SOLVED - 10-R20120207 Installation hanging.

purdy · 2012-04-03 23:20:14

Hello to all!

I've been using Linux Mint 12 for a little bit but find it not to be what I'm looking for. #! seems to be pretty legit and I've been very excited to use it, except...

Except that I'm currently trying to install crunchbang on my EeePC 1015PE via usb stick. I received the usb drive with the iso loaded onto it from osdisc due to the limited bandwidth at my current deployed location. #! boots into the live enviornment fine, but the text install isn't working. It keeps hanging up on the 50% mark of the Detecting Disks stage or whatever of the partioning application. I've searched a bit but have found that mostly people are saying to remake the usb stick from the iso, but like I said, I'm not currently available to do that being that my bandwidth is extremely limited at my current location, hence my purchase from osdisc.com. Alot of the advice I've seen from searches talk about UNetbootin and everything, or they tell me to do the graphical installation which isn't an option in this release. Thanks in advanced.

-Purdy

Last edited by purdy (2012-04-06 02:27:20)

awds · 2012-04-05 02:36:39

Your problem could be due to something like the ACPI infrastructure. I've had trouble with it before and solved the problem by passing "noapci" as a boot parameter. Once you get it going, you can use this thread for a more detailed location of the trouble and only disable the guilty service: https://wiki.ubuntu.com/DebuggingACPI.

Sometimes I have had trouble doing installs from USB on some machines and had better luck doing so from CD. If you have a CD drive on your EeePC 1015PE or an external USB CD/DVD drive then you could try cloning the osdisk USB to an ISO file on hard disk, then use the ISO to make a CD clone of the USB drive, and try booting and installing from the CD. It's a desperate measure, but worth a try given your Internet bandwidth limitations.

Good luck with this. What I'm suggesting is a shot in the dark. I have #! running on an EeePC 8G, but I did it from CD. It's a slick distro, lighter weight than Ubuntu or Mint, and closer to the upstream source as it's based on Debian Squeeze.

purdy · 2012-04-05 18:40:41

A Debian forum post pointed out to me that the partitioner is trying to format it's own usb stick, which obviously isn't what I'm looking for. I've since pulled out the stick just before the partitioner detects disks, and it worked! It let me partition and format accordingly, but now after re-inserting the thumbdrive; the installer isn't realizing that it's plugged in, so won't let me proceed to 'Install the System' step. It says that it failed, so I figured I could go back to the 'Search and Mount CDROM' which is how it found the usb stick, but it won't let me do it. I'm not familiar with busybox, or really any shell in general, so I'm not sure how to go about remounting it. Any clues on how to get it to proceed to get the installation files off the usb stick so I can be all #!'ed out?

You sortof lost me with the whole ACPI thing. I don't know how to pass boot parameters, but I suppose I'll start my reading there any hopefully figure some stuff out. I left my external CD/DVD drive back home (doh!) so that option is sortof out of the question.

Thanks for the response and everything; you've certainly given me something to look into. Thanks in advanced for whomever responds to this aswell!

falldown · 2012-04-05 19:36:41

You might have damaged the usb stick by removing it without unmounting it first.
Which if thats the case then the usb stick will need to be reformatted and the #! iso re-installed on the stick.
And that doesn't sound like an option for you.
I have damaged a few usb sticks in this manner.

awds · 2012-04-05 20:28:22

purdy wrote:

A Debian forum post pointed out to me that the partitioner is trying to format it's own usb stick, which obviously isn't what I'm looking for. I've since pulled out the stick just before the partitioner detects disks, and it worked! It let me partition and format accordingly, but now after re-inserting the thumbdrive; the installer isn't realizing that it's plugged in, so won't let me proceed to 'Install the System' step...

It sounds to me like you've identified the problem. In doing a guided installation and accepting the defaults, the system might have interpreted the mounted USB thumbdrive as another disk to be formatted and used. The trick would have been to flip the little switch on the thumbdrive to make it read-only, which would prevent the system from doing anything to it. Unfortunately, as falldown pointed out, the USB stick could now be damaged, especially if the system was trying to format it. You can recover the stick by reformatting it, but that scrubs the all important data. Gosh, what a pain in the butt!

