no root file system

[tyler]

Trying to install dapper from ubuntu-6.06-beta2-live-amd64.iso. Disk partioner (which I think is gparted) hangs with the message "no root file system". I've tried three times with same result.

Partitioning scheme looks like this:
sda1 = dell utility
/ on sda2 70G reiserfs
swap on sdb1 4G
/var on sdb3 12 G reiserfs

hardware is brand new dell precsion 380 with a pentium D920, 4G ram and 2 74G WD statas

The live cd itself and all apps seem to run just fine.

[sam tygier (samtygier)]

are you running the disk partitioner as a seperate program, or from withing the new installer?

can you post the output of
sudo fdisk -l /dev/sda

[tyler (tyler-greenmuseum)]

Originally, I ran the program from within the gui installer on the Live disk metioned above.

However, this is probably not a gparted problem.

I re-ran the install using the ubuntu-6.06-beta2-install-i386.iso and used the standard 'debian' installer with manual partitioning.

When I tried the same layout I got the same error message, 'No root filesystem', from the good old curses environment as well.

Next I made a /boot parition in ext2 with the rest of the file system in reiserfs and everything worked as expected.

The drives are both western digital: WDC WD800GD-75FL

Here's fdisk output:

tyler@ponderosa:~$ sudo fdisk -l /dev/sda

Disk /dev/sda: 80.0 GB, 80000000000 bytes
255 heads, 63 sectors/track, 9726 cylinders
Units = cylinders of 16065 * 512 = 8225280 bytes

   Device Boot Start End Blocks Id System
/dev/sda1 1 5 40131 de Dell Utility
/dev/sda2 * 6 35 240975 83 Linux
/dev/sda3 36 9726 77842957+ 83 Linux
tyler@ponderosa:~$

Here's functioning fstab:

tyler@ponderosa:~$ cat /etc/fstab
# /etc/fstab: static file system information.
#
# <file system> <mount point> <type> <options> <dump> <pass>
proc /proc proc defaults 0 0
/dev/sda3 / reiserfs noatime 0 1
/dev/sda2 /boot ext2 defaults 0 2
/dev/sda1 /media/sda1 vfat defaults,utf8,umask=007,gid=46 0 1/dev/sdb2 /tmp reiserfs noatime 0 2
/dev/sdb3 /usr/local reiserfs noatime 0 2
/dev/sdb1 none swap sw 0 0
/dev/hda /media/cdrom0 udf,iso9660 user,noauto 0 0
tyler@ponderosa:~$

And disk related entries from dmesg output:

[4294675.934000] ata1: SATA max UDMA/133 cmd 0xF886AD00 ctl 0x0 bmdma 0x0 irq 23 3
[4294675.934000] ata2: SATA max UDMA/133 cmd 0xF886AD80 ctl 0x0 bmdma 0x0 irq 23 3
[4294675.934000] ata3: SATA max UDMA/133 cmd 0xF886AE00 ctl 0x0 bmdma 0x0 irq 23 3
[4294675.934000] ata4: SATA max UDMA/133 cmd 0xF886AE80 ctl 0x0 bmdma 0x0 irq 23 3
[4294676.138000] ata1: dev 0 cfg 00:427a 49:2f00 82:74eb 83:7f63 84:4003 85:74e9 86:3e43 87:4003 88:207f 93:0000
[4294676.138000] ata1: dev 0 ATA-6, max UDMA/133, 156250000 sectors: LBA48
[4294676.199000] sata_get_dev_handle: SATA dev addr=0x1f0002, handle=0x00000000
[4294676.200000] ata1: dev 0 configured for UDMA/133
[4294676.260000] sata_get_dev_handle: SATA dev addr=0x1f0002, handle=0x00000000
[4294676.260000] scsi0 : ahci
[4294676.462000] ata2: no device found (phy stat 00000000)
[4294676.462000] scsi1 : ahci
[4294676.666000] ata3: dev 0 cfg 00:427a 49:2f00 82:74eb 83:7f63 84:4003 85:74e9 86:3e43 87:4003 88:207f 93:0000
[4294676.666000] ata3: dev 0 ATA-6, max UDMA/133, 156250000 sectors: LBA48
[4294676.726000] sata_get_dev_handle: SATA dev addr=0x1f0002, handle=0x00000000
[4294676.727000] ata3: dev 0 configured for UDMA/133
[4294676.788000] sata_get_dev_handle: SATA dev addr=0x1f0002, handle=0x00000000
[4294676.788000] scsi2 : ahci
[4...

[Joel Stanley (shenki)]

I see this also, using todays (20060430?) 'desktop' cd.

Has happened twice, going in for the thrid go now.

Ran installer and from desktop with these steps:
* selected manually partition
* created a root partition, and swap, (these are to be formatted) and asked to re-use /home parition w/o formatting
* Continue to the end of the installer
* begins creating partitions then comes up with 'no root file system' dialouge
* pressed okay, dialouge stops at 15% (left for an hour, no change)

fdisk -l, after rebooting from failed install, shows the partitions were created. However, starting up the installer again, the partitioning screen shows /dev/sda2 (was going to be root), as 'unknown' type.

[Joel Stanley (shenki)]

update from previous post:

I tried two things differently this time (realised just then should have tried one then the other):

1) pre-formatted root and swap using gparted (inside livecd session)

2) when you arrive at the mountpoint setup screen, the swap partition was listed first. I re-ordered them so root was first.

