Bug#705790: Installation hangs starting up the partitioner
Package: installation-reports
Boot method: USB stick
Image version: debian-testing-amd64-netinst.iso downloaded yesterday
Date: 2013-04-18 21:45 Pacific Time (-7:00?)
Machine: Puget Systems Echo II
Processor: Intel Core i3 3225
Memory: 8G (2 x Kingston DDR3-1600 4GB)
Partitions: /dev/sdb does not contain a valid partition table (says fdisk)
/dev/sdb -> ST310005 1G via USB 2.0; sda is USB stick
No good way to get output from lspci out of the system. Intel DH77DF
motherboard with no added internal devices.
Current connections are keyboard, external drive, USB stick, ethernet and
power. The external drive enclosure has
additional USB ports, one of which is connected to a mouse. The mouse
works in the graphical installer.
While netbooting squeeze I found the USB 3.0 ports did not work reliably;
nothing is attached to them.
Base System Installation Checklist:
[O] = OK, [E] = Error (please elaborate below), [ ] = didn't try it
Initial boot: [O]
Detect network card: [O]
Configure network: [O] via DHCP
Detect CD: [?] I think it said it was detecting CD, which is
not on the system, and did use the USB stick for next step
Load installer modules: [O]
Detect hard drives: [E]
Partition hard drives: [ ]
Install base system: [ ]
Clock/timezone setup: [ ] it did go through questions about this OK
User/password setup: [ ]
Install tasks: [ ]
Install boot loader: [ ]
Overall install: [E ]
Comments/Problems:
The system has no internal disk; I booted the installer off a USB stick
and have an external hard drive cocnnected via USB. When the (graphical)
installer gets to the partition disk step it shows "Starting up the
partitioner" over a progress bar that is half complete. Below there it
displays "Scanning disks". The drive mounted by USB is known to the
hardware, evidence by the BIOS boot menu, and to the installer OS,
evidence by /dev/disk/ entries. The disk is unformatted as far as I know
(an exchange for a defective disk).
The system has been functioning OK (except for the USB 3.0) via netboot
and NFS; the server it was using died.
It's not entirely clear to me that this scenario (external drive only)
should work, though I had hopes.
Full story: this box was functioning as a HTPC via netboot with a server.
The server died and I am attempting to use the box in its place using a
spare hard drive.
I'd love to get this working so I'm less hosed.
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