installation hangs

English Install/Boot/Login
#1

theWindows Vista installation on my wifes laptop died a horrible death, machine was totally unbootable, but being a died in the wool windows fan (sorry, they still exist) she wanted it fixing - the data had been backed up so formatting the drive is not an issue.

I tried installing OpenSUSE Live Gnome to her machine

I get the initial Welcome screen
I get the Installer menu screen (as seen here)
I run the Check The Installation Media and it checks the cd and passes it as OK
But, the problem occurs when I go to next step
regardless if I try to run it as a ‘Live’ cd or ‘Installation’ cd it starts the install and stops with the progress bar just level with the back of the animal. I have even left it there 12 hours overnight and it is still at the same point!!

any ideas on how to find out why it will not install?

(The cd works fine as a Live cd on my Windows XP machine so I know the cd is OK)

Thanks

#2

Try the text mode install as shown here
Text mode install from liveCD

#3

I tried the text Mode Install

using plain Text Mode it runs so far and then hits the following

radeon 0000:01:05.0: HDMI-A-1: EDID block 0 is invalid
[drm: radeon.dvi.detect] ERROR HDMI-A-1: probed a monitor but nolinvalid EDID

it runs through blocks 0 to 15 each time reporting a checksum failure, and then restarts the radeon 0000:01:05: process all over again.

remembering when I ran the LiveCD on my windows system it had problems with the graphics card, I re-ran the Text mode install, but with the nomodesetup boot command.

It seemed to work for a while before hanging with the following the last displayed item on the screen

scanning for LVM volume groups…
reading all physical volumes. This may take a while
No volume groups found
No volume groups found
Activating LVM volume groups…
No volume groups found

with a green done on the right of the screen.

I left it sitting there for an hour but nothing else happened

so from what I can work out, its not reading the hard disk ???

puzzled

#4

Depending how determined you are.
You could consider using Parted Magic and delete all the partitions on your HD and then create the three you will need for openSUSE

swap
ext4 (20GB for root)
ext4 (all the remainder for /home)

Then try installing openSUSE

#5

OK, total noob question :slight_smile:

I can figure out how to create new partitions, do I just create 2 partitions in ext4 format and 1 in linux swap format?

#6

Yes.
This may help
http://dl.dropbox.com/u/10573557/create-partitions.mpeg
But you don’t need to create an extended, unless you plan to reserve some space after your last partition (you might want to install other OS’s later on)

#7

OK,

I figured out how to do the partitions :slight_smile:

but ran into a new problem - GParted fails to create final partition

currently the drive looks as follows
Partition
/dev/sda1 ntfs WinRE 10GB
/dev/sda2 ntfs OS 120GB
/dev/sda3 extended 102GB
/dev/sda5 ext4 root 24GB
/dev/sda6 swap swap 24GB
/dev/sda7 unknown 54GB

WinRE is the laptop manufacturers recovery partition
OS is the current windows partition (drive C)
root and swap are the partitions I created today

GParted created the following error report when creating the final partition (sda7)

========================================

GParted 0.9.0

Libparted 2.3
Create Logical Partition #1 (ext4, 53.58 GiB) on /dev/sda 00:01:42 ( ERROR )

create empty partition 00:00:03 ( SUCCESS )

path: /dev/sda7
start: 376020992
end: 488396799
size: 112375808 (53.58 GiB)
set partition type on /dev/sda7 00:00:00 ( SUCCESS )

new partition type: ext4
create new ext4 file system 00:01:39 ( ERROR )

mkfs.ext4 -j -O extent -L “home” /dev/sda7

Filesystem label=home
OS type: Linux
Block size=4096 (log=2)
Fragment size=4096 (log=2)
Stride=0 blocks, Stripe width=0 blocks
3514368 inodes, 14046976 blocks
702348 blocks (5.00%) reserved for the super user
First data block=0
Maximum filesystem blocks=0
429 block groups
32768 blocks per group, 32768 fragments per group
8192 inodes per group
Superblock backups stored on blocks:
32768, 98304, 163840, 229376, 294912, 819200, 884736, 1605632, 2654208,
4096000, 7962624, 11239424

Writing inode tables: done
mke2fs 1.41.14 (22-Dec-2010)
ext2fs_mkdir: Attempt to read block from filesystem resulted in short read while creating root dir

========================================

I have tried creating a smaller final partition but get same result. Each time I have to reboot to make it display partitions as GParted can not see the partitions after the error.

