i cant install Android-x86 to my hard disk

[hellraisingdevil]

i have downloaded the newest version of Android OS, and i used
UNetBootin to "burn" it to a 4GB USB flash drive, and i also made a
2GB partition out of my 40GB hard disk for Android, and i formatted
the partition to ext3, and i can boot Android perfectly fine, but i
cant install. when UNetBootin takes me to the menu where i can choose
to install Android, i click on install. then it asks me to choose an
existing partition or make a new one, and when i select the choose an
existing partition, it tell me that there was an error and there is a
bad partition or a bad partition location, or something like that. How
do i get around this, if i can?

[Chih-Wei Huang]

Can you show us your partition layout
by fdisk -l ?

2011/1/26 hellraisingdevil <xxflamingde...@gmail.com>:

--
Chih-Wei
Android-x86 project
http://www.android-x86.org

[hellraisingdevil]

can you tell me how to do that? im pretty advanced when it come to
computers and electronics for somebody my age...but i have no idea
that fdisk-l is

On Jan 25, 8:20 pm, hellraisingdevil

[Kingdon (Yebyen)]

You need a terminal, either use connectbot from the market or if you have a keyboard, ctrl+alt+f1
Then type

fdisk -l

And transcribe

hellraisingdevil <xxflamingde...@gmail.com> wrote:

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[hellraisingdevil]

i typed that into the terminal and it does nothing. by the way, i
apologize for this, but i should have mentioned im running Kubuntu
10.10

[hellraisingdevil]

after realizing i had to use "sudo" and specify my hard drive
partition lable (which is /dev/sda) this is what i got

Disk /dev/sda: 40.0 GB, 40007761920 bytes
255 heads, 63 sectors/track, 4864
cylinders
Units = cylinders of 16065 * 512 = 8225280
bytes
Sector size (logical/physical): 512 bytes / 512
bytes
I/O size (minimum/optimal): 512 bytes / 512
bytes
Disk identifier:
0x0005053d

Device Boot Start End Blocks Id
System
/dev/sda1 * 1 4404 35371008 83
Linux
/dev/sda2 4659 4864 1648641 5
Extended
/dev/sda3 4404 4659 2048000 83
Linux
/dev/sda5 4659 4864 1648640 82 Linux swap /
Solaris

Partition table entries are not in disk order

[hellraisingdevil]

the partition i have made for Android is the one labeled "/dev/sda3"

[Chih-Wei Huang]

Hmm, looks nothing strange...

How about install to /dev/sda1?
(choose do not format to keep your original data)

You may also add DEBUG=1 to installer,
and check /tmp/log to see if any abnormal.

2011/1/26 hellraisingdevil <xxflamingde...@gmail.com>:

> the partition i have made for Android is the one labeled "/dev/sda3"

--

[Yebyen (Kingdon)]

I recommend you follow Chih-Wei's advice first, since nothing looks wrong to me, and you shouldn't get the error; better to trace it down.  But, you might have luck just deleting the partition and making a new one from the empty space by Android-x86 installer?

I do not think that unetbootin is relevant to your problem, but another way to write the images to USB stick is by using dd with one of the usb_img builds.

If your stick is /dev/sdb, then (for example):
dd if=eeepc_usb.img of=/dev/sdb

You could try recreating the partition by another tool as well.

On Wed, Jan 26, 2011 at 3:40 AM, hellraisingdevil <xxflamingde...@gmail.com> wrote:

the partition i have made for Android is the one labeled "/dev/sda3"

[hellraisingdevil]

i cant install at all. i pop my usb into my ibm thinkpad, i boot off
it, then at the UNetBootin menu where i can run default mode, run w/o
installation, vesa mode, and debug mode, and then the install option.
when i select install, it goes throught the starting process, then get
to the "CHOOSE PARTITION" screen, it give me the option to create/
modify a partition, or detect a device
when i select create/mod a partition, this is what it tells me "FATAL
ERROR: Bad primary partition 0: Partition ends after end-of-disk!
press any key to exit cfdisk"

[hellraisingdevil]

and @Yebyen, i have treid deleting the partition, leaving it as
unallocated space, hoped android would use that, no die, i tried
making a fat32 partition, fat16, ext2, ext3, ext4, and ntfs partitions
for it. and nothing worked

[kinneko]

Hi

Please test here.

