Step failed: Installing the system or Installing step failed : Install the system at 80% or The failing step is install the system error on Kali Linux

When I tried to install Kali Linux 1.0.6 today, I got an error. I didn’t really knew exactly at what percentile it failed, but the error message was “Installing step failed” and I could either take a screenshot or Continue from there. Very annoying. I saw many people who had the same issue in Kali forums and I tried one step at a time. This error message varies for different people to different version of Kali Linux. You might be getting any of these errors

  1. Step failed: Installing the system in Kali Linux or
  2. Installing step failed : Install the system at failed at 80% or any any random percent in Kali Linux or
  3. The failing step is install the system error in Kali Linux

Error Message - 1 - Installation Step failed in Kali Linux - blackMORE Ops

Following are my troubleshooting steps and the summary of all the solution proposed by different people in different forums, blogs etc. I take no credit for the information’s provided except being the keyboard jockey who likes to write stuffs and LOVE Kali Linux. Kudos to all the people who tried to provide solution and managed to work past it. So here goes:

 

Step 1. Download Official Kali Linux Images:

Pretty much explains itself. You should download Kali Linux from it’s official website. Everyone knows where you can get these images, but I’ll list them here for conveniences:

ISO Files

Kali Linux is available as a bootable ISO in both 32 and 64-bit formats.

VMware Images

Kali is available as a pre-made VMware virtual machine with VMware Tools installed. The VMware image is available in a 32-bit PAE format.

ARM Images

Due to the nature of the ARM architecture, it is not possible to have a single image that will work across all ARM devices. Kali Linux website has Kali Linux ARM images available for the following devices:

  • rk3306 mk/ss808
  • Raspberry Pi
  • ODROID-U2/X2
  • MK802/MK802 II
  • Samsung Chromebook

Personally, I found by downloading from TORRENT is much better, faster, you get SHA1 checksum file with your download and TORRENT does check file integrity better than most download clients. Then again, it is up to you on what method you want to choose.

 

Step 2. Verifying SHA1 Checksums of Downloaded Images:

When you download an image, be sure to download the SHA1SUMS and SHA1SUMS.gpg files that are next to the downloaded image (i.e. in the same directory on the server).

 

Step 2.a Ensure the Origin of the SHA1SUMS File

Before verifying the checksums of the image, you must ensure that the SHA1SUMS file is the one generated by Kali. That’s why the file is signed by Kali’s official key with a detached signature in SHA1SUMS.gpg. Kali’s official key can be downloaded in one of two ways:

$ wget -q -O - http://archive.kali.org/archive-key.asc | gpg --import

or

$ gpg --keyserver subkeys.pgp.net --recv-key 44C6513A8E4FB3D30875F758ED444FF07D8D0BF6

Once you have downloaded both SHA1SUMS and SHA1SUMS.gpg, you can verify the signature as follows:

$ gpg --verify SHA1SUMS.gpg SHA1SUMS
gpg: Signature made Thu Mar 7 21:26:40 2013 CET using RSA key ID 7D8D0BF6
gpg: Good signature from "Kali Linux Repository <devel@kali.org>"

 

If you don’t get that “Good signature” message or if the key ID doesn’t match, then you should stop the process and review whether you downloaded the images from a legitimate Kali mirror. If the SHA1SUMS file is the one provided by Kali, then you can verify that the image downloaded has the required checksum. You can either generate the checksum and do a manual comparison with what’s listed in SHA1SUMS or use a tool that knows how to verify those checksums.

TODO: explain how to use GPG on OS X and Windows. See How to verify signatures for packages for detailed explanation.

 

Step 2.b Verifying SHA1 Checksums on Linux

With a manual comparison:

$ sha1sum kali-linux-1.0-i386.iso
796e32f51d1bf51e838499c326c71a1c952cc052 kali-linux-1.0-i386.iso
$ grep kali-linux-1.0-i386.iso SHA1SUMS
796e32f51d1bf51e838499c326c71a1c952cc052 kali-linux-1.0-i386.iso

By using sha1sum -c:

grep kali-linux-1.0-i386.iso SHA1SUMS | sha1sum -c
kali-linux-1.0-i386.iso: OK

 

Step 2.c Verifying SHA1 Checksums on OSX

With a manual comparison:

$ shasum kali-linux-1.0-i386.iso
796e32f51d1bf51e838499c326c71a1c952cc052 kali-linux-1.0-i386.iso
$ grep kali-linux-1.0-i386.iso SHA1SUMS
796e32f51d1bf51e838499c326c71a1c952cc052 kali-linux-1.0-i386.iso

 

Step 2.d Verifying SHA1 Checksums on Windows

Windows does not have the native ability to calculate SHA1 checksums so you will need a utility such as

  1. Microsoft File Checksum Integrity Verifier or
  2. Hashtab

to verify your download. [SOURCE: Download Official Kali Images]

 

Step 3: Troubleshooting installation errors: Installation step failed

Up to this point, we only ensured the followings:

  1. We downloaded the correct image
  2. We downloaded from Official website
  3. We verified SHA1 checksum of the downloaded image.
  4. There’s no disk fault or bad sector in your hard-disk.