#8

Did you create sda3?

Try deleting 5,6,7 then apply
Then create the partitions again and apply.

#9

I deleted 5,6,7 and applied
I created each logical partition but had same result, first 2 partitions created OK, and third failed
I deleted 5,6,7 and applied
I created 1 primary partition, (sda4) and 2 logical partitions under sda3. This worked OK :slight_smile:

I tried installing OpenSUSE again, but had same problem, it hangs at

scanning for LVM volume groups…
reading all physical volumes. This may take a while
No volume groups found
No volume groups found
Activating LVM volume groups…
No volume groups found

#10

I’d need to see a proper fdisk output

In Parted Magic open a terminal and do

fdisk -l

Use the mouse copy the results
And paste it here in code tags. Don’t add to it or take anything away.

#11

here is the output of fdisk


Welcome - Parted Magic (Linux 3.0.0-pmagic)

root@PartedMagic:~# fdisk -l

Disk /dev/sda: 250.1 GB, 250059350016 bytes
255 heads, 63 sectors/track, 30401 cylinders, total 488397168 sectors
Units = sectors of 1 * 512 = 512 bytes
Sector size (logical/physical): 512 bytes / 512 bytes
I/O size (minimum/optimal): 512 bytes / 512 bytes
Disk identifier: 0x4dab9ef9

   Device Boot      Start         End      Blocks   Id  System
/dev/sda1            2048    20973567    10485760    7  HPFS/NTFS/exFAT
/dev/sda2   *    20973568   273627119   126326776    7  HPFS/NTFS/exFAT
/dev/sda3       273627136   376018943    51195904    f  W95 Ext'd (LBA)
/dev/sda4       376018944   488396799    56188928   83  Linux
/dev/sda5       273629184   324825087    25597952   82  Linux swap
/dev/sda6       324827136   376018943    25595904   83  Linux

Disk /dev/sdb: 252 MB, 252706816 bytes
256 heads, 32 sectors/track, 60 cylinders, total 493568 sectors
Units = sectors of 1 * 512 = 512 bytes
Sector size (logical/physical): 512 bytes / 512 bytes
I/O size (minimum/optimal): 512 bytes / 512 bytes
Disk identifier: 0xc71340eb

   Device Boot      Start         End      Blocks   Id  System
/dev/sdb1              64      493567      246752    6  FAT16
root@PartedMagic:~#
#12

Above looks fine but does not match what you said before.

Also have you done the obvious and run the media check on the CD/s menu?

To be honest I never have seen a normal partition after an extended. What is it’s intended use.

#13

I ran Installation Media check, and it passed cd fine

As I explained, when I tried creating 3 logical partitions with Parted Magic it constantly failed to correctly create the 3rd partition. But, it did successfully create 2 logical partitions and 1 Primary partition in the unallocated space.
The reasons why the 3 partitions were created was, as suggested by caf4926, to provide an existing Linux file system that SUSE could identify.

sda1 is the laptop recovery partition
sda2 is the original windows partition
sda3 is from the original windows installation*
sda4-6 are what were created in the last pass

  • The original configuration my wife had was
    sda1 - recovery partition NTFS (primary)
    sda2 - windows OS partition (drive C) NTFS (primary) - boot partition
    sda3 - extended partition
    sda5 - windows partition (drive D) NTFS (logical)
    sda4 - windows partition (drive E) NTFS (primary)
#14

I re-ran the media check
media: cd1
size: 710858kb
pad: 300kb
check: 100%
check: md5sum ok
md5: e0bb16e552f7745ce55fde7a7cade8bb

#15

If I’m reading correctly. You say that sda3 (the extended partition was is part of the original windows setup)?
So, I suggest you make sure you have a backup of important windows data and have defraged windows.
Then use PMagic to delete everything except sda1 and sda2, apply.
Now re-create the extended and place all the linux partitions inside it as logical partitions.

