Installation complete, but not installed?

[theBNich]

Hello,

I'm having a very weird problem trying to install Ubuntu (11.04 Desktop AMD64). After running the Ubuntu installer, which seems to complete successfully, the disk appears entirely unmodified after reboot (excluding the MBR). I've tried installing twice, and this has happened both times.

I have Windows 7 x64 in a ~800GB partition, and I have an unallocated 100GB I'm trying to use to install Ubuntu. I am using fake RAID 0 with 2x500GB HDDs, which I'm guessing is part of the problem.

I burnt the image to a CD, rebooted, and the installer loads fine. The first time, I chose the first option to "Install Ubuntu alongside Windows 7". (BTW, what does this option do? Is it supposed to install Ubuntu "inside" Windows like Wubi?)

After the installation completed, I got a GRUB Restore error, so I booted into Ubuntu Live. I looked through my partitions, trying to find the Ubuntu installation, but couldn't. My 100GB was still unallocated. I also couldn't find any trace of an Ubuntu installation in the Windows filesystem, in case the installer was supposed to act like Wubi. Again, I'm not sure what "Install alongside Windows" actually means. Regardless, my installation seemed to have vanished. I popped in my Windows DVD, fixed the MBR, and tried again.

This time, I chose the 3rd option to manually set up my installation. I created a 4GB swap partition, a 20GB root partition, and 76GB /home partition, then clicked continue. Once it was done, the exact same thing happened: bad MBR, no trace of the installation. The new partitions that I created didn't even exist: I still had 100GB unallocated.

How is this possible? I would guess it has something to do with my fake RAID setup, but the installer seemed to detect and read the disks just fine.

[theBNich]

I've maybe made some progress. Rather than using the Ubuntu installer to create the partitions, I used GParted to create the /, /home, and swap partitions, and it created them. In the Ubuntu installer, I then selected the corresponding partitions, and it seems to actually be writing the files to the system now.

But now I have a new problem. Pretty far along into the install, I got a fatal error that GRUB could not be installed to /dev/sda. I chose to continue the installation without a boot loader, but the next screen said that the installer crashed.

What should I do? I could probably manually create the GRUB entries, but I doubt that the grub-install was the very last step in the installation, so I probably need a way to do the install without the crash.

[Hedgehog1]

We need to get a look at your install to get an idea what is going on.

Please boot off the LiveCD/LiveUSB, select 'TRY', and then:

http://bootinfoscript.sourceforge.net/
Follow the instruction on the website and post the results here.

Please press the '#' button when posting and place the the script results between the
& tags.

The Hedge

:KS

[theBNich]

Thanks for the response. Here's the results:



Boot Info Script 0.55 dated February 15th, 2010

============================= Boot Info Summary: ==============================

=> Windows is installed in the MBR of /dev/sda
=> Windows is installed in the MBR of /dev/mapper/pdc_bbcjiedcb

sda1: __________________________________________________ _______________________

File system:
Boot sector type: Unknown
Boot sector info:
Mounting failed:
mount: unknown filesystem type ''

sda2: __________________________________________________ _______________________

File system:
Boot sector type: Unknown
Boot sector info:
Mounting failed:
mount: unknown filesystem type ''
mount: unknown filesystem type ''

sda3: __________________________________________________ _______________________

File system: Extended Partition
Boot sector type: Unknown
Boot sector info:

sda5: __________________________________________________ _______________________

File system:
Boot sector type: Unknown
Boot sector info:
Mounting failed:
mount: unknown filesystem type ''
mount: unknown filesystem type ''
mount: unknown filesystem type ''

sda6: __________________________________________________ _______________________

File system:
Boot sector type: Unknown
Boot sector info:
Mounting failed:
mount: unknown filesystem type ''
mount: unknown filesystem type ''
mount: unknown filesystem type ''
mount: unknown filesystem type ''

pdc_bbcjiedcb1: __________________________________________________ _______________________

File system: ntfs
Boot sector type: Windows Vista/7
Boot sector info: No errors found in the Boot Parameter Block.
Operating System:
Boot files/dirs: /bootmgr /Boot/BCD

pdc_bbcjiedcb2: __________________________________________________ _______________________

File system: ntfs
Boot sector type: Windows Vista/7
Boot sector info: No errors found in the Boot Parameter Block.
Operating System: Windows 7
Boot files/dirs: /Windows/System32/winload.exe

pdc_bbcjiedcb3: __________________________________________________ _______________________

File system: Extended Partition
Boot sector type: Unknown
Boot sector info:

pdc_bbcjiedcb5: __________________________________________________ _______________________

File system: ext4
Boot sector type: -
Boot sector info:
Operating System: Ubuntu 11.04
Boot files/dirs: /etc/fstab /boot/grub/core.img

pdc_bbcjiedcb6: __________________________________________________ _______________________

File system: swap
Boot sector type: -
Boot sector info:

pdc_bbcjiedcb7: __________________________________________________ _______________________

File system: ext4
Boot sector type: -
Boot sector info:
Operating System:
Boot files/dirs:

=========================== Drive/Partition Info: =============================

Drive: sda ___________________ __________________________________________________ ___

Partition Boot Start End Size Id System

/dev/sda1 * 2,048 206,847 204,800 7 HPFS/NTFS
/dev/sda2 206,848 1,743,407,103 1,743,200,256 7 HPFS/NTFS
/dev/sda3 1,743,409,150 1,953,124,351 209,715,202 5 Extended
Invalid MBR Signature found
/dev/sda5 ? 1,743,409,150 1,743,409,149 Unknown
/dev/sda6 ? 1,743,409,150 1,743,409,149 Unknown