I’ll leave it to you on how to check for bad sector (hint: Windows Defragment/DiskCheck is quite good)

If if the above 4 points didn’t match, go back, rectify and come back to Step 3 here. Moving on..

Assuming you managed to meet all those 4 requirements and failed in installing Kali Linux with any of the following errors:

  1. Step failed: Installing the system in Kali Linux or
  2. Installing step failed : Install the system at failed at 80% or any any random percent in Kali Linux or
  3. The failing step is install the system error in Kali Linux

we can proceed to troubleshooting and try different workarounds.

 

Troubleshooting step 3.a: Burn a DVD with the ISO at slowest speed

If you’re using a DVD such as me, (I burn DVD cause in that way I can label them and keep them in stack for comparison), then burn it at the slowest possible speed. Personally, this didn’t matter to me cause I burned them at highest possible speed and even left out the verify option.

However, when I burn the DVD in Windows 7; I turned off my Antivirus/Firewall (put them in Allow/Game mode) to avoid write error. Some Anti Virus software’s are notorious for causing write errors.

Troubleshooting step 3.b: Kali Linux Live USB Install

If you’re using a Live USB, just read this manual. I cannot stress enough why you should read and follow official documentation at the first place, rather than coming to my website and reading it off here…

Official Instructions on Kali Linux Live USB Install

In short, stick with official instructions and if you go and cry on Kali Forum, RTFM is the only answer you’ll get. (even though I know for sure other methods works from time to time).

 

Troubleshooting step 3.c: Increase allocated disk space

First of all, check how much disk space you allocated for Kali installation. I usually allocate 40GB including SWAP space. At the end of my partitioning, I get 36.3GB for my root / partition and 2.1 GB for my SWAP partition. Looking around, it seems the lowest you should allocate is 10GB. As a safer option, allocate at least 20GB including swap space and allow automatic partitioning to divide them up.

You could also try to allocate disk space manually as shown in this excellent post by kpoeticg in this post How To Create Seperate Root,Home,Usr,Var,Tmp Partitions in “Graphical Installation”. 

Again, your call and I cannot say which one will work best for you.

 

Troubleshooting step 3.d: Graphical Install – Delete and repartition free space

This one worked for me. I pre-partitioned my disk giving 36GB to Kali root / and 2 GB for SWAP Space. I received an error during Kali Linux install “Installation Step failed”. I went back, deleted both Kali root / partition and SWAP partition, thus creating a 40GB free space.

I then allowed Kali Linux to automatically partition that free space and next time installation worked just fine. Not too sure why this would happen, but this little workaround worked just fine for me.

 

Disk Partitioning - 3 - Installation Step failed in Kali Linux - blackMORE Ops

 

Troubleshooting step 3.e: Do you have too many partitions?

Apparently, this is another reason you get installation failed errors in Kali Linux. If you have too many partitions (counting primary and extended together .. more than 4 partitions in a single Disk), for some reason you get this error message. maverik35 provided an excellent explanation on what worked for him here:

I do not understand well, what did you use to partition HDD?..

I installed kali using: /, /home, swap (2 partitions and swap) and all in extended partition..I partitioned the HDD using as always, gparted, then reboot with kali dvd live and used, as always, install option (NOT Graphical install) and installed manually, then (not guided), configuring mounting points: /home and /, write changes and then installation ends up fine…Make sure you have identified the partitions.

Try with / and /home..The /var is one of the most increasing folders in Debian, but it will do no harm keeping it in the same partiton and making some maintenance such as erasing some files like in /var/log/. As to the /tmp, it gets erased every time you boot..

But again, is your decision, but try with 2 partitions and swap. Let’s see what happens.

That worked and you can see the confirmation reply in the forum post. Something you could also try? Maybe!!

 

Troubleshooting step 3.f: is your USB selected as primary during partitioning?

