Bug 66859
Summary: | RH 7.3 installer does not recognize SCSI partitions made during RH 7.0 install | ||
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Product: | [Retired] Red Hat Linux | Reporter: | Jim Turner <rjturner> |
Component: | installer | Assignee: | Jeremy Katz <katzj> |
Status: | CLOSED WORKSFORME | QA Contact: | Brock Organ <borgan> |
Severity: | medium | Docs Contact: | |
Priority: | medium | ||
Version: | 7.3 | CC: | rjturner |
Target Milestone: | --- | ||
Target Release: | --- | ||
Hardware: | i386 | ||
OS: | Linux | ||
Whiteboard: | |||
Fixed In Version: | Doc Type: | Bug Fix | |
Doc Text: | Story Points: | --- | |
Clone Of: | Environment: | ||
Last Closed: | 2002-08-14 16:44:48 UTC | Type: | --- |
Regression: | --- | Mount Type: | --- |
Documentation: | --- | CRM: | |
Verified Versions: | Category: | --- | |
oVirt Team: | --- | RHEL 7.3 requirements from Atomic Host: | |
Cloudforms Team: | --- | Target Upstream Version: | |
Embargoed: |
Description
Jim Turner
2002-06-17 20:04:16 UTC
Development does not have access to support's tracking systems -- could you please provide the information on your problem here? Here are my exchanges with tech support (in reverse order): 18-JUN-2002 14:31:55 EST Notify Customer with e-mail notification. Gian Paulo Technician Response Dear Sir, It is unfortunate that you had to upgrade to 7.3 using the hard way of transerring backed up files. But it is also good that your system is now up and running on 7.3 However, related to the previous issues, it seems like we have a bug on our hands. The problem with your SCSI hard disk is generally related to 7.3. Please send a bug report to Bugzilla. This will send a report to Red Hat's development and update team. They are eager to find bugs in 7.3 in order to squash them as soon as possible. Your issue can help. Here's the link for bugzilla: http://bugzilla.redhat.com/bugzilla/easy_enter_bug.cgi If you have other installation concerns, please create a new ticket. Regards, Paulo Ng 17-JUN-2002 15:54:14 EST Request Updated Turner, R. James Customer Request I was never given a choise of what harddisk to use, when I tried a 7.3 update I just got a message that there were no linux partitions on either drive (see my previous note). After I wrote to you last I tried a workstation installation using fdisk and found that it could see all the partitions on sdb (whereas disk druid could not - see my previous note) but of course this did not help with the update. In any case over the weekend I did a clean install of 7.3 using disk druid. It seems to have worked fine so my problems are at least temporarily over (saving and restoring what was in my 7.0 installation was less work than getting the 7.3 upgrade to work). One thing I did notice - on my old installation I had a 4GB FAT32 partition on sdb. When I tried to set up a partition of this size during the 7.3 installation I was not allowed to do this - the program told me that a 2048 MB fatv partition was the maximum size. But I don't see how this could have caused my previous problems. I included the makes and models of my hardware in a previous note to you. 17-JUN-2002 09:45:08 EST Notify Customer with e-mail notification. Gian Paulo Technician Response Dear Sir, Just to make sure, when you ran the upgrade installation, did you get a prompt to select which SCSI harddisk you want to work on? Make sure to select sdb. If that did nothing, then we would need to do an unconventional method to troubleshoot. Please remove your first harddisk and use diskdruid. Check if Disk Druid can detect your Linux hard disk. Whatever the outcome, make sure you do not edit anything on the partition so that your 7.0 files will not be destroyed. If this works, then there may be issues with your SCSI controller with 7.3. Can you please give us the specifications of your SCSI controller as well as your SCSI harddisks? I will need the make and model of all of them. What might have happened is that your SCSI controller and disks could have been listed in our Hardware Compatibility List as "Community Knowledge" and therefore worked with a workaround. Maybe know, your hardware won't work with 7.3. This, however is a "what if scenario" which we cannot overlook. There is also the possibility of a bug. In this case, you may want to send a bug report to Bugzilla, which is Red Hat's development team. Sending a bug report will address this issue directly to them. Here's the link for bugzilla: http://bugzilla.redhat.com/bugzilla/easy_enter_bug.cgi Eitherway, please give your hardware specifications to us. We will await your reply. Regards, Paulo Ng 14-JUN-2002 10:11:29 EST Request Updated Turner, R. James Customer Request I have tried the things you suggested but the problem remains - on a Workstation install from RH 7.3 I always get the message "The partition table on device sdb was unreadable." Specifically: - During the installation boot prompt I entered "text noprobe" and selected aic7xxx or aic7xxx_old from the list (there was no aic7xxx_mod), the problem remained. - I created a driver disk and proceeded as you suggested but got the same result Additionally: - as I previously indicated the RH 7.0 installation disk has no problem seeing the partitions on sdb - when I used the driver disk created above (using RH 7.3 disk 1) with the RH 7.0 installation disk entering "linux text dd" at the boot prompt there was no problem, so the driver disk seems to be fine. - both the RH 7.0 and 7.3 installation disks automatically load the driver aicxxx So it appears that the problem is not with the driver. There is an additional peculiarity of my system that I am wondering about. On sda there are actually 3 partitions, a 2000M (approx) NTFS partition, a 7000M NTFS partition and a small (8M) unassigned partition - I'm not sure where the small partition came from. The RH 7.0 installation does not comment on the small partition but does display it. But the RH 7.3 