Installer error: could not unmount partitions in mount point cd/rom

[AbleTassie]

Hello all,

I made a live bootable usb thumb drive with persistence of Xubuntu 18.04 LTS. I used mkusb to make the the live bootable usb from an iso file I downloaded. The live bootable usb with persistence has worked fine, but when I went to install Xubuntu 18.04 LTS to the hard drive, I eventually go this message:

"The installer needs to commit changes to partition tables but cannot do so because partitions on the following mount points could not be unmounted /cdrom.

Please close any applications using these mount points."

See attached screen photo of the error message under my initial below.

I cannot complete the installation to the hard drive.

QUESTION: What should I do?

Thanks,

A.

Installer Error Message.jpg

[CelticWarrior]

Have you selected some manual partitioning ("something else...") or automatic?

[AbleTassie]

Hi Warrior,

I selected one of the standard choices, I think it was automatic, and definitely not "something else." Other people have had this same problem, see for example this link , which says the problem is that the installer is trying to install to the thumb drive the live boot is already on. Somebody in that older thread said you may have to install manually. I am not sure that is the real problem, so I put out this query. I am thinking that maybe I should try creating another live bootable thumb drive without persistence using Disk Creator and try that.

Here is another similar link that discusses the problem.

Anybody have any idea what I should do?

Thanks,

Able

[yancek]

Is the hard drive your are trying to install to blank or have you created partitions or formatted it with a Linux filesystem? Have you opened GParted to see if it recognizes the hard drive? I'm not sure Xubuntu has gparted on the iso but most of the major Ubuntu distributions do. Since you don't indicate any other OS on the hard drive, have you tried the option to Erase disk and install Xubuntu?

[CelticWarrior]

It has absolutely nothing to do with persistence...

At the point where you selected the option to install didn't you checked the drive that was being proposed was the same you were booting from? And that there wasn't any other detected? You should pay attention to those details.

If the live session can't "see" the drive why were you expecting it to install? What's happening is likely a very common issue: An unsupported SATA mode in UEFI ("BIOS"). It needs to be AHCI. Other modes such as "RAID" or Intel RST aren't supported. Now, if you're dual-booting with Windows, you need to install AHCI support in Windows first or it won't boot. Also disable Fast Startup (Windows) and Secure Boot (UEFI).

[AbleTassie]

Thanks Warrior and Yancek,

The drive is absolutely brand new, installed by me yesterday. It is a Samsung 860 EVO V-NAND SSD, 250GB, Model MZ-76E250. It is a friend's PC and we have been using the Xubuntu live boot usb with persistence as a spare until we could get the new hard drive in. I am not sure whether my friend wants to go back to Windows 8.1 Pro that came with the PC or he wants to stay with Xubuntu. But I thought we would use Xubuntu on the actual hard drive until I figure out how to reinstall the old Windows. I am not sure if I can just reinstall the Windows using files burned onto the motherboard memory or whether I have to order disks or what. He has no disks and the PC is maybe 7 years old. I have to check the PC serial number and contact the manufacturer to find out. But no, I am not dual booting at this point.

I think I chose the option to "erase disk and install Xubuntu." There really is nowhere to install the Xubuntu other than on the hard drive or the USB live boot thumb drive itself. And I just figured that the software would detect the new hard drive and install to that and not be confused by the presence of the thumb drive. But I am apparently wrong.

QUESTION: So what do I do?

I am pretty sure there is a Gparted on the Xubuntu. I can try and see if the new hard drive is recognized by Gparted. I already disabled Secure Boot in the UEFI and changed the boot order to get the PC to boot into the thumb drive Xubuntu.

If it needs AHCI, how do I make sure that is present, by going into the BIOS/UEFI and making changes? The PC is a Samsung DP500A2D-A02UB, specs .

My friend is disabled and he does not do much except email and solitaire. But one reservation i have about Linux/Ubuntu is that my friend has both a speech impediment and a tremor. And I thought voice recognition software on his PC might help him. But given his speech impediment I thought he might need a good speech recognition program that learns and stores audio files. And somebody knowledgeable told me it is unlikely that there is such a Linux-based speech recognition program. So we might be eventually forced to go back to Windows to use a speech recognition program if that is desired.

Thanks,

Able

[AbleTassie]

I just looked at Gparted and it recognizes the new hard drive, but that may be about all. See the attached photo of the screen under my initial below. It looks like there is one large unallocated partition. The hard drive is nominally 250GB and the relevant specs are probably here , I think. The drive is a Samsung 860 EVO V-NAND SSD Model MZ-76E250.

Thanks,

A.

GpartedNewDrive.jpg

[yancek]

I'd start by opening GParted and going to the Device tab and creating a partition table. Then create a partition (or partitions) with a Linux filesystem (ext4 default) and if you are not sure if your friend wants to install windows 8 again, leave unallocated space on the drive on which to install it. You need to decide whether to use msdos or gpt for the drive. If you use gpt and want to install windows, it will need to be installed UEFI and Xubuntu should also then be installed UEFI. If this doesn't help, there is some other problem, possibly bad hardware?

[AbleTassie]

Thanks Yancek,

I have done some computer programming years ago and I am comfortable thinking about these things, but I will have to educate myself regarding what you said in your most recent post. It will take some time and I may have more questions. But, I will try my best to get my friend's system working.

Thank you,

A.

[oldfred]

Have you updated firmware from Samsung?
That was the first thing I did with my new NVMe drive.
Samsung has a bootable ISO, looks more like old DOS screens that updates.
https://www.samsung.com/semiconducto...ownload/tools/

I allocated additional partitions for more Ubuntu (test) installs and did not fully allocate drive.

fred@fred-Z170N-focal:~$ sudo gdisk -l /dev/nvme0n1
GPT fdisk (gdisk) version 1.0.5

Partition table scan:
  MBR: protective
  BSD: not present
  APM: not present
  GPT: present

Found valid GPT with protective MBR; using GPT.
Disk /dev/nvme0n1: 976773168 sectors, 465.8 GiB
Model: Samsung SSD 970 EVO Plus 500GB          
Sector size (logical/physical): 512/512 bytes
Disk identifier (GUID): 28B13235-0C01-4A92-BB59-96C0739F1591
Partition table holds up to 128 entries
Main partition table begins at sector 2 and ends at sector 33
First usable sector is 34, last usable sector is 976773134
Partitions will be aligned on 2048-sector boundaries
Total free space is 381805071 sectors (182.1 GiB)

Number  Start (sector)    End (sector)  Size       Code  Name
   1            2048         1050623   512.0 MiB   EF00  esp_nvme
   2         1050624        62490077   29.3 GiB    8300  focal_0
   3        62490624       123930623   29.3 GiB    8300  
   4       915333120       976773119   29.3 GiB    8300  
   5       123930624       533530623   195.3 GiB   8300  nvme_data