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I'm attempting to install Ubuntu Server 17.04 on an external hard drive and the install failed. Here's a picture of the error message:

enter image description here

I'm installing it from a USB drive on a laptop. I was thinking that perhaps the drive didn't have enough storage space to install it? It's 4GB drive. I also have a 500GB external hard drive that I partitioned, if I need to install the software on that.

karel
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rappatic
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2 Answers2

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There are a number of potential issues. I've listed them in order of likelihood:

  1. The ISO file is corrupted. Perhaps you downloaded it from the wrong page, perhaps it was corrupted during or after the download. There is a small chance the download server has a corrupted ISO - either through chance, accident or malicious attack.

    To check your ISO file run the following command:

    sha1sum /path/to/isofile.iso

    For Ubuntu Server 17.04, it should be 61479ab49395ac7374c1d0e2226267d997653715. If yours is a different version of Ubuntu (e.g. 32 bit) you can find the sums here.

    If your SHA1 sum doesn't match the advertised one, you've got a corrupted ISO. Redownload it from the Ubuntu server here.

  2. The disk is damaged - physically or in the partitions. Try repartitioning it, if you can't you may need to wipe the start of the disk.

  3. The disk is too small for Ubuntu Server 17.04. It could be that 4GB is simply not enough space - although that seems unlikely - the Wiki says 1.5GB is enough.

My pronouns are He / Him

Tim
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  • OK... I've checked the size of my drive. It's advertised online as 4GB, but after checking its properties, there was only 1.15GB left over (after the .iso file was installed). So I guess that's the problem. I've ordered a 32GB flash drive, so let's hope that there's no false advertising! – rappatic May 20 '17 at 10:22
  • I'm going to wait until the 32GB drive arrives (and I test it) to award you the bounty. – rappatic May 20 '17 at 10:23
  • @pagie_ did you check the ISO file you downloaded to ensure it has the right hash? – Tim May 20 '17 at 11:16
  • Maybe the problem is that you have the iso file in the target drive, and that you are not allowing the installer to grab the whole drive. – sudodus May 21 '17 at 04:47
  • @pagie_ which was the issue? – Tim May 25 '17 at 16:23
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I just had exactly the same installation issue. I used unetbootin app on macOS to create the bootable usb drive as seems to be recommended, trying with both a 4GB and an 8GB drive, but same problem for both. I verified the checksum was of the ISO correct too.

In the end I tried a different way of creating the bootable usb drive following this guide (which uses dd from the terminal instead) using my 8GB drive and Ubuntu 17.04 installed without a problem.

Pierre.Vriens
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terrcin
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