Installation problems: "??? ???" error message & "ready when you are" errors

[&Clyde]

Hello,

I tried to install Ubuntu 10.10 on my system yesterday evening (night actually). However, I failed to complete the installation. All I got was a error notification box (the red X symbol) with a bunch of question marks in it: "??? ???".

I have win7 installed on the drive that I want to install Ubuntu, and since the drive has only one partition (which houses win7 and is the partition that boots) I selected the option to "...run along side..." and moved the slider in order create a new linux partition (about 20Gb) on that drive.

However, when the partitioning was done and I was about to select my timezone when I got the error... I had no choice but to click OK and the installation process jumped back to the first screen/phase. Any ideas? I mean, there isn't much that can go wrong here, is there? A win7 on one big partition...


I also tied to create the partitions manually (\, \home, swap) but then the installation just hangs at the text "ready when you are". Here I just got to select my timezone and keyboard layout (it hangs on the keyboard layout, so it is not the uppercase-login-name-error).


I installed from a USB-stick. 64-bit.

Please help, I really want to get going with this dual booting thing.
Thanks.

[Hakunka-Matata]

Hello,

I tried to install Ubuntu 10.10 on my system yesterday evening (night actually). However, I failed to complete the installation. All I got was a error notification box (the red X symbol) with a bunch of question marks in it: "??? ???".

I have win7 installed on the drive that I want to install Ubuntu, and since the drive has only one partition (which houses win7 and is the partition that boots) I selected the option to "...run along side..." and moved the slider in order create a new linux partition (about 20Gb) on that drive.

However, when the partitioning was done and I was about to select my timezone when I got the error... I had no choice but to click OK and the installation process jumped back to the first screen/phase. Any ideas? I mean, there isn't much that can go wrong here, is there? A win7 on one big partition...


I also tied to create the partitions manually (\, \home, swap) but then the installation just hangs at the text "ready when you are". Here I just got to select my timezone and keyboard layout (it hangs on the keyboard layout, so it is not the uppercase-login-name-error).




I installed from a USB-stick. 64-bit.

Please help, I really want to get going with this dual booting thing.
Thanks.

@ the ready when you are prompt, click on the Forward button if it's visible. That's what I did and it worked, not very obvious that that is what one is meant to do.

[&Clyde]

That I did. While the button was gray I could hit enter and see the "forward" button being pressed. Nothing happened.

[Hakunka-Matata]

Have you checked the Hash on your .iso file? Or run the 'check CD for errors' in the Live CD Boot menu?

[&Clyde]

Have you checked the Hash on your .iso file? Or run the 'check CD for errors' in the Live CD Boot menu?

Did that check just now, seems to be ok.
Thanks.

[Quackers]

Have you started your username with a capital letter? No capitals allowed there.

Actually, if you are trying to install 10.10 and you have tried the "install alongside" option (which is not recommended!) you should first check whether Windows still boots ok. The install alongside option can cause serious problems in the 10.10 installer.
When you next try to install I would recommend that you use the "specify manually" option and create the partitions manually.

[&Clyde]

Have you started your username with a capital letter? No capitals allowed there.

Actually, if you are trying to install 10.10 and you have tried the "install alongside" option (which is not recommended!) you should first check whether Windows still boots ok. The install alongside option can cause serious problems in the 10.10 installer.
When you next try to install I would recommend that you use the "specify manually" option and create the partitions manually.

I didn't know it was not recommended. Luckily I can still use my win7. Btw, is it a bad idea to have the linux paritions on the same drive as my win7 partition? Also, could my additional RAID setup me giving problems (although it has nothing to do with the drive I try to install Ubuntu on)?

Nope, I did not get to the username part.

But as I said, I did try it the manual way, but then it just hangs on the "ready when you are" and I do not even get to the username selection process.

[Quackers]

Ok, so what is the last thing that you do before it stops, and what happens on the screen exactly?
Have you tried selecting "try ubuntu" and found out whether the live desktop loads?
If you try that go to System > Admin > gparted and see what it reports as your current partition structure. If you're not sure, post a screenshot of the gparted screen.
It may also be worth checking the cd for errors. At the first purple screen press any key, then choose language, then on the next screen choose the option to check for errors. You could have a bad burn of the image.

[&Clyde]

Ok, so what is the last thing that you do before it stops, and what happens on the screen exactly?
Have you tried selecting "try ubuntu" and found out whether the live desktop loads?
If you try that go to System > Admin > gparted and see what it reports as your current partition structure. If you're not sure, post a screenshot of the gparted screen.
It may also be worth checking the cd for errors. At the first purple screen press any key, then choose language, then on the next screen choose the option to check for errors. You could have a bad burn of the image.

Well, if i try the "alongside" option, I just get the ??? error when I'm about to select the timezone. On the manual bit I get a bit longer, I select the keyboard and in the message window I can see:

s.install (current: ubi-usersetup)
Ubuntu CRON [8597]: (root) CMD ( cd/ && run-parts -- report/etc/cron.hourly)

Yes, I can load the live CD. Browsed a bit using FF

I'll check the partition structure later today.

[Quackers]

If you are using raid0 it is possible that the installer cannot see your hard drives. Are you using raid0 or raid1 or something else. Is it bios raid or hardware controlled?
I elected to sack my bios raid array, as it seemed just too complicated to get it working