Another possibility would be for you to go a library, school, or Internet cafe and use their network connection to download the #! iso and recreate the thumbdrive. Clearly, you are connected to the network; if you are using a Windows machine then I think there is a version of Unetbootin for it that will do the job for you, but if you are in a war-zone then this won't be an option either.

purdy · 2012-04-05 20:29:24

Well I certainly hope it didn't mess it up; the live enviornment still works fine off the usb stick so I dunno... That would be an idication that the stick is still intact, no?

Any idea how to remount the usb using busybox in the installer?

purdy · 2012-04-05 20:34:32

Not in a war-zone but all of the internet in adjacent areas is extremely slow (5MBs took about 45 minutes!)

Is there anything I can do interms of mounting the usb disk after to partitioner does it's thing in busybox than proceed with the installation?

awds · 2012-04-05 20:49:04

If it still works in Live mode then I'd say you are still good, but I would flip the read-only switch if the USB stick has one, just to be safe.

See this link for BusyBox help: http://busybox.net/downloads/BusyBox.html. You should be able to remount the USB stick, but I've never done it.

Actually, if you succeeded in partitioning the drive after pulling the stick, you should be able to re-initiate installation and skip the partitioning on the second run through thereby avoiding the partitioner troubles. I would try this first before messing about in BusyBox.

purdy · 2012-04-05 23:06:04

That's actually a really good point, maybe when I do the Text Expert Install I'll just be able to skip the partitioner and then roll straight into installation. Let's hope so; either way I'm gonna look into the busybox readme's. Thanks for the help man, I'll keep you posted.

purdy · 2012-04-06 02:26:40

Well, I'm a bit of an idiot I guess... I've been trying to remount the usb stick this whole time with :
mount /dev/sdc1/ /cdrom/
My main mix up was treating sdc1 as a directory instead.

The installer wouldn't let me skip the partitioner, so my advice for anyone who comes across this problem when installing from a usb stick is -

Before the partitioner scans the disks, remove the usb stick (do so at your own risk, could harm image on usb stick)

After partitioner is done with it's thing, press ALT+F4 and insert the usb stick. Monitor where the usb stick is on the system, for my example, /dev/sdc1.

Then, after hitting ALT+F2(or F3), take that point and use that in your mount command, to mount it to the cdrom; such as:

Mount /dev/sdc1 /cdrom/

Then press Alt+F1 and proceed with your installation!

Thanks for all the help everyone! I'm calling this one solved!

falldown · 2012-04-06 02:30:39

Glad you got her fixed Purdy!!
By the way Welcome to #!.
Everyone here is eager to help find solutions to problems you may have. smile

awds · 2012-04-06 14:16:07

Well done! Excellent news! Nobody who uses Linux is an idiot; we've all been through this kind of thing before. The end result of overcoming these problems is that you emerge from the experience stronger, more knowledgeable, and less likely to forget what you needed to do. It is quite clear that you are endowed with the proper attributes to be a successful user of Linux, the main one of which is that you didn't give up.

Thanks for documenting your solution. I'm pleased that you got #! running because I think you will like it; it's quite swift on limited hardware.

Last edited by awds (2012-04-06 14:18:31)

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#1 2012-04-03 23:20:14

SOLVED - 10-R20120207 Installation hanging.

#2 2012-04-05 02:36:39

Re: SOLVED - 10-R20120207 Installation hanging.

#3 2012-04-05 18:40:41

Re: SOLVED - 10-R20120207 Installation hanging.

#4 2012-04-05 19:36:41

Re: SOLVED - 10-R20120207 Installation hanging.

#5 2012-04-05 20:28:22

Re: SOLVED - 10-R20120207 Installation hanging.

#6 2012-04-05 20:29:24

Re: SOLVED - 10-R20120207 Installation hanging.

#7 2012-04-05 20:34:32

Re: SOLVED - 10-R20120207 Installation hanging.

#8 2012-04-05 20:49:04

Re: SOLVED - 10-R20120207 Installation hanging.

#9 2012-04-05 23:06:04

Re: SOLVED - 10-R20120207 Installation hanging.

#10 2012-04-06 02:26:40

Re: SOLVED - 10-R20120207 Installation hanging.

#11 2012-04-06 02:30:39

Re: SOLVED - 10-R20120207 Installation hanging.

#12 2012-04-06 14:16:07

Re: SOLVED - 10-R20120207 Installation hanging.

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