Ubuntu Installation - preseed / partman not partitioning disk

[gr8rcake]

Issue: Preseeding appears to work up until the partitioning of the disk /dev/sda. At his point I get a "no root partition is defined" message.


If the:

d-i partman/choose_partition select finish
d-i partman/confirm boolean true

lines are commented out, the screen displays any existing partitions on the disk and doesn't present a "next" button.


It appears as if the installer is reading the disk, but not writing the new partition table to the disk.


I have tried this in both LVM and regular modes. It doesn't appear to be due to the partitioning scheme, as I have tried dozens of different ones from web.


I have replaced the entire partition section with web examples, with the same results.


If I wipe out the partition table beforehand with:

# dd if=/dev/zero of=/dev/sda count-1 bs=512

I get the same symptoms, except in the case where the above partman statements are commented out, a blank display of partitions is presented.


The partition tables definitely don't get written. The original OS can always boot after the preseed failures.


Fedora kickstart works perfectly on the system. I have also successfully used ntfsclone on the system to install windows using a livecd.


Realising this is a fake RAID system, I have tried the dmraid options in grub and preseed file with no change in the symptoms.


---------------


My grub boot options are

priority=critical preseed/url=http://server/seedfile.seed  interface=auto netcfg/dhcp_timeout=60 auto=true ip=dhcp

System Info

OS: Ubuntu 11.10
HW: Acer AM3410 desktop PC (Fake RAID)

I am getting the initrd and linux files from this directory of the installation CD

/install/netboot/ubuntu-installer/i386/

I am using this ISO as the source CD for the initrd and linux kernel files

ubuntu-11.10-server-i386.iso

The preseed file looks like this:

d-i debian-installer/locale string en_USd-i console-setup/ask_detect boolean false
d-i console-setup/layoutcode string us
d-i netcfg/choose_interface select eth0
d-i netcfg/disable_dhcp boolean true
d-i netcfg/get_nameservers string 192.168.1.254
d-i netcfg/get_ipaddress string 192.168.1.150
d-i netcfg/get_netmask string 255.255.255.0
d-i netcfg/get_gateway string 192.168.1.254
d-i netcfg/confirm_static boolean true
d-i netcfg/get_hostname string unassigned-hostname
d-i netcfg/get_domain string unassigned-domain
d-i netcfg/wireless_wep string
d-i mirror/country string manual
d-i mirror/http/hostname string archive.ubuntu.com
d-i mirror/http/directory string /ubuntu
d-i mirror/http/proxy string
d-i clock-setup/utc boolean true
d-i time/zone string US/Pacific
d-i clock-setup/ntp boolean true
d-i clock-setup/ntp-server string 0.pool.ntp.org
d-i partman-auto/disk string /dev/sda
d-i partman-auto/method string regular
d-i partman-lvm/device_remove_lvm boolean true
d-i partman-md/device_remove_md boolean true
d-i partman-lvm/confirm boolean true
d-i partman-auto/purge_lvm_from_device boolean true
d-i partman-lvm/confirm_nooverwrite boolean true
d-i partman-auto-lvm/guided_size string max
d-i partman-auto/choose_recipe select boot-root
d-i partman-lvm/device_remove_lvm boolean true
d-i partman-auto/purge_lvm_from_device boolean true
d-i partman-auto-lvm/new_vg_name string vg00
d-i partman-auto-lvm/new_vg_name_exists string
d-i partman-lvm/vgcreate string vg00
d-i partman-auto/expert_recipe string                         \
      boot-root ::                                            \
              4096 4096 4096 ext4                             \
                      $primary{ } $bootable{ }                \
                      method{ format } format{ }              \
                      use_filesystem{ } filesystem{ ext4 }    \
                      mountpoint{ /boot }                     \
              .                                               \
              100 1000 100000000 ext4                         \
                      $defaultignore{ }                       \
                      $primary{ }                             \
                      method{ lvm }                           \
                      device{ /dev/sda }                      \
                      vg_name{ vg00 }                         \
              .                                               \
              4096 2 100000000 ext4                           \
                      method{ format } format{ } $lvmok{ }    \
                      in_vg{ vg00 }                           \
                      lv_name{ vg00-lv01 }                    \
                      use_filesystem{ } filesystem{ ext4 }    \
                      mountpoint{ / }                         \
              .                                               \
              4096 4096 300% linux-swap                       \
                      method{ swap } format{ }                \
              .
d-i partman/default_filesystem string ext4
d-i partman-partitioning/confirm_write_new_label boolean true
d-i partman/choose_partition select finish
d-i partman/confirm boolean true
d-i partman/confirm_nooverwrite boolean true
d-i passwd/root-login boolean true
d-i passwd/make-user boolean false
d-i passwd/root-password password r00tme
d-i passwd/root-password-again password r00tme
d-i user-setup/encrypt-home boolean false
tasksel tasksel/first multiselect lamp-server, print-server
d-i pkgsel/include string openssh-server build-essential
d-i pkgsel/updatedb boolean true
d-i grub-installer/only_debian boolean true
d-i grub-installer/with_other_os boolean true
d-i finish-install/reboot_in_progress note

Any assistance would be very welcome. I've been banging my head against the wall for a week. Ouch!