I decided it was time to update my ubuntu system from 64-bit v10.04 to 64-bit v12.04. Unfortunately, for some reason (or reasons) I just can't make it work.

My AMD 64-bit v10.04 system is on a 1TB seagate SATA disk drive. Now I'm trying to install the AMD 64-bit v12.04 system from a DVD ISO file that I downloaded from the ubuntu releases site and burned onto the DVD. I've downloaded the ISO 3 times and burned 3 of these installation DVDs, but none of them work. I also ran the "check disk" option at the beginning of the installation process to assure the DVD is valid.

I'm trying to install onto a 3TB seagate SATA disk drive. After that didn't work several times, I also tried to install on two older 250GB seagate drives in the same computer. During every attempt I plug the SATA cable into only one disk drive (the 3TB, the 1TB, or either of the 250GB drives) and leave the other disk drives unconnected.

Typically the installation process never completes on the 3TB drive, though it gets close to finished --- where it reports "installing system" on the installation dialog. The hard disk light stays very active, but it just hangs there for 45 minutes, which means it is obviously hung up since the entire installation process only takes 30 minutes on the 250GB drives.

When I install on the 250GB drives, the install process finishes and the computer reboots (with the install DVD removed), but I get some kind of grub error. I'm pretty sure I remember the error number is 15.

It is my understanding that 64-bit ubuntu (and 64-bit linux in general) has no problem with 3TB disk drives. In the BIOS I have tried having EFI set to "enabled" and "auto" with no apparent difference (no success).

I have tried partitioning the drive in a few ways to see if that makes a difference, but so far it has not mattered. Typically I manually create partitions something like this:

8GB swap
8GB /boot ext4
3TB / ext4

But I've also tried the following, just in case it matters:

100MB boot efi
8GB swap
8GB /boot ext4
3TB / ext4

Neither works - they hang up near the end of the installation process after about 30 minutes, during "installing system". The disk activity light on the front of the computer flickers, but is mostly lit up. The activity light on the DVD drive does not light up, and my router says the system is not downloading files from the internet.

If I connect my 1TB drive that has been my ubuntu system drive for the past 2 years, it boots up and runs fine, just as it has since I installed v10.04 over 2 years ago.

I guess there must be a log file somewhere, and maybe it gives some hints as to what the problem is. I should be able to boot off the 1TB drive with the 3TB drive connected as a secondary (non-boot) drive and get the log file, assuming there is one and someone tells me the name (and where to find it if the name is very generic).

The computer is fairly current, but fully supported by two-year-old ubuntu v10.04. The motherboard is gigabyte 990FXA-UD7, the CPU is an 8-core AMD bulldozer (FX-8150 if I recall correctly), 8GB of DDR3 RAM in two sticks, nvidia GTX-580 GPU, no overclocking or other funny business (I prefer reliability).

Any ideas?

Later: I finally got the install to run to completion on the 3TB drive. It took for-freaking-ever... several times longer than installing on the 250GB drives (about 2 hours versus 30 minutes). The partition was the one with the EFI partition as stated above. However, the drive will not boot! Instead of booting up, it spits out:

error: unknown filesystem
grub rescue>

Sigh. Any ideas?

Ok so the system/hardware worked previously with 10.04 but not with 12.04.

Several things you can do. Rescatux will allow you to write the MBR onto the drive.
http://www.supergrubdisk.org/rescatux/

Or boot off the install DVD and enter into the rescue mode and then re-write grub onto the MBR.

I found a good article here which will help, and specifically explains the problem you face.
http://tuxers.com/main/instigating-a...e-grub-prompt/

After I boot up the live-DVD, how do I enter into rescue mode?

What is the exact meaning and appropriate application of the "device for boot loader installation" field at the bottom of the partition dialog in the installation process? For some reason the default always appears with "/dev/sdb" selected (an external USB drive connected to the computer), not the expected "/dev/sda" which is my 3TB internal SATA3 drive where I create my partitions and install ubuntu. Either I'm stupid and/or ignorant, or that is a VERY bad (and potentially dangerous) default for the installation program to choose as the default. I am also confused why it offers the partitions (namely /dev/sda1, /dev/sda2, /dev/sda3) in addition to the hard disk device (namely /dev/sda). Would those choices even work? After I create my partitions, I always select "/dev/sda" in the "device for boot loader installation" dropdown list. Is that a problem?

Thanks for the links. If I get to the point where I totally "give up", I will try one of those approaches.

However, I very much dislike those kinds of kludge "cop-out" solutions. I'd rather understand how to perform a proper and successful fresh installation, and understand why my approach didn't work. Also, if the normal fresh single-boot installation of 64-bit ubuntu v12.04 doesn't work (when performed properly), then I want to make sure the people at ubuntu FIX the problem so thousands of others don't have to go through the pain I am going through now. Many of them will be new to ubuntu and/or linux, and problems like these will convince them to give up on linux and/or ubuntu.

PS: I just burned the latest daily of 64-bit ubuntu v12.04 and installed it. It also fails to boot up, but the error it generates is different:

Loading Operating System ...
Boot from CD/DVD :
Boot from CD/DVD :
error: invalid arch independent ELF magic.
grub rescue>

On most installs you would generally see /dev/sda as a default for the bootloader installation. I'm not sure why it shows sdb as default. The other options to install to partitions would work and are generally used for dual/multi-boot machines. If you already have a system on your computer and want to use its bootloader, for example an Ubuntu 10.04 distribution on 1TB drive seen as sda, you would then select to install the new version (Ubuntu 12.04) to a partition on another drive, say sdb1 and then would select that drive/partition (sdb1) on which to install the 12.04 bootloader. You would then reboot to 10.04 and run update-grub and it should be detected and an entry put in the 10.04 boot menu.

Whether selecting sda is a problem is something no one here would know unless we had more information on your boot files, drives and partitions. You can do that by going to the site below, download and run the bootinfoscript after reading the info and posting the results.txt file here. It would be a good idea to save the file for later reference:

http://sourceforge.net/projects/bootinfoscript/

Try passing the following options to the kernel to see if the system boots up.

Did it help / allow the kernel to boot ?

I still can't boot my 3TB drive.

I couldn't try your advice, because I didn't understand what it meant (how to do it, at what stage, with what tool, or what).