Need help!!! Install Ubuntu-only to Dell hard disk (prev. Dual boot w/ Xubuntu & XP)

[NUboon2Age]

So far it seems to be doing its thing. Block numbers are flying by on the terminal as it goes through the disk. So if it succeeds, what is my next step?

[warfacegod]

So far it seems to be doing its thing. Block numbers are flying by on the terminal as it goes through the disk. So if it succeeds, what is my next step?

See post #20

[Perkins]

Wipe is similar, except it doesn't necessarily spit out a nifty list of bad sectors.

If it succeeds without listing off a bunch of bad spots, then you should be able to just pop in an Ubuntu install CD and go. Last time I tried it the installer was more than capable of formatting a completely empty disk from scratch.

[NUboon2Age]

I think its about time you started that Ubuntu liveCD iso download...

Well I had a live Lucid Lynx disc on hand. Before I started the badblocks operation (which btw currently says its Reading and Comparing with different test patterns, 11 hours in), I tried to boot off the disk, but it was soooooo slow (something related to this disk was slowing it down) it came to a point where I wasn't sure if it was hung or not, so I rebooted with a USB PeppermintOS pendrive, and while it was extremely slow (like an hour) it finally booted and that's how I got back onto the forum here and got the advice about badblocks. I don't know if it would boot to the CD now or not. But now that I'm booted in an Ubuntu-based OS, what would the next step be after this finishes?

[NUboon2Age]

Wipe is similar, except it doesn't necessarily spit out a nifty list of bad sectors.

If it succeeds without listing off a bunch of bad spots, then you should be able to just pop in an Ubuntu install CD and go. Last time I tried it the installer was more than capable of formatting a completely empty disk from scratch.

Still running badblocks...
So far after listing all the block numbers it was working on it said:

{...}
214865% done, 4:13:57 elapsed
21487
21488
214896% done, 4:13:58 elapsed
21490
21491
214926% done, 4:13:59 elapsed
21493
214946% done, 4:14:00 elapsed
21495
21496
214976% done, 4:14:01 elapsed
21498
21499
215006% done, 4:14:02 elapsed
21501
21502
215036% done, 4:14:03 elapsed
done                                
Testing with pattern 0x55: done                                
Reading and comparing: done                                
Testing with pattern 0xff: done                                
Reading and comparing: done                                
Testing with pattern 0x00: 13.06% done, 11:05:24 elapsed

So how much longer should I expect this to go for?

[nhasian]

yeah i have to admit when i installed ubuntu 10.04 on my new htpc (which has an intel i930 CPU, 6 gigs ram, and an nvidia GPU) it took 20 mins for it to finally reach the desktop. It may look like it is hanging but let it sit for a while. I dont know what its doing, but eventually it will continue. That doesn't happen with previous releases of ubuntu so i'm guessing it has something to do with all the tweaks they did to make ubuntu boot faster.

[NUboon2Age]

Still running badblocks...
So far after listing all the block numbers it was working on it said:

{...}
21501
21502
215036% done, 4:14:03 elapsed
done                                
Testing with pattern 0x55: done                                
Reading and comparing: done                                
Testing with pattern 0xff: done                                
Reading and comparing: done                                
Testing with pattern 0x00: 13.06% done, 11:05:24 elapsed

So how much longer should I expect this to go for?

I see the man page says:

-w
Use write-mode test. With this option, badblocks scans for bad blocks by writing some patterns (0xaa, 0x55, 0xff, 0x00) on every block of the device, reading every block and comparing the contents.

So maybe that means it'll be done after testing w/ pattern 0xaa???

[NUboon2Age]

How can I tell how many blocks a hard drive has?

[NUboon2Age]

I see the man page says:


So maybe that means it'll be done after testing w/ pattern 0xaa???

{...}
215036% done, 4:14:03 elapsed
done                                
Testing with pattern 0x55: done                                
Reading and comparing: done                                
Testing with pattern 0xff: done                                
Reading and comparing: done                                
Testing with pattern 0x00: done                                
Reading and comparing: done 
$

Well it didn't go to 0xaa but it just stopped (some 13+ hours) for 40G drive. Okay, I'll start checking it out.

[NUboon2Age]

{...}
215036% done, 4:14:03 elapsed
done                                
Testing with pattern 0x55: done                                
Reading and comparing: done                                
Testing with pattern 0xff: done                                
Reading and comparing: done                                
Testing with pattern 0x00: done                                
Reading and comparing: done 
$

Well it didn't go to 0xaa but it just stopped (some 13+ hours) for 40G drive. Okay, I'll start checking it out.

Hmmm... well I haven't rebooted yet, so I'm not sure if I should expect any difference, but I tried the Peppermint installer and it didn't see the disk.gparted and "Disk Utility" don't see it. I restarted gparted as gparted /dev/sda and it sort of saw it ("unallocated" 37.26 GiB), but when I tried to create a partition table to it had "error while creating partition table". Let's see... what else might I try before trying to reboot to the Lucid Lynx installer?