InstallProblems

[Grizzly]

On 19 February 2010 at 18:47, Nils Kassube 
Enlightened me with this:-Re: InstallProblems

>Grizzly wrote:
>> But my install problems have grown since my first unanswered post

>If something is unanswered, it usually means that nobody has an answer 
>and I'm not so sure if my comments will be helpful either.

Any reply is helpful, at least I know someone read the post

>> Ran the install again (6 times so far) every time it just stops at a
>>  random point (80%, 97%, 100% ??)

>That's a bit unusual - I would assume there might be a hardware problem 
>of some kind if the install doesn't stop at the same point each time. 
>And what do you mean with "it just stops"? Is there some error message? 
>Does the machine hang completely?

The % count stays the same for hours, progress bar is no longer animated, the 
mouse freezes, CTRL-ALT-DEL  does not work, so I'd say it hangs

>> Having had a few probs with installs going to the wrong place or been
>>  forced to duel boot (or not I been able to choose my USB HD partion)
>>  I turned OFF both IDE controlers in BIOS to protect my O so fragile
>>  WinXp and ran the "install to harddisk" option from the Flash drive
>>  choosing tto install to largest contig free space on the main USB
>>  disk, install failed at the create Ext4 partion and exited

>I'm not sure what you want to tell us about being forced to dual boot. If you install
>Ubuntu, you can choose where to install the boot loader. If you choose the MBR of your

I may have misjudged but I don't think so, from my various trys to install IF 
an IDE drive was present no mater what I did I could not install to an empty 
(uallocated) partition on any drive (fixed or USB) I could only let the 
insatller put Ubuntu beside (in already used disk space) or on an empty 
partition on the same disk as Windoz C:\ unless I manually set partitions (and 
that is a step to far for a first HD install in 15 years)

>harddisk (that's the default) you get a dual boot setup. But you can choose to install
>grub in the Ubuntu partition. Then your XP should stay untouched and you would have to
>boot Ubuntu e.g. from the Windows boot loader.                                         

Is that not by def a duel boot "rely on one OS to boot another OS" I was/am 
happy to decide what I want to boot from BIOS (or BIOS menu) 

>You can choose the grub location with the "advanced" (?) button at the last page of the
>setup pages just before you start the install process. 

IIRC I could choose "IF" there was a bootloader not sure if where was an option

>But in your case it is a bit more tricky because you want to install on an external
>disk. The problem is that your BIOS must select the right device to boot from and that
>device must be known to the grub installer. When I installed Ubuntu to a USB stick a
>long time ago, the result was that it only worked if I set the USB stick as first boot
>device in the BIOS of the machine. It didn't work if I selected internal disk as first
>boot device and then selected the USB stick from the BIOS boot menu. And maybe I had to
>edit the grub files to make it work. Sorry, I don't remember exactly what I had to do
>to make it work - it is too long ago. 

I have USB set as first boot for some reason it does not slow boot when no USB  
is present (unlike a missing CD/DVD-ROM)

>> When I went back to BIOS to turn on the IDE controlers again they
>>  were both ON (yes I did save the settings first time or the USB
>>  stick could not have booted) in disk manager (XP-Pro) I had two new
>>  partions on my main drive (Swop and Ext4) both 240Gb insize any
>>  ideas on why / how or more important how to install to my External
>>  USB Hard drive WITHOUT the chance of effecting my main drives (short
>>  of pulling the dam cables)
>
>IIRC, disabling the IDE controller in your BIOS doesn't make the 
>controller and disk(s) disappear. The kernel does its own hardware 
>detection and should find the IDE disk(s) anyway. I suppose you didn't 
>expect to find the internal disk and used that instead of the external 

The really odd  (and scary) thing is that non of the 3 internal disks showed up 
at any point, I had one bar showing (USB) disk state pre install (no pulldown 
for other drives) and one showing what it would be like(ish) post install, well 
it showed "Ubuntu9.10" not Swop, Ext4 & the other one

>one. What did you use to do the installation? Live CD or alternate CD 
>and which Ubuntu version? And did you choose manual partitioning? Maybe 
>you could tell us some more details.

Step One)
Used "ubuntu-9.10-desktop-i386.iso" to make a USB Stick "PenDrive" version 
(using Universal-USB-Installer-v0.2.exe) But that would not let me install to 
the normal USB HD unlike the older PenDriveLinux 8.10 (Based on Mandiva) that 
would take a -f option and install to "normal" USB HD (but never managed to get 
Wine to work under that flavour :-<)

Step Two)
Then runteh "Install to HardDisk" from there both from the boot menu and from 
within Ubunto itself (less options there)

As mentioned above I stuck to letting the installer partition the drive (all 
but one time, big failure) if I had a few pointers to what sizes and types to 
use I may be able to try that again

Based on a free 15Gb partition (could make bigger if required by reducing the 
NTFS data Partition)

Step three)
Rebuild the Pendrive version after each failure



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A man will show no pain while taking the most ferocious beating, but will
wince when a woman tries to clean his wounds.