16.04 problems - install, inactive/suspend, hard disk

[Ralf Mardorf]

On Tue, 13 Sep 2016 13:48:03 -0700, rikona wrote:
>> Yes, there is, but this is off-topic now. The installer provides an
>> option to manually assign a directory, e.g. /home, to a partition.  
>
>I assumed there was. The problem was that with the 3Tb disk the box
>crashed - *every time* - part way through the "other" option, so I was
>not able to use that to format the 3Tb disk during the install. I
>formatted the 3Tb disk separately, then installed it in the box.

That's no problem, you don't need to format the disk, to assign a
partition to a directory by the installer.

>When that did not work well I then did a complete reinstall with a
>1.5Tb disk, and THAT disk did make it all the way through the "other"
>option with no problem, on the first try, and was able to get /home on
>the 1.5Tb disk. The other thing that was different is that the 1.5Tb
>disk did not crash overnight, which was a regular occurrence with the
>3Tb disk.
>
>At this point, I thought that the original but new 3Tb disk might have
>a problem, and removed it. I replaced it with another brand new 3Tb
>disk, and again tried to do a complete reinstall. Unlike the 1.5Tb
>disk, which went through the "other" option with no problem, this 2nd
>brand-new 3Tb disk also had a lot of problems going through the
>"other" option. The first four times I tried to go through that
>option, the box would crash before I made it through to formatting the
>disk. However, on the ***fifth*** try I did make it through the rest
>of the format. It crashed again at what seemed like the end of the
>install. A reboot brought it up again, but with a thoroughly messed up
>display - the screen was much too large to display on the monitor and
>was unusable. Another reboot did bring up the screen properly.
>
>I'm beginning to think it may be UEFI related - whenever UEFI is
>needed, I seem to have a problem. A UEFI boot with the Ubuntu CD does
>not work well, but a non-UEFI Ubuntu CD boot is much better. My backup
>plan is another reinstall with a 2Tb disk - the max for non-UEFI as I
>understand it.
>
>I'm getting soooo irritated with this hardware I'm about to bring it
>all back and start over. :-( Never ever had this much of a problem in
>building a box...
>
>And again, thanks VERY much for the help!

I neither use UEFI, nor disks > 1 TiB.

Did you already check, if there's a firmware upgrade for your mobo?

Regards,
Ralf