Install Question - SATA? bios setup wrong maybe. ..?

I am a newbie when it comes to linux. I have played around with it for a few years on different older computers that were laying around, however never really sticking to it. I just built a new computer a few months ago and decided to dual boot it. I have windows 7 and ubuntu 12 running on it now, however when i upgraded ubuntu to kernel 3.8 **** went all wrong, the system would no longer boot past grub. I can select the recovery option, however it hangs half way through. I got tired of reading forums and trying process after process that didnt work so i tried a different distro all together(opensuse,fedora and mint) None of the other distros will even boot to their live cds. I can get to the welcome screen and select what i want to do then after a few lines of code, it hangs. always in the same place.

My computer is set up for sata and the bios is on ahci setting not ide. any help would be appreciated. Thank you.


my system:



1 x LG DVD Burner Black SATA Model GH24NS90 - OEM


1 x Kingston HyperX 3K SH103S3/120G 2.5" 120GB SATA III MLC Internal Solid State Drive (SSD) (Stand-Alone Drive)


1 x Intel Core i5-3570K Ivy Bridge 3.4GHz (3.8GHz Turbo) LGA 1155 77W Quad-Core Desktop Processor Intel HD Graphics ...


1 x AMD Gift - Dirt SHOWDOWN Gift Coupon


1 x Logitech Wireless Combo MK260 920-002950 Black USB RF Wireless Standard Keyboard and Mouse


1 x G.SKILL Ripjaws X Series 8GB (2 x 4GB) 240-Pin DDR3 SDRAM DDR3 2133 (PC3 17000) Desktop Memory Model F3-17000CL9D-8GBXM


1 x MSI Z77A-GD65 LGA 1155 Intel Z77 HDMI SATA 6Gb/s USB 3.0 ATX Intel Motherboard with UEFI BIOS


1 x MSI R7850 Twin Frozr 2GD5/OC Radeon HD 7850 2GB 256-bit GDDR5 PCI Express 3.0 x16 HDCP Ready CrossFireX Support ...


1 x Seagate Barracuda ST1000DM003 1TB 7200 RPM SATA 6.0Gb/s 3.5" Internal Hard Drive -Bare Drive

I myself would not blame the Sata driver off the mobo. Since Grub is working and Grub must reside in a partition then the Sata hard drive must be operational now as it did before.

If you have a consistent problem with booting up a distro and then the system "hangs" it can also be the problem with the graphic card not properly identified by the kernel. There could be a possibility the Radeon graphic card is giving you the problem. The old kernel would probably use a generic driver for your Radeon card that the new kernel fails to adopt. New high end graphic card drivers will take time to reach the Linux and Radeon in this respect does not receive the amount of supported as the Nvidia from my experience.

I would in your case opt for a clean re-install of the new Ubuntu. This is to say to ask Ubuntu installer to format the old Linux partition before install it. A "dirty" install, where the new version is installed over the existing files, is a probable cause of breaking up a previously workable Ubuntu.

As regarding to the other distro testing and installation see if there is an option for "safe graphic mode" which you can select. This is the generic driver common for most graphic cards. It will kick start your system but may not be able to use 100% the functionality of your Radeon card.

Just tried doing a clean install using ubuntun 12.1,13, opensuse 12 and mint. then all boot to the loading screen and hang once i make my grub selections no matter what i choose for the video options. Opensuse also gave me options to use different kernels and i have tried every option i could think of. I have tried evey option i can think of. The only thing i havnt done is put in a new vid card, however i dont have an enxtra one laying around.
this is confusing becuase i just used all three distros this weekend and put them on my laptop and they work perfect, granted my laptop is 4 years old, however it really shouldnt matter that much. I am truely confused about what to do to make this work.

Can you run each Linux as a Live CD?

Is this just an issue with the installation?

I can not, when i put the live cd's in the computer boots to the disk, grub comes up, i get to make my selection to boot to cd or install, however once i make my selection it hangs at the right after boot. They all just get to a black screen with a cursor flashing.

Sorry I didn't pick it up earlier but your Mobo has UEFI which if activated could prevent you from altering the booting process.

I have not bottom out the UEFI myself but it is supposed to protect the boot loader from being alterd. If you want multi-boot you have to opt out the UEFI.

Your problem appears consistent with UEFI stopping you from changing the original booting process.

I had similar probs with a few towers.. It was bad video cards...