installation hangs/freezes during partition

[ncumming]

I ran gparted again trying to format the drive. This time i saved the details (duh) which i obviously should have done and posted here before. Here are the results:

GParted 0.4.3

Libparted 1.8.8
Create Primary Partition #1 (ntfs, 218.44 GiB) on /dev/sdb  00:08:06    ( ERROR )
     	
create empty partition  00:00:10    ( SUCCESS )
     	
path: /dev/sdb1
start: 30282525
end: 488392064
size: 458109540 (218.44 GiB)
set partition type on /dev/sdb1  00:00:11    ( SUCCESS )
     	
new partition type: ntfs
create new ntfs file system  00:07:45    ( ERROR )
     	
mkntfs -Q -v -L "" /dev/sdb1
     	
Cluster size has been automatically set to 4096 bytes.
Creating NTFS volume structures.
Creating root directory (mft record 5)
Creating $MFT (mft record 0)
Creating $MFTMirr (mft record 1)
Creating $LogFile (mft record 2)
Creating $AttrDef (mft record 4)
Creating $Bitmap (mft record 6)
Creating $Boot (mft record 7)
Creating backup boot sector.
Creating $Volume (mft record 3)
Creating $BadClus (mft record 8)
Creating $Secure (mft record 9)
Creating $UpCase (mft record 0xa)
Creating $Extend (mft record 11)
Creating system file (mft record 0xc)
Creating system file (mft record 0xd)
Creating system file (mft record 0xe)
Creating system file (mft record 0xf)
Creating $Quota (mft record 24)
Creating $ObjId (mft record 25)
Creating $Reparse (mft record 26)
Syncing root directory index record.
Syncing $Bitmap.
Syncing $MFT.
Updating $MFTMirr.
Syncing device.
Syncing device. FAILED

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

So the error is occuring at "syncing device." Not sure if that helps anyone or not.

[NinjaNumberNine]

You have more Beans than I do- lets wait for Merlinus.
Wish I could help... Say, you did use Mythbuntu 8.10, right?

[ncumming]

well for anyone out there following this thread i am officially giving up. just downloaded and ran killdisk at one more (in hindsight futile) effort to try to erase this disk and make it useable again, and even that hangs up. So its off to the recycling bin for this drive. Now it seems cheap to pay $80 for a new drive. I'd pay twice that to get the last week of my life back...

http://ubuntuforums.org/images/smilies/eusa_wall.gif

[ncumming]

and look at that, i can't even insert an emoticon properly...

[merlinus]

Sorry to hear that. But on the somewhat brighter side, I imagine you learned a great deal in the process, which hopefully will serve you well in future.

FWIW, when I first started using ubuntu I had to reinstall four or five times because of all the learning situations I created!

Good luck!

[ncumming]

I certianly learned a thing or two. Just frustrating to get to the end of something like this amd not be 100% sure whether it really is a hardware problem or if it was something that ultimately would have been fixable. I hate surrenduring! Thanks for all of your help, its a good feeling when you are working through something like this knowing there are people out there willing to help you through it.

[BslBryan]

well for anyone out there following this thread i am officially giving up. just downloaded and ran killdisk at one more (in hindsight futile) effort to try to erase this disk and make it useable again, and even that hangs up. So its off to the recycling bin for this drive. Now it seems cheap to pay $80 for a new drive. I'd pay twice that to get the last week of my life back...

http://ubuntuforums.org/images/smilies/eusa_wall.gif

I also had your problem and when I unplugged the second HD, everything ran smoothly.