1. download iso image.
# wget http://android-x86.googlecode.com/files/android-x86-2.2- eeepc.iso

2. media plug in and remount it
# umount /dev/sdb1

3. elase MBR and partition tables
# dd if=/dev/zero of=/dev/sdb bs=512 count=10

4. recover MBR
# lilo -M /dev/sdb mbr

5. make single partition table
# fdisk /dev/sdb
use full media to primary 1, type c, bootable, and write.
p, 1, enter, enter, t, 1, c, a, 1, w

6. fromat vfat
# mkfs.vfat /dev/sdb1

7. copy iso to media
# mkdir /media/sdcard
# mkdir /media/isoimage
# mount -t vfat /dev/sdb1 /media/sdcard/
# mount -o loop android-x86-2.2-eeepc.iso /media/isoimage/
# cp -R /media/isoimage/* /media/sdcard/

8. rename dir and cfg file
# mv /media/sdcard/isolinux /media/sdcard/syslinux
# mv /media/sdcard/syslinux/isolinux.cfg /media/sdcard/syslinux/ syslinux.cfg

9. sync exteral files for syslinux
# cp /usr/lib/syslinux/vesamenu.c32 /media/sdcard/syslinux/

10. write syslinux
# syslinux /dev/sdb1

11. remount and remove
# umount /media/sdcard /media/isoimage
# rm -r /media/sdcard /media/isoimage

[kinneko]

sorry, s/remount/unmount/.

2011/1/26 kinneko <kin...@gmail.com>:

[Kingdon (Yebyen)]

Your cfdisk error is bad news. I would make a new partition table (clean) and restore them from their boundaries with gpart, make sure you have backups incase it does not work!

Gpart will hopefully detect the location of your partitions after you have cleared the table and restoring from backup will not be necessary.

hellraisingdevil <xxflamingde...@gmail.com> wrote:

[kinneko]

I am sorry again.
I misread a question.

2011/1/26 kinneko <kin...@gmail.com>:

[hellraisingdevil]

how do i recover MBR?

[hellraisingdevil]

alright.i had used partedmagic to create and edit the partitions. it
was the only method that had allowed me to shrink the size of
Kubuntu's partition for Android

[hellraisingdevil]

so should scrap the andriod partition and recombine it with the rest
of my hard disk, if not, what extension should i make the 2GB
partition?

[Yebyen (Kingdon)]

Just using gparted or gnome-partition-manager on the tool may present a recovery option also?

On Wed, Jan 26, 2011 at 4:39 AM, Yebyen (Kingdon) <xulru...@gmail.com> wrote:

if you have time for it, try and read this howto:
http://www.ibiblio.org/pub/Linux/docs/HOWTO/other-formats/html_single/Partition-Rescue.html

try what you say here, but:
alternatively, you may need to scrap the whole partition table

Chih-Wei's suggestion was good, if it will allow you to install into Ubuntu partition that is a safe alternative.  Make sure you have a livecd to boot if things go awry.

[hellraisingdevil]

hopefully

[hellraisingdevil]

ok so far, anything i have done to the partition has not worked, and
what ever partitioning tool i have used has not given me any option to
recover anything, so, is there some other tool i may not know about,
something i could run in terminal to fix it, what do i do?

[Kingdon (Yebyen)]

What are your results when you wipe the disk? The link i provided 3.2.3 will show how to use gpart, another user explained how to wipe your mbr with dd on just the front of the drive... just make your android part same size as before and in the front of the disk again, and use your gpart recovery tool to get ubuntu back after you've rendered it invisible to the bootloader.

This is not dangerous, unless your disk geometry was really bad you may not be able to recover ubuntu at all, in this case keep a copy of the mbr first before you overwrite it with zeroes. You will get a brand new disk partition label mbr and you should have no bad partitions.

Read man dd before you try this; the backup is small, much less than 1mb

Good luck

hellraisingdevil <xxflamingde...@gmail.com> wrote:

[hellraisingdevil]

by wipe the disk...do you mean wipe the whole hard drive? cuz i was
hoping i would have to do that

[hellraisingdevil]

nevermind, i mis read it.

[hellraisingdevil]

*wouldnt

[hellraisingdevil]

but um...i really have no idea how to do any of that, as i am
relatively new to linux

[Kingdon (Yebyen)]

You can contact me (yebyen) on skype to walk you through... just not tonight

hellraisingdevil <xxflamingde...@gmail.com> wrote:

>but um...i really have no idea how to do any of that, as i am
>relatively new to linux
>

[hellraisingdevil]

how about tomorrow after i get out of school? which is at about 3:00

[Kingdon (Yebyen)]

Ok, its a date, any interested users can join i have good skype equipment now (archos32) and calls come out clear, i will try a group if anyone else can make the time

hellraisingdevil <xxflamingde...@gmail.com> wrote:

>how about tomorrow after i get out of school? which is at about 3:00
>

[hellraisingdevil]

lol thank you very much, i appreciate it. but i wont be able to video
vhat, as my thinkpad t30 has yet to actually be able to handle video
chatting. thank you very much.

[hellraisingdevil]

well i am happy to say that i have been able to successfully install
Android to my laptop with the link that kinneko provided (thank you
very much), however, when the installation asked me to install a grub
for it, i selected no. should i have selected yes?

[FANUM]

Unetbootin sometimes does weird things when it translates the boot
menu. I would try using dd (if its an .img file and not an iso) or
win32diskimager if your on windows. Also if your on ubuntu there is a
"startup disk creator" that may work under "System -> Administration"

[hellraisingdevil]

i am using kubuntu, i will try that. thank you. and it is and iso.