10.2 Beta Install Failure

Hi,

I am trying to install 10.2 Beta on an AMD64 machine.

The installer gets as far as making the partitions on the disc before trying to make the file systems. It then stops with an error "/dev/hda appears to be in use by the system. Not making a filesystem here". I cannot get past this.

This occurs even after having deleted all partitions off the hard disc before starting the install.

The only slight oddity in my set-up is that the machine has two discs, one sata (sda) with Ubuntu and another pata (hda) on which I am trying to install SUSE. Apart from that, it is a fairly standard K8-3000 with 1GByte RAM and NVidia graphics. Ubuntu runs on it just fine.

Any ideas?

Regards
A

Try to delete the partition table and disk label before partitioning.

If it will appear impossible to do during installation, you can use the fdisk of the installed Ubuntu, gparted boot CD, probably Knoppix, or maybe Yast in SUSE 10.0 Live DVD.

After deletion, don't forget to "write" the changes.

With the next reboot, it may take about ten minutes for the SUSE installer to recognize that the HD does not have a partition table.

Try to delete the partition table and disk label before partitioning.

If it will appear impossible to do during installation, you can use the fdisk of the installed Ubuntu, gparted boot CD, probably Knoppix, or maybe Yast in SUSE 10.0 Live DVD.

After deletion, don't forget to "write" the changes.

With the next reboot, it may take about ten minutes for the SUSE installer to recognize that the HD does not have a partition table.
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Hi

That was one of the things I tried! Before the install, I verified that the disc was not partitioned. The SUSE installer created two new empty partitions (with no delay), but failed when trying to create filesystems on them. I tried using ex3 and Reiser on different attempts, but the effect was the same.

A

I am not sure, but I think that there is a difference between these two situations:

"The HD is not partitioned."

"The HD does not have a partition table."

Well, you can always try to partition the HD independent of SUSE.

Do you have Master/Slave settings correct? Check the whole connections of IDE devices. Also look whether the BIOS reports them correctly.

Also, it seems to me that you made a slight error when you wrote the diagnostics in the first post:

"/dev/hda appears to be in use by the system. Not making a filesystem here".

Shouldn't it be "/dev/hda1 appears ..." ?

I have noticed that, on an installed SUSE 10.1, Yast fails sometimes to partition and format external USB drives. It behaves in similar way: at an inappropriate moment during partitioning/formatting, Yast mounts the partitions, and then says that it cannot delete/modify/format partitions since they are mounted. Of course, I unmount all partitons before even starting Yast.

I am not sure, but I think that there is a difference between these two situations:

"The HD is not partitioned."
"The HD does not have a partition table."

Well, you can always try to partition the HD independent of SUSE.
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I am not sure how to delete a partition table; I have never felt the need! I cannot see it as an option in fdisk. I suppose I could install FreeBSD in DD mode. That would do it, but it seems a bit extreme.

Do you have Master/Slave settings correct? Check the whole connections of IDE devices. Also look whether the BIOS reports them correctly.
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Yes. The disc in question (hda) is used for all sorts of test installations - Linux, BSD and beyond - and is regularly re-partitioned. It had Fedora Core 6 on it immediately before the failed 10.2 install, Ubuntu 6.10RC before that, FreeBSD before that. Really, I think there is nothing wrong with it!

sda is "stable", and is the install that earns the machine its living, so I am not touching that.

Also, it seems to me that you made a slight error when you wrote the diagnostics in the first post:

"/dev/hda appears to be in use by the system. Not making a filesystem here".

Shouldn't it be "/dev/hda1 appears ..." ?
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You are quite right.

I have noticed that, on an installed SUSE 10.1, Yast fails sometimes to partition and format external USB drives. It behaves in similar way: at an inappropriate moment during partitioning/formatting, Yast mounts the partitions, and then says that it cannot delete/modify/format partitions since they are mounted. Of course, I unmount all partitons before even starting Yast.
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I am installing (not installing) from a bootable DVD so nothing should be mounted.
Anyway, there is nothing mountable on hda. I deleted all of the partitions! YaST created two new ones, but failed before creating a filesystem on the new partitions. hda1 and hda2 are empty (I checked them from Ubuntu), so if YaST thinks that they are mounted or otherwise "in use", it seems to me that it really is fubar. There is nothing in hda1 that anything could use.

I will try to pull sda off the system over the weekend and see if the installer works with just hda connected. I can also move a spare sata drive from another machine and try that.

When I was testing Ubuntu 6.10, the release candidate had a show-stopper bug where the installer would not recognise the root partition. However, Ubuntu installs from a live CD and the installer is written in Python. With ten minutes' investigation and 10 seconds' hacking I made a very quick and dirty work-around and got the system installed. I have no idea about how YaST is put together, so I have no idea as to whether something like this may be possible with SUSE.

A

I think you did all correctly.

The possible reasons of remaining trouble are bugs in IDE controller, its driver, and in Yast.

There are so many ways to proceed. You can Install 10.0 or 10.2 Beta. You can install on SATA, then repartiton with formatting the hda from there, and make one more installation attempt on hda. You can try some other filesystem.

I have encountered situations, where the only way to begin using the HD was to delete the partition table. I believe there exists a deeply nested incompatibility between partition table formats as seen from Windows, SUSE, Partition Magic, gparted. However, it manifests itself rarely.

A way to delete the partition table is: start SUSE 10.1 or 10.0 LiveDVD. Call Yast. In System -> Partitioner, select "expert" button, and delete partiton table and disk label.
Apply, reboot. Maybe option "o" of fdisk will delete or recreate the partition table.

If you create the partition table and create filesystem outside of SUSE, then Yast will not need to format the partitions. You should be able to install without formating, and Yast will only issue a warning.

To me, the most probable explanation is a bug in Yast.

Go to the IDE hard drive manufacturers website and download and create a boot diskette of their disk diagnostic. There should be a routine on that disc to write all 0's to the disk.

Thanks for all the help, folks. I just cannot get anywhere. This is the first beta of many OSes/Distros that I have failed to install.

Anyway, I think I am going to stop testing SUSE until the real meaning of the M$ link-up becomes apparent. There are so many other extremely worthwhile projects that need testing and debugging that do not have Microsoft money behind them. I think that my time may be better spent helping them.

A

I got almost the same issue
I'm installing Suse 10.2 beta -32bit under vmware where it's no partition at all (new guest) and after creating the partitions it seems like mkfs thinks the partition is in use.
I did try to manually create it and got same error.

/ # mkfs.ext3 /dev/sda2
mke2fs 1.39 (29-May-2006)
/dev/sda2 is apperently in use by the system; will not make a filesystem here!
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"cat /proc/mounts" did not show any sda mounted and swap not (yet) in use so I don't know why it thinks sda2 is in use.

I got almost the same issue
I'm installing Suse 10.2 beta -32bit under vmware where it's no partition at all (new guest) and after creating the partitions it seems like mkfs thinks the partition is in use.
I did try to manually create it and got same error.
"cat /proc/mounts" did not show any sda mounted and swap not (yet) in use so I don't know why it thinks sda2 is in use.
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Have you attempted, or considered:

install SUSE 10.1;

partition during installation, or after;

install SUSE 10.2 Beta without formatting.

Then there will be no need to create a filesystem.