kubuntu i386 natty daily alternate 20110325: error message: Your installation CD couldn't be mounted

[Bruce Miller]

Binary package hint: debian-installer

Steps to reproduce:
1. started system with kubuntu i386 daily alternate CD
2. chose install
3. chose language (USA English)
4. chose country (Canada)
5. configured the keyboard: USA English
6. chose keyboard layout: USA English (to add other keyboard layouts later from within KDE)
7. Detect and mount CD-ROM
install failure

The error message was:
[quote]
Your installation CD couldn't be mounted. This probably means that the CD-ROM was not in the drive. If so you can insert it and try again
Try again to mount the CD-ROM
[/quote]

Trying again to mount the CD-ROM did not work.

I believe that the error message was inaccurate for the following reasons:
1. The CD-ROM was in the drive. I had not removed it. The drive had not opened;
2. To get this far, the installer had needed to mount and read the CD-ROM;
3. I was able to verify the disk integrity of this burned CD-ROM in the same drive which could not mount the drive;
4. I was able later the same day to install successfully an instance of kubuntu i386 maverick desktop from a LiveCD on the same host, using the same CD-ROM drive.

I had an identical experience a month earlier, on the same machine, with a kubuntu i386 natty alternate disk from the daily archive dated 20110224.

[Peter Gaultney (petergaultney)]

In my case, I encountered this issue with Ubuntu x64 alternate 20110329-1. I was installing off a USB drive, and my laptop has no CD drive at all. If the error intended to indicate that it was not able to mount the installation media, it should say so (and as Bruce has noted, makes very little sense, since the installation itself had booted off the media). If it intended to indicate that no physical CD drive was available, this would seem to be a problem, since my laptop has no CD drive and could not possibly add a CD drive just to suit the Ubuntu installer.

Alpha 3 does not exhibit this behavior when using the desktop/Live CD install through the same method.

[gert (gert.cuykens)]

Same problem on my i7 desktop when using beta 1, alpha 3 did work using usb.

[Bruce Miller (brm0423)]

Since reporting this bug, I have reproduced it on at least three other machines; it has also occurred using both the i386 and amd64 versions of the natty beta1 release. BTW, I am careful *_always_* to test the integrity of .isos, first by doing an md5sum on the download and then on the burned CD.

On one occasion, I tested the install environment in a parallel terminal session (Alt-F2).
# mount
showed that the CD-ROM had indeed been unmounted
# mount -t iso9660 /dev/sr0 /cdrom
allowed the installation to resume and to proceed as far as the "preparing disk partitioning" message; at that point the screen went blue and hung. A repeat of the mount command in the parallel terminal session showed that the CD-ROM had indeed been unmounted again. At this point, there was no obvious way to resume the install process and to bring up the disk partitioning dialogue.

[Tim Cuthbertson (ratcheer)]

I have the same problem trying to install Ubuntu 11.04 amd64 from an alternate CD. I have what I think is a closely related problem trying to install from both Live CD and Live DVD, both of which respond, "(initramfs) Unable to find a medium containing a live filesystem". I believe both problems are the same, the CD or DVD is booted, but when you attempt to install, it has been unmounted.

[Launchpad Janitor (janitor)]

Status changed to 'Confirmed' because the bug affects multiple users.