[PEBKACRTM]

My 250 gig hard drive recently moved on to the great computer in the sky (it died). Prior to it's death everything on the computer was running smoothly. No problems whatsoever. I replaced the deceased hard drive with a 500 gig SATA, reinstalled my operating system using the full drive (it was Ubuntu Fiesty at the time) and immediately ran into problems. The installation was a HUGE chore with things constantly hanging up. I figured it was too large of a volume so experimented with smaller partitions and anything I could think of with no luck for an entire day. I eventually got it installed and once going, it worked fine. I have no idea WHY the installation suddenly worked since I hadn't done anything different on the attempt than my other failed attempts and in fact had even given up and re-tried installing the OS using the full disk volume. No partitioning changes or anything. It installed and everything was normal though so I didn't care. Well, a short while later the new version of Ubuntu, Gutsy Gibbon, came out and I decided to upgrade. No such luck. Failed every time. I decided to do a clean full install of the OS and ran into the same problems as the previous install. It took me TWO DAYS to get the install to go right. Once installed ALMOST everything works fine. Most notably k9 copy (yes, I only use it to make LEGAL copies!) does not work like it used to before the installation of the new operating system. I've thought about reinstalling the OS but I'm afraid of having the same horrible issues as before. Plus, what's going to happen when the NEW Ubuntu OS comes out and I have to upgrade, which leads me to my question.....

Since the Ubuntu OS and all programs used to install and work perfectly before I installed the new hard drive do you think it's a problem of the motherboard not being able to handle the size of the new drive? It's an Intel motherboard from back in 2001 (possibly 2002, I'd have to open up my case to give you the exact model number) so maybe it's just having a hard time resolving the size difference? Any thoughts as to any other possible causes? Thanks in advance!

[Elvandil]

What does BIOS have to say about the drive? Does it recognize the full size?

[PEBKACRTM]

Yep. It recognized the full drive.

[PEBKACRTM]

An interesting problem I kept running into during the installation was that it would refuse to boot from the CDROM. I went into the BIOS to check the settings and changed things to to make sure it would boot from it. From that point on it only booted from the disk SOME of the time. It was like it was choosing off and on when to do it and when not to. Settings said it should be booting from the CDROM but it was finicky. Sometimes yes, sometimes no.

[Elvandil]

Is the CD scratched or the drive lens need cleaning?

New drives can be faulty, too.

[PEBKACRTM]

CD is fine. I know this because I've used it to install the OS on other computers since then. The CDROM drive seems to be working fine. There are no problems reading any other disks. Just to be safe, I had re-downloaded & burned the OS to a brand new disk just in case it really was just a bad disk. The same problems kept happening though even with a brand new disk.

[monckywrench]

What make/model/version number is the motherboard.
What make/model is the hard drive?
Was your previous drive PATA or SATA?
Maybe the SATA controller you are using has issues. Is the controller on the motherboard or is it an add-on card?

[PEBKACRTM]

I accidentally wrote previously that I was using an SATA...my bad...I meant PATA. Dee Dee Dee...Sorry about that. My other systems have SATA so I've gotten so used to writing that without thinking. Here's the correct info:

Motherboard: Intel D845BGL with 2.0 GHz Pentium 4

Hard Drive: Seagate 500 gig PATA/100, model# ST3500641A-RK, 3 Gbps transfer rate, 16MB cache buffer, 7200 rpm

Previous Drive was PATA

Controller: (Not using an SATA controller obviously..again, my bad) On motherboard, not an add-on card

[saikee]

I don't believe modern Linux has any issue with large hard disk. Most of my distros, including Ubuntu, are scattering around 500Gb disks, in both Pata and Sata. However I don't give a distro 500Gb partition because its footprint varies between 2.5 to 3.5Gb. Thus a 10Gb partition is more than enough while the rest can be a personal data partition.

The Seagate ST3500641A-RK seems to be very slow with ATA100 transfer rate. Most 3.5" hard disks are already ATA133 capable when the maximum capacity reached 200Gb. The most recent hard disk in my collection that has ATA100 is an IBM Deskstar ICL35L060 with a 60Gb capacity when the operating system was still Win98. I would say this Seagate hard disk isn't fast at all and is ill-equipped to operate a 500Gb partition. Just imagine the time to format it.