This is again I found useful from the forum post. See fogfreak‘s response and workaround:

I was trying to install Kali 1.0.5 i386 32bit. After several failed attamp i have managed to install. When I reach Disk Pertitioning step in intalletion procedure I saw my usd stick (/dev/sdb) as primery pertition. I just select that choose “Do not use this device”.
Then kali installed smoothly.

Some older system doesnt supports more then 4 primery pertitions at a time including swap. I found 1 primery and 1 swap on my usb live Kali installetion disk. I select “Do not use this device” for both. Its work for me.

Troubleshooting step 3.g: Install using Non-Graphical or Text-mode option from boot menu

This is another option. Every single installation failed error relates to Graphical installation method, from either Live USB or DVD. Kali does provide an option for non-graphical installation. You could try that to install Kali Linux.

 

Install Choices - 2 - Installation Step failed in Kali Linux - blackMORE Ops

 

Troubleshooting step 3.h: Run Kali in LiveCD mode and install from there

You can run Kali Linux as LiveCD mode. Once you’re in Live mode, install from there.

 

Troubleshooting step 3.i: Install from MiniISO instead of full ISO

This always works as MiniISO is just megabytes in size. You can download MiniISO and boot using that. Once booted, just install what you prefer. I am yet to see anyone who failed with this step.

 

MiniISO Choices - 4 - Installation Step failed in Kali Linux - blackMORE Ops

 

Official Kali Linux Mini ISO Install guide

 

Troubleshooting step 3.j: Un-plug peripherals and network

This is the last one I can think of. You might have something plugged in, USB Keyboard, Mouse, WebCAM, External HDD, PnP devices, an elephant, Master Yoda, Chuck Norris and god knows what!! Well if it was Chuck Norris, go get yourself a new computer.

Anyhow, jokes aside, … try unplugging something that you think might not be supported. Unplug your network.

 

Conclusion:

Kali Linux is still crawling out of infancy, so you need to give the developers some time and space to work through the problems. If you think step failed: Installing the system or Installing step failed : Install the system at 80% or The failing step is install the system error in Kali Linux is dreadful, you should try to use Minix or one of the old Linux distributions. People had smoke coming out of their motherboard, so consider yourself lucky. Be patient and good luck installing Kali Linux.

I hope at least one troubleshooting step might work out for you. At least they worked for me. I am putting all those random information in different posts in one place. Let me know if you know another workaround and I’ll be happy to include that in here.

Thanks for reading.Please share.

 

 

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39 comments

  1. I got the same problem, I didn’t solved the problem yet and I feel very fustrated, after burning the image on a DVD at maximum speed I had tried to install it on 3 different computers,and I got my feelings hurted three times. I’m going to burn it at a slow speed, maybe that work as you said…

  2. I have same issue in virtualbox and solved by following Troubleshooting step 3.e by creating only root, swap and home partition.
    thanks for sharing.

  3. Hi, I’ve tried and tried to install Kali on my Intel Toshiba Portege R835 but to no avail. I keep getting a blank screen with a blinking loading cursor when i choose Live amd64 or any other option. I have verified the ISO’s sha1 and had used the same ISO for installation in Virtualbox and it was flawless and still works, but i have tried countless times to do a hdd install and i keep running into a wall of black and deceptive cursor, i have 4 dvd’s on my desk now with the kali image all hitting the same wall, i eventually wrote the iso on a usb using the win32diskimager and guess what….upon choosing one of the options to boot i hit the same wall plus the blinking cursor, i;ve searched far and wide in the cyberworld but all solutions come to naught….can anyone help me out

  4. I followed your guide but my install got stuck at about 45% with the following error: “installation step failed”. I increased the hard drive space from 15Gb to 40Gb and it worked perfectly :)

  5. I had the same problem “Step failed: Installing the system or Installing step failed : Install the system”. I was installing 1.06 x64 and I didn’t look at the debug logs (which may have been useful) but would guess that partitioning was the issue. I told the installer to encrypt and make separate partitions for /var /root/ /home etc. That failed so I tried again without setting encryption and that still failed. So I left encryption off and had the installer just use one partition for all directories (for beginners :) ). This time the installation completed.

  6. Hi buddies, i also tried to install Kali 1.0.9 x64 and i386, the both failed. I have iso files and want to install on w7 host with vmware ws10. Always the same error : install step failed after several minutes.
    I also try to reallocate space disk, remove network support, graphical install, non-graphical install. Always the same fu**ing error.

  7. I had the same issue. VMware Player v7 on Windows 7, installing from ISO. After several attempts is seems that the disk size and partitioning are the issues I had with the install. Solution for me was: A 32.2G (30G) disk with just 8GB swap and the rest as /.

