14.04 LTS installation after Windows 7 terminally stuck at "Installation type" page

[mathog]

On a wiped 1TB disk (WD10EARS), motherboard Gigabyte MA785GMT-UD2H, Windows 7 was installed. It created one small partition and one large one (/dev/sda1 and /dev/sda2). W7 runs fine. Rebooted to Ubuntu 14.04 "try" mode and fdisk sees this partition table and can add new partitions and rewrite it. So it isn't GPT.

Try to install Ubuntu on it though..

boot from DVD
select Install
it is connected to network (wired ethernet), there is plenty of free space, check "download updates" and "allow 3rd party" and continue.

It eventually gets to the "Installation Type" page and that is completely screwed up. It looks like the one here:

http://superuser.com/questions/744916/ubuntu-14-04-installer-doesnt-show-existing-partitions

except free space is not shown and there is nothing in the white area where one supposes it should show the existing partitions and free space. The device/bootloader section shows "/dev/sda".

I cannot get past this page. Tried clicking on "+", "change", and "install now" and none of them go anywhere.

I tried adding a partition with fdisk, writing the table, removing the partition, writing the table, and then installing but 14.04 still couldn't figure out what to do.

Suggestions?

[mathog]

This thread is about a similar issue:

http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=2203305

unfortunately it isn't very clear what the OP finally did to resolve the issue. Some things I note though are:

http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=2203305&p=12918168#post12918168

that is exactly what I am seeing in the "installation type" page. The fdisk output

http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=2203305&page=2&p=12919131#post12919131

is very similar for the first two partitions. My best guess is that that system also had a Windows 7 install done on it, and there is something toxic about the partition table that was created. fdisk is OK with it, but the installer is choking. What I think I will try next is to copy down the partition information, copy the MBR some place safe, nuke the MBR, and remake the partition using fdisk. It probably won't boot Windows anymore, but maybe Ubuntu will see the disk.

Note: in the BIOS it is using AHCI for the SATA controller.

[oldfred]

Is Windows hibernated or need chkdsk?
Or have you used all 4 primary partitions?
Or was drive gpt and your Windows 7 install did not convert from gpt correctly (which it what it does)?
Most of reasons for installer not showing Windows, any partition type error
http://www.rodsbooks.com/missing-parts/index.html


Best to resize Windows using Windows own tools but not create new partitions. If you create more than 4 then it converts to dynamic which does not work with Linux at all.

I often suggest a shared NTFS data partition. You may want that and all the LInux partitions to be in the extened partition as logical partitions.

GParted partitioning software - Full tutorial
http://www.dedoimedo.com/computers/gparted.html
Screenshots of using gparted
http://www.howtoforge.com/partitioning_with_gparted

While Windows is working and configured the way you want make a full image backup.

Backup windows before install - post by Mark Phelps
http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=2137439&p=12611710#post12611710
http://www.macrium.com/reflectfree.asp
Another suggestion by srs5694
http://www.runtime.org/driveimage-xml.htm

Make your own Windows repairCD (not vendor recovery):
http://forums.techarena.in/guides-tutorials/1114725.htm
Windows users only - Silverlight
http://windows.microsoft.com/en-GB/windows7/Create-a-system-repair-disc

Windows 7 repair USB, Also Vista if service pack installed
http://www.intowindows.com/how-to-repair-windows-7-from-usb-flash-drive-repair-without-installation-dvd-disc/
http://www.webupd8.org/2010/10/create-bootable-windows-7-usb-drive.html

[mathog]

Nope, Ubuntu still doesn't see it.

[mathog]

Is Windows hibernated or need chkdsk?
Or have you used all 4 primary partitions?
Or was drive gpt and your Windows 7 install did not convert from gpt correctly (which it what it does)?
Most of reasons for installer not showing Windows, any partition type error
http://www.rodsbooks.com/missing-parts/index.html

None of these.

Overwriting the first block with zeros and remaking the partition with fdisk doesn't help either

I think maybe Ubuntu is unhappy because there is 1Mb of unused space before the first NTFS partition. Either that or
there is something about that first NTFS partition it doesn't like.

[oldfred]

Post this:
sudo parted -l

All new drives have about 1MB at beginning.
Partitions start at sector 2048 for compatibility with new 4K and SSD drives.

[mathog]

dd if=/dev/zero of=/dev/sda bs=512 count=2000

and it does the same thing!

(edit - to be specific, it comes up blank and there is no free space shown, and it ignores the + and change buttons)

How long is it supposed to take to get from the "preparing to install" screen to the "installation type" screen? Normally when I install an OS that step is just a few seconds, here it takes minutes.

[oldfred]

What was this drive before you installed Windows?

[mathog]

What was this drive before you installed Windows?

The disk was a dual boot Windows XP / Ubuntu 10.x. XP in the first partition. Hmm, wait a minute, I bought a batch of these from a vendor who had found that they did not work well in a RAID. Some had been in the RAID, some had not. The first couple of Mb have been written and rewritten repeatedly, but there could still be some RAID blocks at the end of the disk.


parted -l

said "unrecognized disk label" after the front of the disk was overwritten with 0's. On the off chance the installer was too daft to deal with a blank disk, fdisk was used to write a blank label. parted recognized that. Tried the installer again, but still nothing - came up with the same blank partition screen, showing no disk size.

[oldfred]

If drive was set up for RAID, it has RAID meta-data that has to be removed.