/dev/sda2 ends after the last sector of /dev/sda
/dev/sda3 ends after the last sector of /dev/sda
/dev/sda5 ends after the last sector of /dev/sda
the logical partition /dev/sda5 is not contained in the extended partition /dev/sda3
/dev/sda6 ends after the last sector of /dev/sda
the logical partition /dev/sda6 is not contained in the extended partition /dev/sda3

Drive: pdc_bbcjiedcb ___________________ __________________________________________________ ___

Disk /dev/mapper/pdc_bbcjiedcb: 1000.0 GB, 999999930368 bytes
255 heads, 63 sectors/track, 121576 cylinders, total 1953124864 sectors
Units = sectors of 1 * 512 = 512 bytes
Sector size (logical/physical): 512 bytes / 512 bytes

Partition Boot Start End Size Id System

/dev/mapper/pdc_bbcjiedcb1 * 2,048 206,847 204,800 7 HPFS/NTFS
/dev/mapper/pdc_bbcjiedcb2 206,848 1,743,407,103 1,743,200,256 7 HPFS/NTFS
/dev/mapper/pdc_bbcjiedcb3 1,743,409,150 1,953,124,351 209,715,202 5 Extended
/dev/mapper/pdc_bbcjiedcb5 1,743,409,152 1,785,352,191 41,943,040 83 Linux
/dev/mapper/pdc_bbcjiedcb6 1,944,735,744 1,953,124,351 8,388,608 82 Linux swap / Solaris
/dev/mapper/pdc_bbcjiedcb7 1,785,354,240 1,944,733,695 159,379,456 83 Linux


blkid -c /dev/null: __________________________________________________ __________

Device UUID TYPE LABEL

/dev/loop0 squashfs
/dev/mapper/pdc_bbcjiedcb1 86B8737BB8736917 ntfs System Reserved
/dev/mapper/pdc_bbcjiedcb2 58467665467643B2 ntfs
/dev/mapper/pdc_bbcjiedcb5 bc53663d-9a3e-4841-81a1-f6b8f70565fe ext4
/dev/mapper/pdc_bbcjiedcb6 fb861aa8-9d76-4d35-8669-4cfbd0da6dea swap
/dev/mapper/pdc_bbcjiedcb7 2ec0dead-5f8e-4763-9cfc-32de6ca23c06 ext4
/dev/mapper/pdc_bbcjiedcb: PTTYPE="dos"
/dev/sda promise_fasttrack_raid_member
/dev/sdb promise_fasttrack_raid_member
error: /dev/mapper/pdc_bbcjiedcb3: No such file or directory
error: /dev/sda1: No such file or directory
error: /dev/sda2: No such file or directory
error: /dev/sda3: No such file or directory
error: /dev/sda5: No such file or directory
error: /dev/sda6: No such file or directory

=============================== "ls -R /dev/mapper/" output: ===============================
/dev/mapper:
control
pdc_bbcjiedcb
pdc_bbcjiedcb1
pdc_bbcjiedcb2
pdc_bbcjiedcb5
pdc_bbcjiedcb6
pdc_bbcjiedcb7

============================ "mount | grep ^/dev output: ===========================

Device Mount_Point Type Options

aufs / aufs (rw)
/dev/sr0 /cdrom iso9660 (ro,noatime)
/dev/loop0 /rofs squashfs (ro,noatime)


========================== pdc_bbcjiedcb5/etc/fstab: ==========================

# /etc/fstab: static file system information.
#
# Use 'blkid -o value -s UUID' to print the universally unique identifier
# for a device; this may be used with UUID= as a more robust way to name
# devices that works even if disks are added and removed. See fstab(5).
#
# <file system> <mount point> <type> <options> <dump> <pass>
proc /proc proc nodev,noexec,nosuid 0 0
/dev/mapper/pdc_bbcjiedcb5 / ext4 errors=remount-ro 0 1
/dev/mapper/pdc_bbcjiedcb7 /home ext4 defaults 0 2
/dev/mapper/pdc_bbcjiedcb6 none swap sw 0 0

============== pdc_bbcjiedcb5: Location of files loaded by Grub: ==============


910.7GB: boot/grub/core.img
893.4GB: boot/initrd.img-2.6.38-8-generic
910.7GB: boot/vmlinuz-2.6.38-8-generic
893.4GB: initrd.img
910.7GB: vmlinuz
=========================== Unknown MBRs/Boot Sectors/etc =======================

Unknown BootLoader on sda1


Unknown BootLoader on sda2


Unknown BootLoader on sda3


Unknown BootLoader on sda5


Unknown BootLoader on sda6


Unknown BootLoader on pdc_bbcjiedcb3



=============================== StdErr Messages: ===============================

hexdump: /dev/sda1: No such file or directory
hexdump: /dev/sda1: No such file or directory
hexdump: /dev/sda2: No such file or directory
hexdump: /dev/sda2: No such file or directory
hexdump: /dev/sda3: No such file or directory
hexdump: /dev/sda3: No such file or directory
hexdump: /dev/sda5: No such file or directory
hexdump: /dev/sda5: No such file or directory
hexdump: /dev/sda6: No such file or directory
hexdump: /dev/sda6: No such file or directory
hexdump: /dev/mapper/pdc_bbcjiedcb3: No such file or directory
hexdump: /dev/mapper/pdc_bbcjiedcb3: No such file or directory