Both seem quite trivial, considering that the installer re-formatted the partitins anyway, but something clicked to make things work.

[dnissley (dnissley)]

Ok, I tried only formatting the partition with gparted, which told me to restart because my drive has an ntfs partition. On my 10gb disk I have a 4gb ntfs partition and a newly created 5.5gb ext2 partition. My swap is .5gb.

After the reboot I launched the installer and clicked next until it got to step 6, which is the mountpoint setup screen Joel Stanley previously mentioned. It did the same for me in setting the swap partition first and the root filesystem second. I left this as is and clicked next to the installation overview screen and then clicked install...And it worked!

I'm not sure where this places the error, but it probably has something to do with the Espresso Partitioner. The Espresso Partitioner is based on GParted, so maybe this is a problem of an outdated version of GParted being used in Espresso.

[Ronald Bradford (ubuntu-myvirtualemail)]

I also experience the problem. dapper-beta2 live cd.
output as requested.

ubuntu@ubuntu:/mnt$ sudo fdisk -l /dev/hdc

Disk /dev/hdc: 120.0 GB, 120034123776 bytes
255 heads, 63 sectors/track, 14593 cylinders
Units = cylinders of 16065 * 512 = 8225280 bytes

   Device Boot Start End Blocks Id System
/dev/hdc1 * 1 2550 20482843+ c W95 FAT32 (LBA)
/dev/hdc2 2551 5100 20482875 83 Linux
/dev/hdc3 5101 14593 76252522+ 5 Extended
/dev/hdc5 5101 5355 2048256 82 Linux swap / Solaris
ubuntu@ubuntu:/mnt$

I have also used fdisk to mark /dev/hdc2 with bootable flag (giving a different output to above), and rerun install from desktop icon, selecting manual configuration, but making no partition changes. Problem still occurs.
Current output after error.

ubuntu@ubuntu:/mnt$ sudo fdisk -l /dev/hdc

Disk /dev/hdc: 120.0 GB, 120034123776 bytes
255 heads, 63 sectors/track, 14593 cylinders
Units = cylinders of 16065 * 512 = 8225280 bytes

   Device Boot Start End Blocks Id System
/dev/hdc1 * 1 2550 20482843+ c W95 FAT32 (LBA)
/dev/hdc2 * 2551 5100 20482875 83 Linux
/dev/hdc3 5101 14593 76252522+ 5 Extended
/dev/hdc5 5101 5355 2048256 82 Linux swap / Solaris
ubuntu@ubuntu:/mnt$

[Mikko Saarinen (mikk0)]

I can confirm this problem with Ubuntu 6.06 "Dapper Drake" - Beta 2 i386 Live CD.

This happened twice when I wanted manually edit the partition table.

1. Removed all partitions
2. Created three primary ext3 partitions in hda (about 20, 35 and 1.5 GB)
3. Set mountpoints to "/", "home" and "swap" (in this order)
    note: I changed the order of the devices in the list to hda, hdb and hdc (the list did not show all at first, and they were in the "wrong" order).
4. Clicked Install and got a warning "no root file system"

The third time I didn't delete the partitions (it seemed that they were already looking like this from the previous attempts), but only made sure that all mount points were noted (didn't change their order) and the installation finished just fine.

But now I got an error while trying to Hibernate the machine:
[4296733.093000] swsusp: Cannot find swap device, try swapon -a.

This got me looking my /etc/fstab to check if swap was not mentioned, but it was. The partition list looked odd, though:

# <file system> <mount point> <type> <options> <dump> <pass>
proc /proc proc defaults 0 0
/dev/hda1 / ext3 defaults,errors=remount-ro 0 1
/dev/hda5 none swap sw 0 0
/dev/hdc /media/cdrom0 udf,iso9660 user,noauto 0 0

The output of sudo fdisk -l:

    Laite Käynn Alku Loppu Lohkot Id Järjestelmä
/dev/hda1 * 1 7120 57191368+ 83 Linux
/dev/hda2 7121 7296 1413720 5 Laajennettu
/dev/hda5 7121 7296 1413688+ 82 Linux / Solaris heittovaihtotiedosto

The second one is extended and the last one is swap (sorry for the Finnish language), but I doesn't recall making an extended partition! And where is my home!

Tried to enable the swap anyway:

mikko@mini:/var/log$ sudo swapon -a
swapon: /dev/hda5: Virheellinen argumentti

It is saying that /dev/hda5 is a wrong argument, so I guess there is _some minor_ problems still with this express install methods.

[Mikko Saarinen (mikk0)]

I did a new install with the install cd and this problem did not show up. So for me it only happened with the gparted in the live cd.

[Philip A. Marshall (philip-philipamarshall)]

I too had to pre-format my partitions in order for install to work. I didn't reorder the mount points, it worked fine for me in the default order. (I figured out the workaround before I searched for a bug report.)

[Mario Đanić (mario-danic)]

What's the status of this on dapper official cd?

[Ronald Bradford (ubuntu-myvirtualemail)]

I had success with installing the official dapper 6.06.

This error did not occur in my instance.

[sam tygier (samtygier)]

sounds like its fixed. reopen if i am wrong