Trouble installing 2012

[Orb]

I'm trying to install the 2012 ISO onto a spare partition of a hard drive from a thumb drive. I'm using Unetbootin. The thumb drive is formatted fat32 and is bootable, and I've tried 3 of them a 2gb,4gb,and a 16gb with the first partition formatted 4 gb. I've also tried formatting them to fat16. I've downloaded the full 2012 iso 3 times and the md5 checks out each time. I've also downloaded minime iso and md5 checks. I've tried live and install from desktop, I've also tried to hard drive install from the boot menu. It always goes through the install to the grub install stage, then says this may take a few minutes. Then there is nothing but a grey screen. It's hung there and never finishes. I've rebooted after waiting an hour and it boots to the new grub menu. If I select 2012 from the grub menu, the command line hangs at initrd.img
Anyone have an idea of what I might try?
Any help is appreciated because I'm stumped.
Orb

[Vorteggs]

Hey Orb!

It is not very clear for me what you describe about your partitions - size and order.

You can do fdisk - l command in Terminal with root privileges and post the output there.

Like this:
Menu-->More Applications-->Terminals-->(chose)

Terminal output:

[Vortex@localhost ~]$ su
Password:
[root@localhost Forteks]# fdisk -l

Disk /dev/sda: 320.1 GB, 320071851520 bytes
255 heads, 63 sectors/track, 38913 cylinders, total 625140335 sectors
Units = sectors of 1 * 512 = 512 bytes
Sector size (logical/physical): 512 bytes / 512 bytes
I/O size (minimum/optimal): 512 bytes / 512 bytes
Disk identifier: 0x177927fa

   Device Boot      Start         End      Blocks   Id  System
/dev/sda1   *          63    82991789    41495863+  83  Linux
/dev/sda2        83007855   625137344   271064745    5  Extended
/dev/sda5        83007918    86911649     1951866   82  Linux swap / Solaris
/dev/sda6        86911713   149982839    31535563+  83  Linux
/dev/sda7       149982903   625137344   237577221   83  Linux

Disk /dev/sdb: 500.1 GB, 500106780160 bytes
255 heads, 63 sectors/track, 60801 cylinders, total 976771055 sectors
Units = sectors of 1 * 512 = 512 bytes
Sector size (logical/physical): 512 bytes / 512 bytes
I/O size (minimum/optimal): 512 bytes / 512 bytes
Disk identifier: 0xeb614b81

   Device Boot      Start         End      Blocks   Id  System
/dev/sdb1   *          63    43006004    21502971    7  HPFS/NTFS
/dev/sdb2        43006005   976768064   466881030    5  Extended
/dev/sdb5        43006068   976768064   466880998+  83  Linux

Disk /dev/sdc: 2000.4 GB, 2000397852160 bytes
255 heads, 63 sectors/track, 243201 cylinders, total 3907027055 sectors
Units = sectors of 1 * 512 = 512 bytes
Sector size (logical/physical): 512 bytes / 4096 bytes
I/O size (minimum/optimal): 4096 bytes / 4096 bytes
Disk identifier: 0x00044276

   Device Boot      Start         End      Blocks   Id  System
/dev/sdc1            2048  3804626943  1902312448    5  Extended
/dev/sdc2      3804628992  3907024895    51197952   83  Linux
/dev/sdc5            4096  3804624895  1902310400   83  Linux
[root@localhost Vortegs]# exit
exit
[vorteggs@localhost ~]$

[Phil]

I swear by unetbootin to run a live distribution. Get image, check md5, in PCLOS fire up unetbootin, select the iso, point it at wherever the usb device is, say obliterate the usb and install, job done. Then its changing the bios boot option to use a usb drive, and away it goes.

Once the live distribution has fired up then it is a typical install.

I like to keep things simple, one image per usb drive, one distribution per machine (and rest on virtualbox if I want to play)

If a particular machine is giving grief then test the usb live device on another machine.

Alternative to use a live disk.

[sling-shot]

Do you have an existing PCLinuxOS installation anywhere else? Then you first format your flash drive as ext3 or ext4, then use PCLinuxOS Live USB Creator to do the job.

If you have a Windows installation, please use SUSE Image Writer downloaded from OpenSUSE and use it to transfer the image to flash disk.

The PCLinuxOS Live USB Creator is the most reliable.

[Just17]

It always goes through the install to the grub install stage, then says this may take a few minutes. Then there is nothing but a grey screen. It's hung there and never finishes. I've rebooted after waiting an hour and it boots to the new grub menu.

This indicates that the install of the OS has completed to the point of creating the initrd, which is created at the end of the install - during the time the Grub indication window is present.

I recall a few posts with this situation and a solution was found .....  but unfortunately cannot recall what the solution was 

I feel sure a search of the forum will throw up a few posts on the subject.

guessing .....  chroot into the new install and create a new initrd file  .......

[Orb]

I finally got it installed. It took several more tries of using Unetbootin. I finally got it to finish with grub and the install completed. Thanks for all of your help.
Orb