Installation fails, gparted crashes.

[Alexander]

Binary package hint: gparted

Hi.

I'm trying to install Ubuntu 10.10 64bit, but installer fails every time. On a related note, I also tried installing Debian 6 and its installer also gets stuck in Scanning disks... every time. So, I tried to run gparted manually off the livecd but it crashed too. I think installer uses gparted too, but I'm only guessing here.

Hardware isn't anything too exotic, some basic Asus motherboard, AMD Phenom2 X6, Samsung spinpoint F3 1TB hd.

Here's the console output off from the livecd:

ubuntu@ubuntu:~$ sudo gparted
======================
libparted : 2.3
======================
Backtrace has 15 calls on stack:
  15: /lib/libparted.so.0(ped_assert+0x31) [0x7f03d150f5c1]
  14: /lib/libparted.so.0(+0x392f6) [0x7f03d153a2f6]
  13: /lib/libparted.so.0(+0x39a73) [0x7f03d153aa73]
  12: /lib/libparted.so.0(+0x3a72d) [0x7f03d153b72d]
  11: /lib/libparted.so.0(ped_disk_add_partition+0x1cb) [0x7f03d1515d3b]
  10: /lib/libparted.so.0(+0x3bc74) [0x7f03d153cc74]
  9: /lib/libparted.so.0(+0x3be65) [0x7f03d153ce65]
  8: /lib/libparted.so.0(ped_disk_new+0x75) [0x7f03d1516815]
  7: /usr/sbin/gpartedbin() [0x44a884]
  6: /usr/sbin/gpartedbin() [0x45a721]
  5: /usr/sbin/gpartedbin() [0x477ec7]
  4: /usr/lib/libglibmm-2.4.so.1(+0x383f2) [0x7f03cff943f2]
  3: /lib/libglib-2.0.so.0(+0x697e4) [0x7f03cf3dd7e4]
  2: /lib/libpthread.so.0(+0x7971) [0x7f03ce9bf971]
  1: /lib/libc.so.6(clone+0x6d) [0x7f03ce71b92d]
Assertion (head_size <= 63) at ../../../libparted/labels/dos.c:662 in function probe_partition_for_geom() failed.
ubuntu@ubuntu:~$

What to do :x

[Curtis Gedak (gedakc)]

From your description, it would appear that the disk device has an invalid MSDOS partition table.

A work-around to this problem is to:

1) Copy any data you have on this disk device to another disk device

2) Erase the invalid MSDOS partition table. The Master Boot Record exists on the first sector of the disk device and also contains the partition table. To erase the MBR (and all data on the disk device), use a command such as:

    sudo dd if=/dev/zero of=/path-to-disk-device bs=512 count=1

Where: /path-to-disk-device is something like /dev/sde

CAUTION: Be sure to type in the above command correctly since it will completely erase the partition table!!!

3) Write a new MSDOS partition table to the disk device using gparted, parted, fdisk, or another partition editor.

4) Proceed to create partitions on the disk device and restore your data.

Hope that helps. :-)

This bug has also been reported previously:
[Bug 545911] Re: Cannot use gparted

[Curtis Gedak (gedakc)]

Prior to erasing the MBR, you can make a backup copy with the following command:

     sudo dd if=/path-to-disk-device of=my-backup-copy.mbr bs=512 count=1

Where: /path-to-disk-device is something like /dev/sde

CAUTION: Be sure to type in the above command correctly, otherwise data loss could result

[Alexander (alexander-)]

Uhm, thanks for the tips but I think I'll just skip linux for now then, too much work for now to reinstall everything :p

However, whether or not the reason for crashing is "incorrect" partition table or not, gparted should never crash and leaving user wondering why the installer doesn't proceed. Fails like this should be handled gracefully.

Also is there any known scenarios *how* this partition table incorrectness happens, exactly? (What I did, I just installed Win7, and during installation left unpartitioned space for Linux before attempting the install).

Anyway, this seems to be under investigation in other bug report, so guess I'll just hope this gets fixed for 11.04 :)

[Curtis Gedak (gedakc)]

Both the Ubuntu installer and GParted use the libparted library from the parted project. Hence each program that uses this library will also fail in a similar manner.