access my WD MyBook World Network Storage Drive from my new (Ubuntu 8.04) computer now that my old (WinXP) box is dead dead dead? [more inside]
posted by carsonb on Oct 21, 2008 - 18 answers

I'm looking for an external storage solution that will play nice with an XP Desktop and a Kubuntu laptop...preferably at the same time [more inside]
posted by Rallon on Dec 16, 2007 - 10 answers

How do I transfer my current Ubuntu system to a new, larger hard drive? [more inside]
posted by bonecrusher on Aug 21, 2007 - 10 answers

How can I wipe a hard drive if I can't boot from CD and there is no floppy drive? We want to install winXP on a machine with Ubuntu (eventual dual-boot). [more inside]
posted by billtron on Jan 28, 2007 - 14 answers

How to rescue the data off a hard drive when the usual means don't work? Tried several previously-recommended recovery programs and am currently running a LiveCD, but none of it works. Lots more inside. [more inside]
posted by duende on Jun 10, 2006 - 5 answers