#16

well I am going to try to install Linux before work, but your idea worked :slight_smile:
deleting all the partitions from sda3 onwards separately and then creating them separately worked


Welcome - Parted Magic (Linux 3.0.0-pmagic)

root@PartedMagic:~# fdisk -l

Disk /dev/sda: 250.1 GB, 250059350016 bytes
255 heads, 63 sectors/track, 30401 cylinders, total 488397168 sectors
Units = sectors of 1 * 512 = 512 bytes
Sector size (logical/physical): 512 bytes / 512 bytes
I/O size (minimum/optimal): 512 bytes / 512 bytes
Disk identifier: 0x4dab9ef9

   Device Boot      Start         End      Blocks   Id  System
/dev/sda1            2048    20973567    10485760    7  HPFS/NTFS/exFAT
/dev/sda2   *    20973568   273627119   126326776    7  HPFS/NTFS/exFAT
/dev/sda3       273627136   488396799   107384832    5  Extended
/dev/sda5       273629184   317669375    22020096   82  Linux swap
/dev/sda6       317671424   361711615    22020096   83  Linux
/dev/sda7       361713664   488396799    63341568   83  Linux

Disk /dev/sdb: 252 MB, 252706816 bytes
256 heads, 32 sectors/track, 60 cylinders, total 493568 sectors
Units = sectors of 1 * 512 = 512 bytes
Sector size (logical/physical): 512 bytes / 512 bytes
I/O size (minimum/optimal): 512 bytes / 512 bytes
Disk identifier: 0xc71340eb

   Device Boot      Start         End      Blocks   Id  System
/dev/sdb1              64      493567      246752    6  FAT16
root@PartedMagic:~#
#17

No, it still failed at same point :frowning:

I tried installing OpenSUSE again, but had same problem, it hangs at

scanning for LVM volume groups…
reading all physical volumes. This may take a while
No volume groups found
No volume groups found
Activating LVM volume groups…
No volume groups found

The only ohter thing I have noticed is that during the setup I get 2 failed items, although I dont think they are critical to the installation

/sys/devices/LNXSYSTM:00/devices:00/ACPI0003:00/power_supply/AC failed
setting system clock to hardware clock failed

#18

Have you tried any other Linux distributions?
With what result?

#19

So Far, all I have tried is openSUSE because it was recommended as the most ‘friendly’ Linux, and Knoppix (live cd)

the Knoppix also hangs while booting :frowning:

both live cd’s work on my desktop machine, so I know they are OK disks.

I will try a few other distributions, any suggestions?

If it helps, here is summary of system specs of my wifes laptop

Computer
Processor AMD Athlon™ Processor TF-20
Memory 1805MB (159MB used)
Display Resolution 1366x768 pixels
OpenGL Renderer Unknown
X11 Vendor (null)

Processor
Name AMD Athlon™ Processor TF-20
Family, model, stepping 15, 124, 2 (AMD Opteron/Athlon64/FX)
Vendor AuthenticAMD

Multimedia
Audio Adapter HDA-Intel - HDA ATI SB
Audio device ATI Technologies Inc SBx00 Azalia
VGA compatible controller ATI Technologies Inc RS690M [Radeon X1200 Series]
Network controller Realtek Semiconductor Co., Ltd. RTL8191SEvB Wireless LAN Controller

Input Devices
AT Translated Set 2 keyboard (laptop keyboard)
Microsoft Comfort Curve Keyboard 2000
Logitech USB Optical Mouse

SCSI Disks
ATA FUJITSU MJA2250B
TSSTcorp CDDVDW SN-S083C

USB Devices
Optical Mouse
Comfort Curve Keyboard 2000
Mass Storage

#20

If you Google: ATI Technologies Inc RS690M

It seems problematic