Long story short: I was a happy user of the first generation (screen resolution: 1024x576), with a 8GB SSD. But SMART warned me about a forthcoming disk error, so I had purchased one OCZ Vertex Plus 60G SSD, and planned to do a fresh install, download Universal-USB-Installer-1.8.6.3.exe and 11.04 image, create my installer key.
But there goes the horror:
- first (normal) installation seemed to be successful. I had used the installer's formatting tool, with 15G as
/
2.5 Gswap
, and the rest for/home
. But after the reboot (the installer USB media still plugged in), the third partition was not recognized/mounted automatically. Even worse: I had tried to mount manually viamount -t ext4 /dev/sda /home
but I was out of luck as it complained aboutbad fs type, superblock...
. So I did amkfs.ext4 /dev/sda3
, but still can't mount. Even worse: after unplugging the USB installer and rebooting I was greeted withGRUB error 17
. - OK read a lot, reinstall, this time format with GParted (from the Ubuntu menu) using
GPT
partition table, this time: 2.5 Gswap
, the rest is/
, then run the installer, and used the previously created partitions. After rebooting with the USB installer still plugged in everything seemed normal. After unplugging the USB and rebooting, I was greeted with GRUB unknown fs, withgrub rescue>
where I wasn't able to boot :-( - (and 4....6) read and research a lot, tried Archlinux (shame on me, I love that distro too), same story either with partitioning via gfdisk, using
GPT
table, then triedfdisk -H 32 -S 32 /dev/sda
as described here: https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/Solid_State_Drives and double checked the results as recommended: https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/SSD_Memory_Cell_Clearing#Post_Process_Observation But the results are the same: I can boot with my USB plugged in (and if there are more then one partition the last is not recognized). After unplugging the USB key, I can't boot. I had also tried the recommendation to create the 1 Mb BIOS boot partition on the GPT partition (same archlinux SSD wiki page), still no luck. I had tried without the BIOS boot, andsyslinux
bootloader. Still no luck.
I really need that machine to work on Monday. Could somebody help me out? Thanks in advance, Zsolt
/dev/sda1
instead of/dev/sda
. I recommends against putting a swap on the SSD to enlarge the SSD's life span. It looks like the boot loader has been installed to the wrong disk. Be sure to select the SSD and not your SSD when installing the bootloader.sda4
notsda
of course.