Partitioner problem - Scanning disks - 50% and hanging

[futurehawk]

Hi,

I've tried the install without any HDD partitions, with one partition and swap, with many partitions.. no success. As in the title - when scanning the HDD during installation, the partitioner stops at 50% and hangs forever.

I'm on Acer Aspire 5315, trying to use my old laptop for Kali installation. Thanks for any help.

[amorandi]

Try changing in your BIOS the HDD access mode from AHCI to IDE and disable SMART. The Debian kernel packed with Kali supports AHCI, but I've experienced some errors when that mode is selected using some types of old hardware. If it works, sometimes changing it back to AHCI after the install should give you a better performance.

[charonsecurity]

Hi. I believe you may need to run a check on the hard drive for possible errors. From the Live Environment, in a terminal you can try:
fsck -f /dev/sdaX -Where X is your disk number that you are scanning. To determine I believe the right command is "fdisk -l"

Alternatively, if you have a Windows Boot DVD you can also run chkdsk from a command prompt for ex: "chkdsk C: /r"
Let us know

[futurehawk]

There might be some problems with my HDD I believe, but after some googling (debian mailing lists) like here and reading about USB keyboard problems during the installation on this forum I decided to do it the old way. I burned the ISO to a DVD and it went through ok and I'm a happy kali user now! The installer has problems when the USB stick (or any other devices i guess) are connected when installing (partman bug?).

Thank you for your suggestions charonsecurity, I will take care of the disk later For now, and for all the people that will come across the 50% problem, just burn the ISO onto DVD and install from there.

Case closed and solved for me.

[maverik35]

Try changing in your BIOS the HDD access mode from AHCI to IDE and disable SMART. The Debian kernel packed with Kali supports AHCI, but I've experienced some errors when that mode is selected using some types of old hardware. If it works, sometimes changing it back to AHCI after the install should give you a better performance.

I would strongly suggest read more on Debian, not distros based on Debian. Debian is handling SATA drives without any hasseles since debian Etch (Ver 4.0 released in 2007)...If your OS does not support AHCI (SATA) then you can switch to IDE in Bios. But Again, Debian handles since Etch with kernel 2.6.x.

Luck.