no OS, trouble installing ubuntu or using DBAN, memtest came back fine.

silver_fingers

Reputable
Sep 7, 2015
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0
4,510
Hi!
im going to try being brief with this as to not waste anyone's time, but im not the best at being specific. i have a 10 year old computer that was dismantled then put back together by yours truly. it started up fine after i put it back together but it was running windows xp, so i opted to wipe the HDD and install a Linux OS.

i added 4 "new" (from amazon) corsair 1 GB DDR1 RAM sticks to give the system a little help with the Ubuntu i was planning on installing (16.04) and then i tried to run DBAN and ran into problems.

honestly, the symptoms were different every time but it usually wound up with a screen full of text and no sign of a successful wipe. so after several alternative methods (using a newer computer hooked up to the old one's HDD) and a lot of learning curves (drivers didnt let HDD work on oldie) i eventually got the OS to work on the computer it needed to.

so then i wanted to install ubuntu 14.05 for stability reasons (i assured myself), and im back at square one. cant install OS and DBAN isn't pulling through.

i ran memtest and aside from the first run (30 errors on test 6, nothing conclusive) everything ran fine with no errors.

the only thing i can think of is this bent CPU wire that, i swear, i bent back well enough to get it to work, but a lot of the symptoms seem to be related to memory. i honestly doubt its the RAM, but im still rather new to this so i dont know where to even try looking anymore. the computer has no OS and memtest says RAM is working well. any thoughts?

mobo: ASUS P5GDC deluxe
RAM: 4 x 1GB corsair
CPU: Intel PENT. 4 3.00 GHz
Video: nvidia GeForce 7600
HDD: Western Digital Caviar 160 GB
PSU: X-Power 450W

i also tried looking up other posts to try finding an alternative method. none really relate to the fact that no OS is present.

also, i was using USB boot drives that were created using Rufus and 32-bit OS