16.04 problems - install, inactive/suspend, hard disk

[Liam Proven]

On 14 September 2016 at 03:15, rikona <rikona at sonic.net> wrote:
>
> Not sure how to tell.

Read your motherboard manual. Google the motherboard model number.
Look for EFI-specific options in the firmware setup program.

> The short explanation is the "something else" option crashes when
> trying to format a 3Tb disk. Works fine with 1.5 TB.

But you said you can format it using a different boot disk? So why not
do that? You don't *need* to format during setup.

> Yes yes yes - I know. :-) That's what I want to do. But when I was
> *finally* able to put / on the SSD and /home on the 3TB disk after
> ***FOUR*** "something else" option crashes, I just said to finish
> install rather than risk another crash by doing another operation. The
> install put /swap on the SSD, I guess since it was /.

Swap goes in a different partition. And you don't need it at all.

>> What problems?
>
> Crashes at various points, often when sitting idle for 20 min-24 hrs,
> but sometimes in the middle of doing something.

I am beginning to suspect a hardware problem.

My next troubleshooting steps would be:

* try with only SSD
* try with only HD
* try a different distro/OS altogether

> How can I tell what kind of partitioning is being done on the two
> disks?


Um. Do you *ever* Google these questions before asking us?

If you are not, it's rather rude to use a support list as a Google
proxy for you.

https://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=1742682

> Is BIOS/UEFI a choice?

No.

>  If I have those UEFI boot options on my BIOS
> screen, does that mean I have UEFI and not BIOS?

Yes.

> I'm assuming a UEFI
> must have GUID and can also see the older disks too.

As I said before:

* Disks of >= 2TB *must* be GPT
* Only UEFI can boot from GPT
* But GPT is readable on either type of system

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