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“No root file system defined” error while installing ubuntu

I tried installing Ubuntu 12.04 LTS 32 bit, but when I get to this step

and hit forward I get taken to a prompt where it says "No root file system is defined." I don't even get to any part about partitioning, and there is nothing for me to choose or select from. Other similar posts at least get to a part where where they can choose how they want to allocate drive space.

I have followed the instructions for partitioning here:http://members.iinet.net.au/~herman546/p22.html exactly and my partition looks exaclty like this but I have more space. Everything is the same as this image (including partition names, file system names, and flags), except my sizes are bigger.

After this failed I deleted the new partitions, so I was left with dev/sda1 and dev/sda2, and tried to install again but I got the same error.

Every time I try out Ubuntu it's something new that seems to not work, and its super frustrating. Any help would be more than appreciated.

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marked as duplicate by jokerdino♦, Ringtail, devav2, Jorge Castro, Stephen Myall Oct 31 '12 at 9:13

This question has been asked before and already has an answer. If those answers do not fully address your question, please ask a new question.

3 Answers

up vote 6 down vote accepted

To anyone who stumbles acorss this question...this was my solution.

sudo apt-get remove dmraid
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This fixed it for me as well – William Z Sep 2 '12 at 21:45
up vote 4 down vote

Make sure that the partition file system you wish to install Linux, Ubuntu or Backtrack on it is ext4, ext3 or ext2, and not FAT32 or NTFS.

Then mount / on it:

  1. During the installation process press "change" on the partition you wish to use

  2. Make sure "do not use this partition" scroll is not chosen, scroll to ext4, ext3 or ext2

  3. On the "mount" field write /

  4. Click ok, then next a message will appear saying something like "swap area was not defined, do you wish to continue or choose a swap area?", click "ok" and continue or click "go back" and choose another partition and click change, on the file system scroll choose "swap" and click "ok" and next

This will solve both "no root file system is defined" and the "swap area" message, if you still get the swap area message then on step 4 mount /swap to the partition

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if you take a look at this you will see that the partition file system is ext4 – Errol Gongson May 15 '12 at 17:14
@ErrolGongson You need to set the mount point in the installer. This is the cause of our error message. – ObsessiveSSOℲ Aug 12 '12 at 20:14
up vote 0 down vote

Maybe you have a problem with the ISO you downloaded. Try to find the MD5 of the .iso in the site and compare with the one you downloaded.

I already had Mandriva Free 2010 on my hard drive when I installed Ubuntu 12.04, and in the installation everything worked fine for me.

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