Presence1960 on remove old raid setting from HD
http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=1325650
sudo dmraid -E -r /dev/sda
sudo dmraid -E -r /dev/sdb
Also check BIOS for raid settings

[mathog]

Hmm, wait a minute, I bought a batch of these from a vendor who had found that they did not work well in a RAID. Some had been in the RAID, some had not. The first couple of Mb have been written and rewritten repeatedly, but there could still be some RAID blocks at the end of the disk.

Made a CD from the mini.iso and booted that in "command line install".


One or more drives containing MDADM containers (Intel DDF RAID) have been found. Do you wish to activate these RAID Devices? Activate MDADM containers (Intel/DDF RAID)?

Default was yes, changed it to no.


One or more drives containing serial ATA RAID configurations have been found. Do you wish to activate these RAID devices? Activate Serial ATA RAID devices?

Default was yes, changed it to no.

That wasn't good enough, got to "[!!] Partition disks" and the only option was iSCSI. The local disk wasn't shown. Used the menu system to get into the shell and wrote over the back end of the disk like this:


dd if=/dev/zero of=/dev/sda bs-512 seek=1953000000

back into the installer, detect disks, but it still came up empty in partition disks.

Rebooted and chose "expert command line install". This time when it got to the disk partitions it was (finally!) showing disk/partition information. Used those tools and to add partitions for Ubuntu and it now seems to be installing normally.

So I think the core problem is that once upon a time this disk was used in a RAID, some of that information remained at the end of the disk, and the Ubuntu 14.04 LTS default installer choked mightily when it saw this information - not offering the user any options to remedy it, and not showing any relevant diagnostic information.

[mathog]

This distro is really cursed. The partitions are all set up nicely but now it blows up trying to install the kernel, of all things. /var/log/syslog says:


linux-image-generic: Depends: linux-image-3.13.0-24-generic but that is not going to be installed.

This was after remaking the file systems on "/boot" and "/"

Dropped into ash:


umount /dev/sda3
mount /dev/sda3 /target/boot
chroot target
apt-get install linux-image-generic

blows up, but says along the way


This kernel does not support a non-PAE CPU.

The CPU is an Athlon X2, but I am trying to install a 32 bit version of the OS since it only has 2GB of RAM. It also complained about not having /proc/cpuinfo, so probably it couldn't tell. Could be that it needs pieces to start proc, doesn't install them, then cannot figure out what CPU it is on because no /proc/cpuinfo, then the kernel install fails.

The mini.iso is the 32 bit one, the md5sum is correct:

a2502844750ecb6477d8fb4ff6b9aaf8 *ubuntu14.04.mini.iso

[oldfred]

I do not know about AMD or PAE as my Intel chips are new enough to include it.
https://help.ubuntu.com/community/PAE

[mathog]

I do not know about AMD or PAE as my Intel chips are new enough to include it.

The Athlon X2 in this system has PAE. The real problem is that /proc is not mounted by the installer for some reason, so /proc/cpuinfo comes back with nothing, so the install fails.

[oldfred]

Does this apply?

https://help.ubuntu.com/community/PAE

[mathog]

Does this apply?

https://help.ubuntu.com/community/PAE

No. I was able to complete the install by going back to the full installer and using the "Erase 14.04 LTS and Reinstall" option.

Afterwords it would boot into Ubuntu and come up with what I assume is the default screen. The mouse moves, but it ignores all clicks. For instance single or double clicking on the Firefox icon does nothing. There is a list of keyboard shortcuts open, but clicking on the X in the corner does not make it go away, and none of those keyboard shortcuts seem to do anything. The only keyboard options that work are "alt-f3" and the like, to switch to other consoles.

The nonfunctional GUI isn't that big a deal for me, because I am going to turn it off and switch to IceWM or some other minimal X11 desktop. Still, really disappointing to go through all of this and not even be able to start a browser!

[oldfred]

I install fallback/flashback which is the old gui like gnome2.

But keyboard or mouse issues often are a setting in BIOS.
It may be USB ports or even something that does not seem related.
Users have posted these:
BIOS settings need USB mouse & keyboard, USB detection turned to "UEFI Only"

Fast Boot setting prevents keyboard from working & other issues


Enabling USB Legacy Support - If keyboard does not work.
http://support.creative.com/kb/ShowArticle.aspx?sid=5754
Linux kernel enable the IOMMU – input / output memory management unit support - AMD
http://www.cyberciti.biz/tips/howto-turn-on-linux-software-iommu-support.html
http://ubuntuforums.org/showpost.php?p=9203674&postcount=5
http://blog.ichinmay.com/2010/05/03/ubuntu-10-04-upgrade-from-9-10-usb-keyboard-mouse-problem/
update-initramfs with keyboard drivers.
http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=2201983

[mathog]

The keyboard/mouse issue with the UI cannot be something intrinsically wrong in the BIOS because the machine used to have Ubuntu 10.x and XP on it, both of which worked fine. Windows 7 on the same box also does not have keyboard issues. Boot it with Knoppix and it works fine. It has a BIOS, not UEFI, so that too is a red herring. Also it isn't that the keyboard isn't working per se, it is that the UI is ignoring it. The only keyboard action that does anything (so far) is alt-F3, to get to another console. However, once there, the keyboard works fine. (Although it is really, really hard to read the tiny font that that console uses.)

[mathog]

I marked this thread as solved because the initial problem with partitioning is now understood and resolved.