Error loading operating system (Live CD was totally fine)

This is a IBM T23 (10 years old)
pentium3 1.1ghz
640mb ram
28gb hdd (contianing several bad sectors)
intel graphics

everything works out of box (graphics, wireless, etc) on a live cd

however after installation, upon boot, it displays “Error loading operating system” right after BIOS and before even goes into GRUB and is stuck there.

Enter live cd, and choosing boot from harddrive does not solve the problem.

Already did the CD check, which shows no problem


did a bit googling
turned out this could be an issue with a dying harddrive
and sadly, it is the case, the harddrive on this 10 year old laptop is indeed dying D:

However, installing windows xp posed no problem… (altho tons of driver issue, but anyways…)

I have a few solutions in mind
1). just use a usb stick as the replacement for harddrive
2). get a new harddrive (not even sure what to get for this laptop D: )
3). find a magical way to fix it :S

Would definitely be glad to know a way to load this system on this existing harddrive for now
I was told earlier that there are ways to tell the system to avoid mapping the bad sectors.

thanks,

The best program I know to fix bad sectors is Spinrite (google it) but it is not free and costs about $70 last I looked. But it really depends on how bad the sectors are how much any program can do. If the drive is dieing get the data packed up and put in a new disk.

According to the wiki page on the T23, a standard 9mm thick 2.5" HD should fit, but do a search to check that there aren’t any Thinkpad specific features required. eBay should find you lots of spare 2.5" HDs. 10 years is a pretty long life for a laptop.

Category:T23 - ThinkWiki

On 2011-05-17 18:06, BeyondSora wrote:
>
> This is a IBM T23 (10 years old)
> pentium3 1.1ghz
> 640mb ram
> 28gb hdd (contianing several bad sectors)
> intel graphics

Notice that formatting a hard disk accounting for errors needs options that
the default install will not use. You have to do it manually.

> however after installation, upon boot, it displays “Error loading
> operating system” right after BIOS and before even goes into GRUB and is
> stuck there.

That error message is typical from Dos/Win, not Linux. I think it is not
finding grub.


Cheers / Saludos,

Carlos E. R.
(from 11.2 x86_64 “Emerald” at Telcontar)

On 2011-05-18 02:06, ken yap wrote:
> 10 years is a pretty long life for a laptop.

More than the years, the hours running would be more important to know.
smartctl -a /dev/sda would say


Cheers / Saludos,

Carlos E. R.
(from 11.2 x86_64 “Emerald” at Telcontar)

Usually the battery goes first on laptops so either he’s changed it at least once or he’s running it on mains.