Installer fails with "vgcreate failed with status 5 (Input/output error)" on clean SSD

[mdfahadfarazi-dev]

The installer consistently fails during installation with the following error:

vgcreate failed with status: 5 (Input/output error)

I have attached photos of the error message.

Environment

• elementary OS version: 8.1.1 Circe
• Installation media created using: Balena Etcher
• Installation mode: Clean installation
• Storage: 120 GB WD SATA SSD

Steps to Reproduce

1. Boot from the elementary OS 8.1.1 USB installer.
2. Start the installer.
3. Choose to install on the internal SSD.
4. Wait for the installation process.

Expected Behavior
The installation should complete successfully.

Actual Behavior
The installer stops and displays:

• vgcreate failed with status: 5
• Input/output error (OS error 5)

Troubleshooting Performed

Before opening this issue, I verified the following:

• Recreated the USB installer.
• Used the same USB drive successfully on another computer.
• SSD SMART status is healthy (smartctl reports PASSED).
• Successfully wrote directly to the SSD using dd.
• Removed all existing partitions and LVM metadata (wipefs).
• Verified no remaining active volume groups.
• Checked dmesg; no disk or USB I/O errors were reported.

Additional Information

To rule out hardware problems, I installed Debian on the same computer using:

• the same SSD
• the same USB drive
• the same BIOS settings

Debian installed successfully without any errors.

This suggests the hardware is functioning correctly, and the issue may be specific to the elementary OS installer.

Attachments - Photo 1: Installer error - Photo 2: Detailed error message

[vjr]

Try running gparted to delete all partitions and reinitialize the ssd with gpt partition table before trying the installation again?

[mdfahadfarazi-dev]

I don't think this should cause the installer to fail. The SSD itself appears to be healthy I verified it with SMART, and I was able to install Debian on the same SSD and hardware without any issues. That makes me think the problem is specific to the elementary OS installer rather than the disk itself. If recreating the GPT partition table with GParted changes anything, I'll report back with the results.