Installer crashes during installation

[Noor1101]

Hi,

My hdd broke down and I just bought a new one and put it in my notebook. The new hdd is a Toshiba 500GB 2.5" SATA300 540, my notebook Packard Bell Easynote MH35.

I made a bootable live USB with ubuntu-12.04.1-desktop-i386.iso. I used winMD5Sum to check the hash/checksum of my .iso-file (on someone else's WinXP PC) and it is correct.

However, the installer keeps crashing:
(With help from a youtube video) I tried three times to make three partitions (root (/) (10,000MB), swap (6000MB) and /home (all the rest of the MB's) but when the installer starts installing the system (after I've given my location, name, computer's name, password etc.), it crashes.

Then I thought I might have done something wrong in the partitioning (though I really paid attention to the video, so really it's not likely) - and I decided to try another way:
choosing to install Ubuntu without partitioning my disk. Didn't work, same thing:
Two messages come up:
1. "System program problem detected" (the installer keeps going while this message is up)
2. (A minute or so later) "The installer has crashed"

Every time I try again, the installer seems to think Ubuntu 12.04 is already installed (it isn't though, I tried booting from hdd and all I get is a blinking cursor): it gives me the option to "Erase Ubuntu 12.04LTS and reinstall".

What can I do?

Apart from getting frustrated, I'm also surprised: when I installed Ubuntu12.04 for the first time (last August), everything was fine.

Has it something to do with my hdd being new, non-compatible, or ...?
Could it be the USB is not good, despite the hash/checksum being correct?


I'm on a Live Session now, that seems to work fine (internet and all).

Please help!
Thanks a lot

Noor

[Noor1101]

Please, anyone?

The installer keeps crashing when it gets to 'creating user' within 'installing system'.
I've just tried the Xubuntu-desktop-iso - the same thing happens.

I'll go an try Ubuntu-alternate iso now, but if anyone has any other ideas, I would really appreciate it if you let me know..

Thanks

[Pilot6]

Altenate must work.

But you can use normal installer too. Boot from the installer CD or flash, choose 'Try Ubuntu'. Then open terminal and run command

sudo apt-get remove ubiquity-slideshow-ubuntu

After that just click 'Install Ubuntu' icon. It should work.

[NikTh]

But you can use normal installer too. Boot from the installer CD or flash, choose 'Try Ubuntu'. Then open terminal and run command

sudo apt-get remove ubiquity-slideshow-ubuntu

After that just click 'Install Ubuntu' icon. It should work.

Yes , this is almost the same as the alternate installation media. Probably the sideshow did the crash.

I'll go an try Ubuntu-alternate iso now,

This would be my advice , to try with the alternate CD iso.

Keep us informed about the progress.

Thanks

[Noor1101]

Thanks very much for your replies!

My CDROM drive doesn't work, so I'm using a live USB for this installation.

At the beginning of the (Ubuntu 12.04.1 alternate) installation I get an error message saying (something like)

There was a problem reading data from the CD-ROM. Please make sure it is in the drive. If retrying does not work, you should check the integrity of your CD-ROM.

I have found this page which seems to have helped many people, but I don't know how to do it. I don't know what a "target host" is and I don't see the menu item "Default".

Someone replied on that site:

It worked, I created the boot disk with the Universal Usb Installer, Used alternate for Ubuntu 10.04.4, then edited syslinux.cfg
From
append file=/cdrom/preseed/ubuntu.seed initrd=/install/initrd.gz quiet –
To
append file=/cdrom/preseed/ubuntu.seed initrd=/install/initrd.gz quiet cdrom-detect/try-usb=true –

but in my syslinux.cfg file it says

# D-I config version 2.0
include menu.cfg
default vesamenu.c32
prompt 0
timeout 50

# If you would like to use the new menu and be presented with the option to install or run from USB at startup, remove # from the following line. This line was commented out (by request of many) to allow the old menu to be presented and to enable booting straight into the Live Environment!
# ui gfxboot bootlogo

so it seems that has been changed.

Any ideas on how to make my pc look in the USB instead of CDROM??

[Noor1101]

I might have found something, it might be that where it used to say "default", it now says "install on hdd" (or something like that (can't go back now)).

Will let you know how it goes

[Noor1101]

It doesn't work

I booted from the USB, selected the option "Install Ubuntu" (there is nothing that says 'default') and pressed TAB (to change the menu entry - this worked for many people on the site I mentioned (here - I'll copy-paste the steps of the website at the end of this post)
The menu entry was:

/install/vmlinuz cdrom-detect/try-usb=true file=cdrom/preseed/ubuntu.seed vga=788 initrd=/install/initrd.gz quiet --

and I changed it to

/install/vmlinuz cdrom-detect/try-usb=true  file=cdrom/preseed/ubuntu.seed vga=788 initrd=/install/initrd.gz quiet cdrom-detect/try-usb=true  --

I went on to install Ubuntu but the same error message came up:

There was a problem reading data from the CD-ROM. (...)

Does anyone have any ideas?


--------

from http://www.dotkam.com/2010/11/29/ins...ted#cformsform

1. download an alternate image: Ubuntu Alternative Downloads
2. write an image to USB drive using UNetbootin
3. boot from this new USB on the target host
4. select the menu item “Default”
5. DON’T press ENTER
6. press TAB
7. add the “cdrom-detect/try-usb=true” before the “- -”
8. press ENTER
Now it will actually look into USB to install the system rather than looking for CD-ROM or trying the whole OS from the network.