Hello and help with install on a Dell ultrabook

[CassJohn]

Hello everyone, I just got a new Dell ultrabook and won't Reactos on it. My problem is that I keep getting errors from Nero and Windows7 burn that the image is not valid. So I tried burning another iso this time of Ubuntu, that worked so I tried re downloading and another burn of Reactos failed. I tried to use Ubuntu to burn after installing it but it said that it couldn't fixate, what ever that means. Can someone tell me how I should burn Reactos or what else I can do? Can I install it to the system without a CD? Also will Reactos work on this computer?

[Black_Fox]

I don't know the cause as such, but if you are downloading the nightlies from http://reactos.org/getbuilds/, you may first try to "test" (=validate) the downloaded 7z archive before unpacking and burning.

[milon]

Hey CassJohn,

Try getting a virtual machine (VM) like VirtualBox. Download the ISO (a recent one from Get Builds is usually a good idea). Make a new virtual computer with an empty harddrive and use the ISO as the CD drive. Start up the virtual machine. If ROS works, you can play with it in the VM. You'll also know if it's a good download. Then you can try burning to CD again. If you're not sure how to do all the VM stuff, there's threads on the Tutorial page that'll guide you through it.

Let us know how it turns out!

[CassJohn]

It works in Vmware but can't burn with any app on Ubuntu or Windows7. I read that you can copy the files from inside a VM to your harddrive, so how do I do that and will it work?

[CassJohn]

Or can I open the iso and burn the files as a new data project?

[Black_Fox]

Burning the ReactOS VM disk would not work. Windows 7 should support burning ISO images out of the box. If you right-click on the ISO image, you should have an option to "burn disc image" (see here). Does that work?

[CassJohn]

Still can't burn. I copied the files from inside the
vmdk using qemu convert, to the HD after formatting to fat32 (bootable). It claims That I have no operating system. I think the vmdk was not complete or it might be my bios. My uncle had a bare mettle backup of Windows that he put on a new computer, maybe someone could make a backup of a working HD and drop it in a drop box. Then I could use a live CD to extract it to the HD.

[CassJohn]

I redownloaded and extracted the iso in Ubuntu. Then I burned with Alcohol in Windows7 and it booted. Now it loads to NTKERNEL and the screen goes blank. I searched around and it looks like a graphics issue. Do I need to add drivers to the cd?

[CassJohn]

My friend tried the cd and an error poped up:
An error occured in FreeLoader
FreeLoader v3.0
Report this error to the ReactOS Development mailing list <ros-dev@reactos.org> Exception 0D: General Protection Fault
A bunch of data and an ERROR CODE: 00075073

[milon]

I redownloaded and extracted the iso in Ubuntu. Then I burned with Alcohol in Windows7 and it booted. Now it loads to NTKERNEL and the screen goes blank. I searched around and it looks like a graphics issue. Do I need to add drivers to the cd?

ReactOS doesn't yet boot on a lot of hardware. It could just be not ready for your system yet. The only way to know for sure is to get a debug log of the start up, but that only works if you can choose to boot in Debug mode. Do you get that far before the screen goes black? (See Tutorials thread for debug logs on real hardware.)

[Haos]

Guys, please note that this OS is in alpha stage, thus its functionality, on real hardware especially - is quite limited. It is way easier to test it in a virtual machine. Testing on real hardware is much more complicated and if you cannot provide debug logs - has less use than vm. Its still possible but requires much more experience than just installing ROS from burned CD.

Also, if you still insist, please use CDRW instead of CD-R - that will save you a lot of CDs.

[CassJohn]

Thank you all. I don't get fare enough to switch to debugging mode. I think my hardware is to new as your hardware list doesn't include any ultrabooks and only six types of ultrabooks are in the market so it probably won't be supported anytime soon. I just wonted it because my old laptop that I bought used from ebay had Reactos on it and I liked that it was able to use Windows Apps without all that Microsoft expense and viruses. I would use Wine on Ubuntu but it failed whenever the App required a desktop, toolbar or other thing to be running first; it also failed with full graphics games like WOW and Diablo. Well I guess I will go back to dual booting Windows/Ubuntu with Wine.

[CassJohn]

I wonder though if installing my system drivers and grub to the VM might make something that would at least boot to debugging mode or safe mode.

[Black_Fox]

In wine's AppDB it seems that WoW and Diablo III should work nicely in recent wine versions.

[CassJohn]

Should but they both had issues with networking and my graphics chip is moderate, so the work fine in Windows but sluggish in Wine because Wine can't display the drivers correctly. And some games just will not work, though to be honest I haven't tested any others and I don't know if Reactos will be any better without similar work with the dll files.