Hard disk error [duplicate]
I got this error during installation.
The installer encountered an error copying files to the hard disk: [Errno 5] Input/output error This is often due to a faulty CD/DVD disk or drive, or a faulty hard disk. It may help to clean the CD/DVD, to burn the CD/DVD at a lower speed, to clean the CD/DVD drive lens (cleaning kits are often available from electronics suppliers), to check whether the hard disk is old and in need of replacement, or to move the system to a cooler environment.
How can I fix this and what does it mean specifically? I'm installing via USB so it can't be the CD. the laptop is recent so it cant be an old HD.
Either the cd or your hard disk is bad. You can check the CD with the "Check disc for defects" option when you boot it up. You can check your hard disk by opening Administration->Disk Utility and checking the SMART attributes. Look for non zero values for reallocated, pending, and offline_uncorrectable sectors. Then you might want to run the long self test.
This problem drove me crazy for 2 weeks on and off. I have finally found out what the problem is and I registered just to share my conclusion to help others because this is a very misleading error to a lot of us.
I have 2 laptops and I tried to install BackTrack, BackBox, Ubuntu, etc.. all failed on one laptop and I couldn't understand why, I was installing from a live USB and it was still complaining about the CD/DVD error!! what the hell, it does not make any sense.
I opened up my laptop, I completely removed the CD/DVD and tried again and it still failed. I opened up my laptop hoping my final resolution was to just remove a 2GB ram but to my luck, the laptop had just one 4GB RAM stick, so that trick would not work.
I came to the wrong conclusion that others came to as well and that is perhaps the linux OS is just not compatible with all hardware out there and in my mind I started to blame developers even though I am one.
Why this problem is a misleading one? Because:
You can go into your bios and detect that you have the correct size of ram (4GB) and also boot windows 7/8 and use it just fine, no problems at all, so why should Linux complain !, also in my case this was a brand new laptop as well.!!
There is a large number of us users that are actually experiencing this problem, so this could lead to the understanding that it is actually the OS and not our hardware. However, until you restart your machine and go into “Diagnostics” you won’t know that there is actually a problem with your ram, Its much quicker than using memtest to detect if there is indeed an issue.
This leads me to believe that linux is actually so good that it does a proper test of the CRC of your ram as it tries to install itself and will fail if there is something wrong with the ram, a bit harsh though.
Having said that, linux developers still need to change the error message to help the users understand clearly that there is a ram issue as oppose to a missleading "CD / DVD error" but also there should still be a way to bypass the error and continue the installation of the OS because we know that windows can operate just fine on the faulty ram.
I replaced the faulty RAM and it worked just fine. I really hope this helps people to cut to the chase.
When people are suggesting to remove 1 ram and got it to work, they most definatly removed the faulty ram, its not because it was a trick to remove one and keep the other to fool the OS.
Thanks
How I fix this error in a simple way: after opening the Ubuntu CD / DVD install menu, start Ubuntu as Test / Trial, without installing on harddisk. When the O.S. is ready to use, just install the Ubuntu from the icon / shortcut in the menu sidebar or desktop itself.
Hope it works for you!
I had the same problem and same error message and trouble-shooted for two days. I installed using a thumbdrive on a an old DIY system running C2D E6420 on a Asus P5Q SE/R motherboard with my SATA running in IDE mode.
At first I thought it was my drive, changed it, no luck. Changed my startup disk creator from Rufus to Pendrivelinux. Changed 14.04 LTS to 15.10. But the error message kept coming back. Then I read the post above by Will Smith and changed my 2 x 2 GB DDR3 667 to a single 2 GB DDR2 800 and it finally installed all the way without any hiccups.
I just had the same problem today. I had inadvertently interrupted an install on my netbook, and it was neither installing nor booting into the OS. I tried using multiple USB drives and multiple *buntu distros to try to circumvent things, which didn't work. I was using the USB installer from pendrivelinux.com, which I've used before and had success with. To be thorough in my troubleshooting, I downloaded the USB installer on another computer, and it still didn't help. Eventually, I tried a Windows USB installer to put a copy of Win7 on, which worked (strangely). I then immediately overwrote Windows with MeeGo, which I'm currently noodling around with. Roundabout, I know, and I still don't know WHY it worked, but there you go.