  8. indeed this is a total useless post, am running virtualbox latest version and am using the .iso directly, with checksum verified, it was a HDD size isse

    • if it HDD issue so what is the solution of that??

      • What kind of HDD issue? Bad sector or damaged partition table? fsck might help.

        • Im new in linux. After several attempt, Today i fond a solution for KALI LINUX 2016 system installation failure. Its bcz of the partItion SIZE of the /. . i tried several ways to install kali into my 16 gb usb 3.0 pen drive. I have 2 solutions for this.
          1: u can only use entire 16 gb and dont make any partition manually. It will work ( all files in one partition. means install kali as a new users).
          2: make 10 gb for /. Primary root partition. (Bcz,If u use ‘automatically allocate the partitions’,is only create just 3.9 gb size for /. .its not enough for installing /USR files into this)..
          Then u can create SWAP file partition.(1 gb is enough if u have a good amount of RAM. I have 6 gb ram so its ok)..
          And the rest of the free space for HOME.
          THATS IT….

          I just used three partitions for this ( /.[10GB], swap[1GB], home[4GB]) it works for ME..

          NOTE : also u can create many partitions for different purpose. but must allocate the partition size is 10 gb or more for /USR.. or /. ….
          Hope this help..

          • Installation step failed:
            Troubleshooting step 3.c: Increase allocated disk space

            I had the same problem for Kali 2016v1 I increased the diskspace to 40 gb as suggested but let the system choose the allocations for my partitions

  9. I have INSTALL ERROR durning Instal the System. The solution was fixed by change class SD card (or good and FAST! pendrive on USB stick). Apparently the speed of copying files is important to KALI linux.
    Partiton 26 GB + swap ~6 GB.
    Pozdro

  10. My installation of Kali was failing in VirtualBox. Increasing the size of the available disk space to 20GB allowed the installation to continue successfully.

  11. I’m having this issue too for Kali Linux 2016.1 version. Trying to install Mini, but I’m there as well not with this issue but another one.

    How can I install Mini in UEFI mode?

    For normal ISO’s I used this: https://forums.kali.org/showthread.php?271-How-to-EFI-install-Kali-Linux

    Since the folder structure is different for Mini ISO, how can I install Mini in UEFI Mode?

  12. hows it going. im having issues with installing kali rolling (amd64) to a 4tb hdd. ive tried usbs and cdroms with both full and light isos being flashed/burned at varying speeds (currently only have light and full iso on CD+R’s burned at slowest possible speeds). with the my latest cd i was able to install it alone on a former macbook pro’s 500gb HDD with no issues. However when run the installer on my Overkill Custom Gaming Rig it hangs at the final step “Gathering info for report” or something like that. ill list my hardware for that at the end but idk wtf to do. i previous had kali 1.0.8 (or .7 something around there) installed on that exact hard disk with no issues. I have a brand new clean install of Windows 10 on a seperate SSD but ive also tried it by removing all OS’s having all my disks empty by formating them slowly. I get that xorg error at the start of the install however the gui continues on tty5 and doesnt seem to have any effect (repair fbdev) and on tty4 i get a literal never ending script trying to find usb devices. only things i havent tried is a network install a mini iso install and installing while in live mode (never see the button in the menu again idk y) help me asap.

    My Build full specs:
    [2nd Hard Drive] 250GB Samsung 840 Evo SSD (Read 540MB/s – Write 520MB/s (SSD1 – SATA III))
    [1st Hard Drive] 1TB 7200RPM (SATA III – 6GB/s)
    2x[Graphics Card – Dual] Dual-SLI – NVIDIA® GeForce GTX 780Ti (3GB) GDDR5 (Includes PhysX) SuperClocked EVGA Edition w/ ACX Cooling
    [Optical Drive – Bay 1] 15x Pioneer Blu-Ray & DVD Reader/Writer
    [Processor] Intel® Core i7 4960X Extreme Edition (3.60-4.00GHz) (15MB cache) (Six-Core CPU) –
    [Motherboard] ASUS RAMPAGE IV Black Edition X79 (Intel X79 Chipset) (Extended ATX Form Factor, 8 DIMMS, 4 PCI Expansion Slots) [Extreme OC High Performance]
    [Power Supply] 1200W Corsair Pro Platinum w/ Corsair Link Power Supply Unit (Dual/Triple/Quad SLI Compatible)
    [Optical Drive – Bay 2] No 2nd Optical Drive
    [Memory] 64GB DDR3 2133MHz (8GBx8 DIMMS) Corsair Vengence

  13. Are you serious about people having smoke coming out of their motherboard?

    Because if you are, I need to know what my risks are. Got examples of people with fried hardware after installing kali on virtualbox?

