16.04 problems - install, inactive/suspend, hard disk

[rikona]

Hello Liam,

Wednesday, September 14, 2016, 6:35:37 AM, Liam wrote:

> I am beginning to suspect a hardware problem.

That's what it looked like.

> My next troubleshooting steps would be:

> * try with only SSD

Did it - worked fine...

> * try with only HD

Did it - worked fine with a 1.5 Tb disk.

Tried it with both of the above - still worked fine. At this point I
began to think it was somehow related to the UEFI boot since I ALWAYS
had problems whenever UEFI was involved.. But I never had to work with
that and knew absolutely nothing about it [didn't even know what the
initials stood for :-) ].

>> 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?

Of course. Since I knew nothing about the proper jargon, the searches
at this point told me that I could use UEFI in setting up comps, with
a gazillion pages giving similar info. None of the pages in this
search gave me a tool to use. Also, as I found in later searches,
gparted does not show that info with a right click - you need to get
the info via a menu click. I did not know that at the time either.

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

Of course, and I never do that. I apologize for asking a question
that you thought was too stupid to put on the list.

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

Good info - thanks...

As it turned out, my thought that it was related to UEFI turned out to
be true and finally led to a solution to the problem. As always
happens, as the learning process progresses I can make more and more
precise searches using the proper jargon to get to the part of the
problem which seems to be important.

I tried a number of suggested things - boot-repair, etc - none of
which worked, and some of which made things worse.

I found one key problem that seems to be essential in making the
installation work properly. It seems to be a bug in the Ubuntu
installer. The cables in my box were set up in a way to assign SDA to
the hard disk, and SDB to the SSD. Since I wanted to have the system
and the boot on the SSD, the Ubuntu installer bug made this
impossible. With UEFI, it does not matter what you say, it apparently
will install the efi boot files to the ESP on the drive seen as sda.
If you do not have an ESP on sda it fails. And, the kinds of problems
this generates look a lot like hardware problems and makes the
situation difficult to diagnose. 

I found some other strong suggestions for how to make a successful
installation. Here's what I finally ended up doing to get a successful
UEFI install: 

1. Make sure the disk cables are connected so that your boot/system
disk comes up as SDA. This is apparently essential due to an installer
bug. 

2. I had dozens of failures with the Ubuntu installer UEFI disk
preparation step, so I set up and formatted the UEFI discs ahead of
time [once I learned what was required on the discs for a UFEI boot] -
at this point I did not trust the "something else" option. This may
not be necessary, but I did not test it to see whether it works
properly when the other steps are done.

3. Boot up the Ubuntu install DVD in UEFI mode. This was strongly
suggested on multiple sites, but may not be essential. I did not test
a non-UEFI DVD boot to see if it will do a UEFI install properly.

When I did the above, the install went through without any glitches -
the FIRST time this occurred with the 3Tb installed in the box. It
also came back from a black screen after a long pause - the FIRST time
this occurred with the 3Tb installed in the box. Things were looking
encouraging. I installed quite a lot of software, and a full update,
which also worked well. It has now been running for a couple of days
without any problem, so it looks like UEFI really was the problem
after all.  

Learned a little bit more about computers, which is always good. :-)
No UEFI expert, of course, but it seems as though I learned enough to
make the box operate. A good thing, too - I was just about to junk all
the hardware and start over again. But, if I made the same SDA/SDB
mistake again, I probably would've relived the entire experience. 

Many thanks to all who tried to help with this!!

-- 

 rikona