Boot trouble..

Cpu speed might be a factor? 512Mb Ram and 40gb Hard-drive sound fine. Ubuntu only needs 8Gb but 15Gb gives it plenty of room and so 40Gb should be great. 512 is about as low as i would really want to go with Ram but Ubuntu usually works fine with a bit less. Again that should all be fine.

A few pages to skim through quickly to check you haven't missed something obvious, although it sounds like you know what you're doing
http://www.ubuntulinux.org/getubuntu/download
https://help.ubuntu.com/community/BurningIsoHowto
https://help.ubuntu.com/community/BootFromCD

and my personal preference for installing Ubuntu as it seems to give the best results
https://help.ubuntu.com/community/WindowsDualBoot

If you are trying to install Ubuntu inside Windows rather than booting off the Cd then that could be what's causing the problem. A proper install is usually much better and dual-boot means you get the choice of Windows or Ubuntu when you boot up the machine. it's good to have the option especially at first or if you are into gaming, some games and things still seem to work better under Windows sadly.

If none of these look likely to help then please try a LiveCd session with a smaller linux distro from a different fork. My preference for this would be Wolvix, as it's a full proper linux based on Slackware (rather than Debian as Ubuntu is) and should boot quite fast as it doesn't try to load itself into Ram
http://distrowatch.com/table.php?distribution=wolvix

Please let us know how it goes
Good luck and regards from
Tom :)

You could also try running Ubuntu in text mode to see if that changes anything - Ctrl-Alt-F1 to switch to text mode, and Ctrl-Alt-F7 to switch back to graphics mode. If it works alright in text mode, it could be that your RAM needs to be higher for the system to operate well in graphics mode, or that there is a problem with the X server (the system which runs the graphics) or your graphics card driver. In any case, running in text mode will help diagnose the problem.

I have a similar problem. I have tried booting from CD/installing the system but no luck. Even in text mode the same thing happens. The mouse pointer does not move, Capslok key does not work, the hard disk light is also off. I believe it completely hangs at this stage and needs to be manually rebooted.

I am using a Compaq Presario V3000 Laptop, AMD Turion 64, 2.01 Ghz, 448mb RAM, Windows XP SP 3 preinstalled.

I have created a partition of 5.5GB exclusively for Ubuntu of the total 74.2 GB.

Kindly help.

Mandeep, please post questions as separate questions so that people can answer your problems without creating a confusion between who's talking about which machine. lol, thanks for trying to approach this in a considerate way though :) I think you need to give Ubuntu a lot more space. It really needs 8Gb minimum and is better with 15Gb ideally. Also i get the feeling you have installed it inside Windows using the Wubi installer. A better method is to bootup from the Cd and use these guides
https://help.ubuntu.com/community/BootFromCD

https://help.ubuntu.com/community/WindowsDualBoot

Good luck and regards from
Tom :)

@Yuva, i think elysianfields' suggestion is excellent and it would help us a lot to know if the 'text only' bootup does work.

Thanks for responding guys.. but am still helpless..
Additional info :
I tried to run live cd with Safe graphics mode. It did run.
But the display was in 800*600 resolution.
I installed ubuntu again. Now the login screen appears and after i type in my username and password the same orange screen with a mouse pointer appears and never progresses further.

Now i think reducing my screen resolution can make ubuntu work fine in graphics mode.
But how do I get to reduce screen resolution from 1024*768 to 800*600 using text mode??
Am a total newbie. So pls give me clear instructions from scratch.

Thanks in advance..

Seeking more help ... Yuvi

Ok, firstly are you able to start up the machine using this guide?
https://help.ubuntu.com/community/BootFromCD

It should allow you to boot up without installing anything to your machine. Please let us know how it goes trying this out

Regards from
Tom :)

Tom..
Live cd is working only when I run it in Safe Graphics mode which is an available option when I boot.
It works but its visually horrible. It runs in 800*600 resolution in safe graphics mode.

I think it might be better to install Xubuntu as it's a little bit lighter on system resources but is still just like Ubuntu except that its more blue than earthy colours.
http://www.xubuntu.org/get

Good luck and regards from
Tom :)

Yuva, is it still only running in Safe Graphics mode? I still suspect it could be a graphics card problem which can be easily fixed by installing the appropriate drivers. Assuming you're still having this problem, could you post the output of the following:

lspci | grep VGA

You can also refer to this page for more information on video card drivers: https://help.ubuntu.com/community/Video#Video%20Card%20Driver%20Types

Hope this helps.

Sorry elysianfields..
Actually i gave up on ubuntu.
I downloaded and installed fedora 9.
It works fine and am happy.

Thanks both of U :)
Great job u ppl do here :D

Glad you found a distro that works well and easily on your machine. Welcome to linux :)
Thanks and regards from
Tom :)