Ubuntu Installation crashed (IMSM raid device could not activate)

[Shantidev Mohanty]

I am trying to install Ubuntu 22.04 LTS on an existing Windows 7 OS machine. I selected to install with all default options including installation of Ubuntu on the entire hard drive that means the installation will potentially remove the existing OS. The error could be related to the fact that it is unable to wipe out some of the areas of the hard drive.

[Sebastien Bacher (seb128)]

Thank you for your bug report Could you add the logs from/var/log/installer after getting the problem or use 'sudo ubuntu-bug ubuntu-desktop-bootstrap' to report the issue (which would automatically include the needed informations)?

[Sebastien Bacher (seb128)]

The log has quite some mdadm activity which would suggest a raid configuration being used, is that the case?

[Chris Peterson (cpete)]

Indeed looks like raid.

Jul 09 19:14:22 ubuntu subiquity_log.2313[7503]: TIMED udevadm_settle(): 0.010
Jul 09 19:14:22 ubuntu subiquity_log.2313[7503]: /dev/md127 is multipath device partition? False
Jul 09 19:14:22 ubuntu subiquity_log.2313[7503]: /dev/md126 is multipath device partition? False
Jul 09 19:14:22 ubuntu subiquity_log.2313[7503]: /proc/mdstat:
Jul 09 19:14:22 ubuntu subiquity_log.2313[7503]: Personalities : [raid0] [raid1] [raid6] [raid5] [raid4] [raid10]
Jul 09 19:14:22 ubuntu subiquity_log.2313[7503]: md126 : inactive sda[0](S)
Jul 09 19:14:22 ubuntu subiquity_log.2313[7503]: 3096 blocks super external:imsm
Jul 09 19:14:22 ubuntu subiquity_log.2313[7503]:
Jul 09 19:14:22 ubuntu subiquity_log.2313[7503]: md127 : inactive sdb[0](S)
Jul 09 19:14:22 ubuntu subiquity_log.2313[7503]: 2776 blocks super external:imsm
Jul 09 19:14:22 ubuntu subiquity_log.2313[7503]:
Jul 09 19:14:22 ubuntu subiquity_log.2313[7503]: unused devices: <none>
Jul 09 19:14:22 ubuntu subiquity_log.2313[7503]:
Jul 09 19:14:22 ubuntu subiquity_log.2313[7503]: Activating mdadm array /dev/md127
Jul 09 19:14:22 ubuntu subiquity_log.2313[7503]: Running command ['mdadm', '--run', '/dev/md127'] with allowed return codes [0] (capture=True)
Jul 09 19:14:22 ubuntu subiquity_log.2313[7503]: MDADM run on /dev/md127 stdout:
Jul 09 19:14:22 ubuntu subiquity_log.2313[7503]:
Jul 09 19:14:22 ubuntu subiquity_log.2313[7503]: stderr:
Jul 09 19:14:22 ubuntu subiquity_log.2313[7503]: mdadm: (IMSM): Unsupported attributes : 2000000
Jul 09 19:14:22 ubuntu subiquity_log.2313[7503]: mdadm: Unsupported attributes in IMSM metadata.Arrays activation is blocked.
Jul 09 19:14:22 ubuntu subiquity_log.2313[7503]: mdadm: Cannot activate array /md127/1 in /dev/md/imsm0.
Jul 09 19:14:22 ubuntu subiquity_log.2313[7503]: mdadm: Cannot activate array /md127/0 in /dev/md/imsm0.

Possibly a duplicate of https://bugs.launchpad.net/subiquity/+bug/2061073 but we'll need more information to be sure I think.

[Shantidev Mohanty (opensourceisgreat)]

Hi Sebastien and Chris,

Greetings to you! Thank you for your guidance. Please find attached the tar file of the /var/log/installer/ folder contents.

I would also like to mention that when I tried to view the format of my hard drive using the Ubuntu from my USB flash drive, I can see that the format of all the partitions is still NTFS. It seems the original partitions are there but the contents are not longer valid as I am unable to boot into the Windows 7 OS anymore and it shows me that no bootable device found if I try to do that.

I tried to reformat the hard drive segments manually using the Ubuntu Disk program. It does not allow me to do that with an message that the drive is busy. I tried to perform this operation while booting into the Ubuntu from my USB flash drive on the same laptop.

Thanks again for helping!

[Chris Peterson (cpete)]

It looks like there may be a hardware problem with the raid device that is stopping subiquity from wiping the device (although I think distinct from the above bug I linked):

Running command ['udevadm', 'settle'] with allowed return codes [0] (capture=False)
TIMED udevadm_settle(): 0.006
/dev/md127 is multipath device partition? False
/dev/md126 is multipath device partition? False
/proc/mdstat:
Personalities : [raid0] [raid1] [raid6] [raid5] [raid4] [raid10]
md126 : inactive sda[0](S)
      3096 blocks super external:imsm

md127 : inactive sdb[0](S)
      2776 blocks super external:imsm

unused devices: <none>

Activating mdadm array /dev/md127
Running command ['mdadm', '--run', '/dev/md127'] with allowed return codes [0] (capture=True)
MDADM run on /dev/md127 stdout:

stderr:
mdadm: (IMSM): Unsupported attributes : 2000000
mdadm: Unsupported attributes in IMSM metadata.Arrays activation is blocked.
mdadm: Cannot activate array /md127/1 in /dev/md/imsm0.
mdadm: Cannot activate array /md127/0 in /dev/md/imsm0.

[Chris Peterson (cpete)]

After some quick searching, this looks like it might be related to Intel RST which appears to be a windows-only thing. Potentially relevant bug thread [1] which seems similar in nature.

My understanding is that it sets up a pseudo IMSM raid device for ssd caching, but it's not really a supported IMSM setup? Or at least it might require some manual reconfiguration to work on linux.

At any rate, it sounds like you are trying to wipe the whole machine anyways, so I would suggest removing the RAID in BIOS and trying the install again.

[1] https://bugzilla.redhat.com/show_bug.cgi?id=890881#c57