installation tells me about the partition (after I choose Disk Druid) and gives me the choice "Ignore" or "Cancel". When I choose "Ignore" nothing happens so I have to choose "Cancel". Then I get the message that the partition table on device sdb is unreadable. Is it possible that choosing "Cancel" causes the program to abort looking at the second drive. If so assigning this small partition should solve the problem - how do I do this? 13-JUN-2002 02:58:58 EST Notify Customer with e-mail notification. Gian Paulo Technician Response Dear Sir, Before we proceed, I must inform you that Installation Support only provides limited support for upgrade installations. We cannot provide support for restoring damaged files after an upgrade. So it is essential that you backup your important files and configurations before an upgrade so that you can still recover your files if there is a problem with the upgrade. Sometimes there are issues after an upgrade from 7.0 to 7.3. Now, let's proceed to your query. During the installation boot prompt, please enter this parameter: text noprobe Then select from the SCSI list: aic7xxx or aic7xxx_mod NOTE: the noprobe option will allow you to choose from the SCSI list. An alternate way is to let the installation detect the SCSI disk properly by using a driver disk. You can do this by creating a disk with the drvblock.img (Supplemental Block Device Drivers) which can be found in your Red Hat Installation Disk 1. To create the driver disk, run this command on a console with the Installation disk and a formatted floppy disk inside their respective drives: dd if=/mnt/cdrom/images/drvblock.img of=/dev/fd0 Now proceed with the installation by booting off the Red Hat Installation CD. On the installation boot prompt, use these parameters: linux text dd or linux text expert When you are asked to insert a driver disk, insert the created driver disk and the proper drivers for you SCSI disk will be chosen. This should enable your SCSI partitions to be seen. If you have other installation concerns, please create a new ticket. Regards, Paulo Ng 12-JUN-2002 09:31:54 EST Request Updated Turner, R. James Customer Request The problem is not that the hard drives are not being detected. Win2000 sees both drives as does the RH 7.0 installation disk. The RH 7.0 installation disk can also see all of the partitions on both drives. The RH 7.3 installation disk also sees both drives and can see the partitions on sda - however, it doesn't seem to be able to read the partition table on sdb. My hardware is as follows: Dell 410 Workstation with factory installed (integrated) HD controller (Adaptec 7890 Ultrawide2/wide SCSI controller), factory installed SCSI HD (Quantum Viking II 9.1 WLS SCSI) and user installed SCSI HD (Seagate ST318436LW SCSI) - these are sda and sdb, respectively, there are no other HD's in the computer. 11-JUN-2002 01:59:06 EST Notify Customer with e-mail notification. Gian Paulo Technician Response Dear Sir, It seems like your SCSI hard drives are not being detected. Please send us the make and model of your SCSI hard disks and controller so that we can simulate this case further. If you have other concerns about installation, feel free to create a new ticket. Regards, Paulo Ng 10-JUN-2002 10:38:15 EST Problem Description Turner, R. James Customer Request I have a Dell 410 Workstation with 2 SCSI drives. I have Win2000 on the first drive (sda) and RH 7.0 on the second (sdb). I boot Win2000 from the HD and RH 7.0 from a floppy. I am trying to upgrade to RH 7.3. When I run the installation program (booting from the CD) and attempt to upgrade I get the message: "You don't have any Linux partition. You can't upgrade the system". When I try a complete Workstation installation I get the message "The partition table on device sdb was unreadable. To create new partitions it must be initiallized causing loss of ALL DATA on the drive". But if I use my old RH 7.0 installation CD and choose "Upgrade" it sees the partitions on sdb with no problem. I would prefer not to do a clean install with RH 7.3 - can I get around this problem? Thanks! Assigning to an engineer. If you run parted on /dev/sdb, what output do you get? Sorry I am new to Linux and haven't been able to figure out how to use parted (I found it in the sbin directory but can't seem to run it). Please let me know how its done. Note however, that my immediate problem has been solved - I did a clean install of RH 7.3 - so will parted give you useful information? It should still be useful. Run '/sbin/parted /dev/sdb' as root and then when you get the parted prompt, type 'print'. Also, what scsi controllers are in use on your system? Output from parted: Disk geometry for /dev/sdb: 0.000-17522.054 magabytes Disk label type: mdos Minor Start End Type Filesystem Flags 1 0.031 62.753 primary ext3 boot 2 62.754 2110.100 primary FAT 3 2110.100 2368.959 primary linux-swap 4 2368.960 17516.184 extended lba 5 2368.991 17516.184 logical ext3 I wasn't able to find a way to copy this into a file so I hope I have transcribed the numbers from the screen correctly. When parted first ran there was also a warning message about there being a FAT partition on the drive and something about how if my BIOS supported LAT(?) I should do something - I ignored this but if you need the details I can get them. My hard drive controller: factory installed (integrated) HD controller Adaptec 7890 Ultrawide2/wide SCSI controller There is also a second SCSI controller that controls a RW CD drive, I think it is a 7880 Adaptec not 2wide - sorry I didn't write this down but I can get it also if you need it. Has there been any progress on this? Unfortunately, I can't really tell anything that might have been the cause of the problem. And without the hardware at hand, it's hard to say. The fact that you could just workaround it by reinstalling points to something being a little bit off in the install you were trying to upgrade. |