[SOLVED] No Root filesystem defined

[jay105]

hi guys,

ive been recently experiencing some problems with my ubuntu studio 9.10 setup, with the filesystem failing to mount. after deciding to try a new hard drive and cable, as well as clean install ubuntu, fedora and now mint, im still finding no filesystem.

im using a live cd created for mint (like it ). having clicked install to hard drive, all is well until the partition manager, where all the boxes are greyed out. clicking forward produces a box saying "no root filesystem defined". i see there are a few on here from a few years back and having read through them, cannot find a fix for myself.

any help isn greatly appreciated

[yancek]

Did you select "Manual" for the partitioning method? Do you have any partitions on the drive or is it an empty, unformatted drive? If you had partitions on the drive, you could select one, click Edit at the bottom left and set your mount point for root filesystem. Also, stating your intentions more specifically would help. Are you planning to install only Mint to the drive, other OS's??

If you have a blank hard drive, I would suggest opening a terminal with your install CD and logging in as root and running fdisk -l command. If you get no output for the drive, check the cable to assure it is secure.

[devils casper]

You have to assign mount point / for one partition and I think you are not doing that.
Boot up from Ubuntu LiveCD and open Disk Utility package. Create 2 new partitions.

12-15GB, ext4 for /
1GB, SWAP

Start Ubuntu ( or any other distro ) installation procedure and select Manual Partitioning in Partition Section. Select ext4 partition and assign / mount point to it. Continue installation. Installer will detect SWAP and Windows OS partition ( if any ).

In case problem persists, boot up from Ubuntu LiveCD and open Terminal. Execute this

sudo fdisk -l

Post output here.
* Its small L in fdisk -l.

[jay105]

to yancek - i cant even get as far as to choose manual, ive done a screenshot to show what im getting


it's an unformatted drive (except for my failed attempts at installing the OS), and im planning on having mint as the only OS.


to devil's- Disk /dev/sda: 120.0 GB, 120034123776 bytes
255 heads, 63 sectors/track, 14593 cylinders
Units = cylinders of 16065 * 512 = 8225280 bytes
Disk identifier: 0xf426f426

Device Boot Start End Blocks Id System
/dev/sda1 * 1 12111 97281576 83 Linux
/dev/sda2 12112 12621 4096575 82 Linux swap / Solaris
/dev/sda3 12622 14593 15840090 83 Linux
delving a little deeper, i find my ext3 (followed the aforementioned steps and created the partitions) booting from /media instead of fstab which seems to be what it should really be doing. having looked, no fstab is present in my /etc/ file at all. is this my problem?

thanks again

EDIT:
shot of Gparted if it helps

[devils casper]

delving a little deeper, i find my ext3 (followed the aforementioned steps and created the partitions) booting from /media instead of fstab which seems to be what it should really be doing. having looked, no fstab is present in my /etc/ file at all. is this my problem?

I am not getting this at all. If installer couldn't not Hard disk, there shouldn't be any /etc folder in ext3 partition.

I would suggest you to delete all partitions using GParted. Create 2 new partitions as I suggested in my last post and start installation again.

[jay105]

ive created the partitions as asked, but still the list does not populate, as shown in the first picture above. i cannot click manual as everything is greyed out before that option is available to me.

ive searched and searched and cant seem to find any kind of fix.

thanks

[devils casper]

Doesn't installer provide this dialog box?

Select Manual instead of Guided. Select ext4 partition in next dialog box and assign / in mount_point text box. Continue installation.

[jay105]

im afraid not devil's, the step before the first photo shown above is keyboard detection. im just running into a brick wall, frustrating!

[devils casper]

Its really strange. I have to check Ubuntu Studio's installer. I hope someone using Ubuntu Studio will chime in and let us know what is wrong here.
Anyways, I will check it today only and let you know.

[jay105]

the live CD im running isnt Ubuntu studio this time, had a lot of problems finding decent iso files etc, so now im on mint 8, which is based on (99%) on ubuntu. i like it , except it wont install onto my harddrive