[PEBKACRTM]

Yeah, when I first started installing I had no intention of using the entire volume, it just seemed to be the only way to get it to install. Any attempt at partitioning or changing the size of anything just screwed everything up causing the installation to hang. After so many failed attempts I had gotten so good at predicting where it was going to "hang" that I learned fun little tricks to keep the installation going....like I knew I had to (this is going to sound weird I know) open a program on the computer when the installation was reading the disk and it hit a certain percentage of completion (26%). If I didn't do that it would just hang up and NEVER move again...and I do mean NEVER. (I waited for three hours once to see if anything would happen on it's own) I found that trick by accident. Once when the installation had stopped at the 26% mark AGAIN, I clicked on a program on the desktop just to see if EVERYTHING was frozen. Well, it wasn't and it kicked the installation back into motion. Kind of like grabbing paddles and shocking someone whose heart has stopped (CLEAR!). Things suddenly started moving again. I also learned that a few presses of the space bar now and then kept things moving along. The one thing I never managed to figure out and only managed to get past by sheer luck was the installation opening screen hang up. Every once in a while, not always, just randomly, I would insert the OS disk, turn on the computer, it would read the disk and the Ubuntu installation screen would start to appear VERY SLOWLY line by line and then everything would just stop. Never to start again. My computer is plenty fast enough to handle the OS, it's the same OS I was running before installing the new drive, so I dunno. Once I got past that part I then had to fight with various GRUB errors but the GRUB error numbers would change, sometimes one number (17 was the most popular), sometimes a different one. I would expect error 17 if I had messed with the partitions but I would get it sometimes on attempts using the entire volume. There never seemed to be any rhyme or reason to anything.

I'm so beyond baffled. It's not my first hard drive installation and it's not my first time installing this OS so I dunno.

[PEBKACRTM]

(just read your addition to your post saikee) hmmm....maybe I should switch to a different hard drive then. While I don't really have a need to use a 500 gig partition (it just happened to work out that way), I'd hate to have a slow drive when there's something better out there. Gotta have the baddest and the best!

[monckywrench]

Never neglect throwing a different distro at the problem for testing!

I'd chuck Sidux and Kanotix at it to see if they behave differently. Sidux because it's Sid-based, and Kanotix because Kano does a good packaging job too. Both are Debian-based as is Ubuntu.

[saikee]

PEBKACRTM,

In my opinion the best way to install any operating system is to create the partitions required by it and its installer will seize them and wont let go.

Same for a Linux.

Thus if you run the Ubuntu as a Live CD you can use its cfdisk program (I don't use anything else) to create partition sizes of your own choice.

When you run the installer just tell it the root partition you want it install to and it get on with it. If you let its installer to make up the mind for you it will play safe and use up the whole disk.

Any partition you created in Linux partitioning tool will be type 83 suitable for Linux installation.

If you create a partition and change the type to 7, denoting ntfs partition, run a MS Windows installer it will automatically install itself inside.

[PEBKACRTM]

monckywrench: Excellent suggestion! I'll give the distros you suggested a try before giving up and swapping out the drive.

saikee: During several of the failed installation attempts while running the live CD I had done exactly as you suggested...created the desired partitions myself, making sure they weren't NTFS, and then told the OS to install to them (I'm summarizing here of course). That's usually when things when all wrong and the partitioning hung up. Sometimes it SEEMED like all was going well but when the installation was done and the computer restarted it just either hung up on restart or I got a GRUB error. I must be doing something wrong SOMEWHERE but it's confusing because I've never had this problem before. In the past I've installed this OS on drives of this size and have been successful. I've set up dual boot systems and done more than one OS in different partitions so I didn't figure installing just one OS on my home computer would end up being this difficult.

I'll go ahead and give it another try...after saving everything in /home of course, and see what happens. If you don't hear from me again, my computer is down

[piloteer]

The best way to at least try out Ububtu is first download Virtual PC from Microsoft. Save it to your desktop. Then Download Ubuntu from the website selecting the location closest to you.

Install Virtual PC. This creates a large file that acts as a hard drive on your hard drive.
Then install Ubuntu to the Virtual PC. Doing it this way isolates Ubuntu from any files used by XP or Vista. Your hard drive merely sees the Virtual PC as another file. Thus it can't crash or trash another program or files. Then you can experiment around with the risk of harming anything. Ubuntu is huge about 695-698 MB so it might take about an hour to download. You'll need broadband. Just post your results here and hey, it's free!.