What a Ride

Ok this is going to be a long post, be prepared.

Around 6 days ago our teacher in Data Structures asked us to install Ubuntu as a easier more effective terminal in our programming class, we us Linux virtual machines at our college. So after many attempts of trying to install Ubuntu I came up with the same error " Root file not found on partition" at the time I had no clue what it meant and surprisingly the teach didn't know either. He suggested I install Debian a program similar to Ubuntu so I could work on my programs at home. While installing Debian I didn't create a partition for Debian specifically so I deleted my entire hard drive and Windows OS. I luckily saved everything under "user/Troy" so most of my implacable items are saved on my external hard drive. I also received a CD of my Windows OS and a resource disk holding all the needed drivers to get my computer back up and running. My first attempt of installing windows started out great until I noticed my hard drive only had 465 GB half of the 1 TB I used to have before the Deletion of my hard drive. My second attempt worked great tell I started installing applications to my Alienware FX and command center. These applications control your lights on the keyboard, and most no essential hot keys. While going through my programs I found my second hard drive sitting un-allocationed doing nothing. I watched some great youtube videos on how to return you hard drives back to RAID-0 configuration. RAID-0 configuration if you don't know uses between 2-6 hard drives to save half your information on one hard drive and the other half on the other increasing performance. While I fixed my hard drives I also had to wipe them clean in the process. My final installation of windows with the new RAID-0 configuration, everything was going great tell I installed alienware FX again from my resource disk. I starting searching the internet finding out that if you install Alienware FX from your resource disk you wipe the firmware clean. Also alienware FX for some reason is on the main motherboard and with my warranty expired in this passed June replacing it is not an option. After spending this passed Thursday to today I have been working on my computer for a good part of 12 hours of each day. All in all it was a great experience and I learned a great deal about the more complex programs in our computer. The only thing I have to say it f#ck you dell for putting Alienware FX on the mother board WHAT WERE YOU THINKING....

Um, sad face

Shot dude that sucks. All I can say is wipe the drive, reparation, and then reload.

root file not found = you have not selected a mount point.
if installing manually most people select ext3 but "/" is your mount point... btw, this little backslash in Unix/Linux is read as "root"

My question, how can your teacher ask you to install and work on something he can't use/troubleshoot?

I laughed at the teacher not having a clue what to do either.

In his words " I have no clue what you should try just re-installing it". This guy has 2 masters, one in computer science and one in electrical engineering...... also my computer isn't working at 100% right now. Problems include: 1) If I have the screen set to turn off after X amount of time, it wont turn back on. 2) My computer lights stay on after a shutdown and I have to hold down the turn off button. 3) Remembering all the programs I downloaded. I did find a great post on notebookreview.com that hopefully will help me reset my computer to working order. It will require me to do everything over again but if all my systems work ill be happy. Unfortantly I wont be able to do this tell next weekend because I need my computer badly this week and it still works enough to be operational. If I still had a warrenty I would have dell reset my computer back to factory settings.

http://forum.notebookreview.com/alienware/556721-how-clean-windows-7-install-driver-install-order-guide-alienware-systems.html

Also just found out if I close my lid on my laptop it turns off my display and I can't turn it back on so I have to restart my computer...

S7 Panzer wrote:Also just found out if I close my lid on my laptop it turns off my display and I can't turn it back on so I have to restart my computer...

Is your computer female?

No clue. Well it just got worse if I start up windows in normal mode after the windows start up screen it goes to a black screen were I can do nothing. So I found out my power service under msconfig was the problem but that turns off my audio drivers for some reason so my computer works right now but having no sound sucks ass.

So panzer, at this point you have windows as your primary OS, with a partition for Debian... and you have lost all your data and everything.

Just wipe the drives completely. Do a fresh install of Windows. Install all the drivers, get all the windows updates. Then go to ubuntu's website, download it, and install it on top of windows.

Unless there are physical problems with the computer should be easy and only take a couple of hours (mainly waiting on windows updates doing their stupid restart cycles to get them all). If you have projects you're working on I'm sure you've got some sort of external memory you could save them on for a day.

S7 SockPuppet wrote:

S7 Panzer wrote:Also just found out if I close my lid on my laptop it turns off my display and I can't turn it back on so I have to restart my computer...

Is your computer female?

LOL
As for help...what Atrum said!

For some reason my computer switched from RAID-0 to 2 drives when I tried to install Ubuntu. Also I changed back my hard drive configuration to RAID-0 which whipped everything out. I started from scratch and while installing drivers from dell.com my computer started acting weird. After 3 tries of installing windows and having the same problem its pissing me off. I'm going to fallow this guys order of installing drivers because dell computer are very particular on the order of which each driver is installed. Hopefully I have just been installing the drivers in the wrong order and that will be the end of it. Ill update you later tonight on how its going.

This is the driver download list I'm going to fallow.
http://forum.notebookreview.com/alienware/556721-how-clean-windows-7-install-driver-install-order-guide-alienware-systems.html

Yeah, if an install ever acts weird, do it over. As for drivers the main thing is Chipset first, always. After that it's not too important.
Also, since you've been playing in the bios you might want to check all your settings or possibly reset them to default.

Yeah I just did a fresh install with all the drivers and the restart and shutdown problem still happens. It started after installing alienware's On Screen Display (OSD). After that I installed everything fine and I do have a BIOS driver that I can update but I'm not sure how to update my BIOS. Help please.

In general, you just run the .exe and it works.
To clear/reset bios just log in to it, and look for an option called something like "Load Defaults", "Restore Defaults", etc.

If just running the .exe doesn't work the download probably came with a read me. Just follow that.

Yup, your computer is definitely a "she." J/k.

Its my fault really I should have just backed up my entire OS and this would have never happened. Atrum this is what my Bios file gives me.



So I'm guessing I can either do the DOS version or the Windows version or are they both required?

That's an either or. As I'm guessing you're not using DOS for anything just follow the windows instructions.

yeah I'm not fermiliar with DOS ill just do the windows version later tonight

Well I updated the BIOS and my computer still has the problem of not restarting and shutting down still doesn't turn the computer off all the way. If this is my only problem I can deal with hitting the power button each time but it always seems to make something crop up after 1 day. We will see...

Sounds like an ACPI setting. I'd check the power settings in BIOS just to make sure nothing looks weird. I've only ran in to a couple ACPI issues before. Just do some googling on ACPI and see if any of your settings look weird there.

k I thank you very much for you help atrum, other then this computer being my gaming central I really need it for school.

Nothing seems weird I only have 3 setting and they are all enabled.

Well my problem of the power service has cropped up again. I have narrowed it down to the AC adapter being the problem. After turning the power service back on under msconfig I noticed that my computer runs fine while on the battery with the AC adapter not attached. If I start my computer in windows with the AC adapter connected it doesn't launch windows at all. I have tried to connect the AC after windows starts up but it just freezes on me. The only way or me to have the AC adapter work is to have the power service disabled which stopped my network card, sound card, and screen brightness from working. Is there a way in windows to mess with the power service settings. I have alienware FX which can change the performance type " Normal, high performance ", but I wanted to see if other options were possible.