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I have downloaded the Ubuntu 12.10 i386 Desktop ISO both via HTTP & Torrent Download. I have attempted the install via CD & Bootable USB (created using YUMI from Pendrive Linux), each using a different ISO (to rule out corruption).

I can boot from CD & USB and use the live Ubuntu, but each time I try to Install it, Ubiquity hangs at the "Preparing to Install Ubuntu" screen. It doesn't matter if i check or uncheck the 'Download updates while installing' and/or 'Install this third party software' options.

I am attempting install on a Dell Inspiron 6000 Notebook (Pentium M 1.60GHz, 2.0GB RAM, 160GB HDD) with an existing Windows Partition. The install from CD worked without incident on my Triple Boot MacBook Pro.

Also, the System Log app will not open, unsure if this is related.

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  • I used gnome-disks to mount all partitions, including swap, and this made it proceed much faster. For 13.10, the installer asked if I want to "try to unmount", to which I said no. I then used the "something different" option and manually selected the installation partition which I had previously created. Oct 27, 2013 at 20:23
  • Another thing that may make things faster is to create the USB with no user storage ("forget on reboot"). Oct 27, 2013 at 20:24
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    This is a longstanding known bug. Waiting for an official fix is not a solution. Ask Ubuntu seems like a good place to share workarounds. Oct 27, 2013 at 20:29
  • One comment: I had this trouble. Spent hours on it. When I selected to NOT 'Download updates while installing' and to NOT 'Install this third party software' everything loaded up fine. It's quite easy to correct these two choices after the operating system is installed.
    – zipzit
    Nov 21, 2014 at 2:42

5 Answers 5

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According to here:

Update to this......I just tested it again. Tried to reinstall 12.10 over 12.10 and failed. Put in Debian....let it wipe the drive, create partitions, then killed the install. Then a fresh install of 12.10......and in it went.

So it seems to be if you have a clean drive or a failed install to be written to, there's no problem.

No idea why....that just seems to be the way it is.

This seems like a partition cleaning bug, since you can clearly install it on a clean drive or over an installation that failed.

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    Thanks Evandro, I will pop in a clean drive and see how I fair. I'll report back soon.
    – Cage
    Oct 22, 2012 at 18:07
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    You were correct Evandro. The installation progressed without problems on a clean drive. I put my original drive back in and this time booted to windows and removed the Linux partition (which was on an Extended partition). When I booted from the 12.10 live-usb again the installation progressed past the dreaded 'Preparing to install Ubuntu' screen. Many thanks for your superfast and reply
    – Cage
    Oct 22, 2012 at 18:46
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    I had this problem on Ubuntu 16. I booted into live mode (had to wait a weird amount of time while it asked for a login and was unresponsive), then used gparted to clean up an old fedora install (I also have windows 10 on my system), and now the install is going as planned.
    – Ram
    Jul 9, 2016 at 17:30
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Well, I had the same issue. The way I resolved it was starting up with the live CD and then got into the disk management app, and just format the drive from there. In the option of which file system, I checked the linux file system option. And the installation went very nice.

Thanks a lot!

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    What is the "linux file system option"?
    – Benedikt
    Feb 15, 2014 at 14:15
  • This worked for me on 14.x
    – eebbesen
    Jan 8, 2015 at 3:16
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If you have multiple HDDs and dozens of bootable operating systems,as I have, this is a real problem.

I cannot install 12.04 from CD because it just hangs. There are plenty of clean volumes and previously installed versions, but the installer simply cannot resolve my drives and just hangs. (I have over 3TB of HDD space divided into logical volumes)

The only way to do it is to install 10.04 and then upgrade it to 12.04

Black mark for Ubuntu, by some sort of assumption that all users will be installing to a desktop with just Windoze installed or a previous linux version on a single small HDD, they have completely screwed up what should and used to be, a simple process.

Try installing to a completely virgin HDD and you will get a similar problem, the partitioner does not recognise it until you run fdisk and do rudimentary partitioning.

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Delete the partitions and make new ones from GParted. That worked for me.

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    I recommend editing this answer to explain how to do that. Jan 31, 2013 at 22:20
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I observed the same issue on ubuntu 13.04.

I was able to work-around the issue by mounting the partitions not needed by the installer.

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    Can you provide more details about what you did and how you did it? Mar 30, 2013 at 18:23

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