Ubuntu

Unable to install Ubuntu - Partition Formatting hangs at 33%

Asked by Scott Kasai

I am currently trying to install Ubuntu 8.04.2 LTS onto an HP DL380 G5 Server with 8 250gig SATA Hard Drives in a RAID 5 configuration. What is happening, is when I configure the partitions using the basic defaults of the system, it sits on formatting the ext3 partition at 33% and does not budge for hours. I even ran a 15 hour mem test to verify memory is not the issue as it seems to have been the reason for other systems hanging.

At the moment, I am at a loss as to why it seems like it is not able to format the partitions, let alone anything else. Any help would greatly be appreciated.

Note: I am new to trying to use Ubuntu, so I do not know all the things one can do to troubleshoot the problem and may need guidance on how to do some things.

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Scott Kasai
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plutino (plutino) said : 		#1

It's probably a hard drive problem. You can try to format it with the GParted live CD or USB. testdisk also comes with the live CD so that you can do some test on the hard drive. Gparted live CD can be found here:

http://gparted.sourceforge.net/livecd.php

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Scott Kasai (scott-kasai) said : 		#2

Well, it doesn't look like a hard drive problem. Gparted did format the raid array, taking about 35 or so minutes. Ubuntu 8.10 did allow me to put stuff onto the array, although it seems to now have a problem allowing the system to boot after the install. System is now having the fun of 'attempting to boot hard drive c' part.

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clombard (clombard44) said : 		#3

If the install disk was downloaded from a particular site it can be the disk itself.
Try another disk (not made from the problem one) or send for a new Ubuntu disk.

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Scott Kasai (scott-kasai) said : 		#4

Went with Ubuntu Alternate CD install and backed out on one part to force a LILO boot install. System booted up with this method. Do not know why GRUB didn't want to kick in for this version.