reinstallation crash

[MoMaT]

I was installing Ubuntu 6.06 on my previous installation (Dapper Flight 3 + upgrades up to 2006-07-07). I've choosen the same root and swap partitions. I haven't marked root partition to be reformatted (naively having something like repair in mind).

Installation process crashed just after swap partition formatting:

Traceback (most recent call last):
  File "/usr/bin/ubiquity", line 130, in ?
    install(sys.argv[1])
  File "/usr/bin/ubiquity", line 55, in install
    ret = wizard.run()
  File "/usr/lib/python2.4/site-packages/ubiquity/frontend/gtkui.py", line 266, in run
    self.process_step()
  File "/usr/lib/python2.4/site-packages/ubiquity/frontend/gtkui.py", line 741, in process_step
    self.mountpoints_to_summary()
  File "/usr/lib/python2.4/site-packages/ubiquity/frontend/gtkui.py", line 1029, in mountpoints_to_summary
    self.progress_loop()
  File "/usr/lib/python2.4/site-packages/ubiquity/frontend/gtkui.py", line 538, in progress_loop
    raise RuntimeError, ("Install failed with exit code %s; see "
RuntimeError: Install failed with exit code 1; see /var/log/installer/syslog and /var/log/syslog

[MoMaT (momat)]

Installer log.

[MoMaT (momat)]

System log.

[MoMaT (momat)]

Partition manager log.

[MoMaT (momat)]

When I had choosen the root partition to be reformatted, the installation process finished successfully. This behaviour looks similar to Bug 47046.

[Colin Watson (cjwatson)]

Thanks for your report. At present, you must reformat system partitions (e.g. /, /boot, /usr, or /var) during installation; as you observe, bug 47046 is filed to note that the partitioner should warn you about this up-front. If you are upgrading an existing installation, then please see http://wiki.ubuntu.com/DapperUpgrades rather than using this installer.

[MoMaT (momat)]

Unfortunately this was not an upgrade. After "fsck --rebuild-tree" my root partition become unbootable and I was trying to restore the system.

Anyway, thanks for decision on the duplicate. I was unsure if fact that Bug 47046 is a Kubuntu report makes any difference.

[Colin Watson (cjwatson)]

If you want to reinstall, then wipe the partition; otherwise use more traditional recovery tools than an installer. For instance, if the problem is just that the system is unbootable, then mount the root partition from the live CD, chroot into it, and run grub-install. Alternatively, you could use the rescue mode from the alternate install CD, which knows how to walk you through some of these kinds of problems.

In this case, it doesn't matter that bug 47046 was filed regarding Kubuntu, but you were right to file a new bug report anyway.