  14. After Installation Complete kali will not start the blank screen appear what shoud i do
    I have installed kali 2.0 no errors where found

  15. Hi everyone, how can i fix this?
    openvas-scapdata-sync. you must know that the port 873 is open & there is no rule for refusing the session in firewall
    [i] This script synchronizes a SCAP data directory with the OpenVAS one.
    [i] This script is for the SQLite3 backend.
    [i] SCAP dir: /var/lib/openvas/scap-data
    [i] Will use rsync
    [i] Using rsync: /usr/bin/rsync
    [i] Configured SCAP data rsync feed: rsync://feed.openvas.org:/scap-data
    rsync: failed to connect to feed.openvas.org (89.146.224.58): Connection refused (111)
    rsync: failed to connect to feed.openvas.org (2a01:130:2000:127::d1): Network is unreachable (101)
    rsync error: error in socket IO (code 10) at clientserver.c(128) [Receiver=3.1.1]
    [e] Error: rsync failed. Your SCAP data might be broken now.

  16. Hello i am having trouble on installing kali linux 2016.2 on a windows 10 host Virtualbox. (8 GB ram i5)
    I have installed guest editions and followed your guide.
    The iso i have is legit. I verified the sums also i had another one which didnt work so i downloaded the new one because i thought that maybe the file was broken ( i dunno uh. ).
    so basically everytime the installation fails at about 60-80%.
    Thanks a lot in advance! keep doing what you are doing :)

  17. Ok im sorry for this comment but what s that bit with the code in the black box cause it really cofuz me and i dont know hwta im doin. if i could get a reply that would be great! :)

  18. I’ve been Having some trouble installing the linux:amd64 version

    i Tried Debain, Ubuntu, Mint, Kali, to install it on a secondary partition[to dual boot]

    But every time I get to network configuration, It gives me an error message that says

    Key exchange failure check the wpa/wpa2 parameters you provided.

    Im not sure why im getting this error the password i provided is correct, and when i tried installing it in a VM
    it had no problem with network configuration.

    Ive had no problems with this before, but it doesn’t seem to make any since to me. I could be standing a foot from the router and it will still give me the same error.

    whats going on here?? PLEASE HELP

  19. I had the same problem “Step failed: Installing the system or Installing step failed : Install the system”. I was run before kali on same pc. But some how it corrupted and now I can’t install it again, what can I do with it. I’m using pen drive for setup

  20. Increased disk and worked like a charm, thanks for posting.

  21. always downloading error of kali linux from websites

  22. While partitioning do not forget to format the partition. Or it installs the system on unclean partition and the error ocurs

  23. I am having the same problem with installing debian-live-9.0.1-amd64-xfce.iso with the correct md5sum. I have NO PROBLEM with the same generous 300GB partition sizes installing debian-live-8.8.0-amd64-xfce-desktop.iso. I went back and forth between the two images 3-times (6-installs) on the same computer using the same iso images, so it does not seem to be a hardware problem.

    I also tried using Unetbootin and Li Li USB Creator to be sure the thumb drive Live install USB stick was ok. In the process of doing that, I found that the “Live” install worked without error and runs fine. In Debian 9.0.1 the install option from the running Live install has been removed, and moved to the boot option on the USB stick which seems to work well until the error occurs during install of the system. Hope these clues for non Kali Linux help.

  24. I am having AB350 Gaming 3 Gigabyte motherboard, Ryzen 1600 CPU and when trying to install Kali the installation step fails. Is it a hardware issue ? or how can I fix this problem ?

  25. Yes, same issue here.

    I was installing in Oracle virtualBox with 12 GB of memory.
    Then I had to delete it an reinitiate the process with more memory allocated to the virtualBox 22GB.
    It worked for me.

    If the issue persists after allocating more memory, may be it is the compatibility issue of version or 32/64bit etc….

  26. hello sir iam sagar khndey iam from bilaspur chhatisagahar i have install kali linex but istell problam disk boot start
    but disk formet partiction create done yes next step disk not load in pc give retry erli plesa help me

  27. I was allocating 10 GB, and got the error Install Failed.
    So I increased the HD size to 24 GB, and install went off smoothly on VirtualBox.
    Thanks for the detailed guidance on resolving install issues.

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