Bug 716228

Summary:	anaconda crashes if FAT32 USB stick plugged in
Product:	[Fedora] Fedora	Reporter:	Bob Nolty <redhat>
Component:	parted	Assignee:	Brian Lane <bcl>
Status:	CLOSED NEXTRELEASE	QA Contact:	Fedora Extras Quality Assurance <extras-qa>
Severity:	medium	Docs Contact:
Priority:	unspecified
Version:	15	CC:	bcl, hdegoede, jonathan, mrubel, vanmeeuwen+fedora
Target Milestone:	---
Target Release:	---
Hardware:	x86_64
OS:	Linux
Whiteboard:
Fixed In Version:		Doc Type:	Bug Fix
Doc Text:		Story Points:	---
Clone Of:		Environment:
Last Closed:	2011-06-27 18:56:01 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 Bob Nolty 2011-06-23 17:31:58 UTC

Description of problem:

Booted F15 live CD.  Clicked Install to Disk.  Anaconda crashed while examining disks.  Removed FAT32-formatted USB stick, reran, and Anaconda succeeded.


Version-Release number of selected component (if applicable):

anaconda-15.31-1.fc15 -- both i686 and x86_64

How reproducible:

I tried anaconda a half dozen times, with both i686 and x86_64 live CDs, and failed every time the USB stick was present.


Steps to Reproduce:
1.Insert a FAT32-formatted USB flash drive into a USB slot
2.Boot off a F15 live CD
3.Click "Install to Hard Drive" icon in dock
4.Click "next" twice
  
Actual results:
After displaying "Examining storage devices" informational pop-up, Anaconda disappears without a trace.

Running anaconda directly from command line, I got:



# anaconda --liveinst --method=livecd:///dev/mapper/live-osimg-min --lang en_US.UTF-8
10:27:07 Starting graphical installation.
Loading /lib/kbd/keymaps/i386/qwerty/us.map.gz
Backtrace has 20 calls on stack:
  20: /lib64/libparted.so.0(ped_assert+0x2e) [0x7f849d431abe]
  19: /lib64/libparted.so.0(+0x3c036) [0x7f849d45b036]
  18: /lib64/libparted.so.0(+0x3c41e) [0x7f849d45b41e]
  17: /lib64/libparted.so.0(+0x3cae6) [0x7f849d45bae6]
  16: /lib64/libparted.so.0(ped_disk_add_partition+0x1a3) [0x7f849d437873]
  15: /lib64/libparted.so.0(+0x3e279) [0x7f849d45d279]
  14: /lib64/libparted.so.0(+0x3ef95) [0x7f849d45df95]
  13: /lib64/libparted.so.0(ped_disk_new+0x58) [0x7f849d437cd8]
  12: /usr/lib64/python2.7/site-packages/_pedmodule.so(_ped_Disk_init+0x66) [0x7f849d6b0be6]
  11: /usr/lib64/libpython2.7.so.1.0(+0x9d8d8) [0x7f84b04198d8]
  10: /usr/lib64/libpython2.7.so.1.0(PyObject_Call+0x53) [0x7f84b03c4fe3]
  9: /usr/lib64/libpython2.7.so.1.0(PyEval_EvalFrameEx+0x3b73) [0x7f84b045a0a3]
  8: /usr/lib64/libpython2.7.so.1.0(PyEval_EvalCodeEx+0x855) [0x7f84b045d125]
  7: /usr/lib64/libpython2.7.so.1.0(+0x6daa3) [0x7f84b03e9aa3]
  6: /usr/lib64/libpython2.7.so.1.0(PyObject_Call+0x53) [0x7f84b03c4fe3]
  5: /usr/lib64/libpython2.7.so.1.0(PyEval_EvalFrameEx+0x1340) [0x7f84b0457870]
  4: /usr/lib64/libpython2.7.so.1.0(PyEval_EvalCodeEx+0x855) [0x7f84b045d125]
  3: /usr/lib64/libpython2.7.so.1.0(+0x6daa3) [0x7f84b03e9aa3]
  2: /usr/lib64/libpython2.7.so.1.0(PyObject_Call+0x53) [0x7f84b03c4fe3]
  1: /usr/lib64/libpython2.7.so.1.0(+0x57b6f) [0x7f84b03d3b6f]
Aborted (core dumped)



# lsusb
...
Bus 001 Device 006: ID 0930:6545 Toshiba Corp. Kingston DataTraveler 102 flash drive
# fdisk /dev/sdb

Command (m for help): p

Disk /dev/sdb: 4007 MB, 4007657472 bytes
86 heads, 22 sectors/track, 4137 cylinders, total 7827456 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: 0xc3072e18

   Device Boot      Start         End      Blocks   Id  System
/dev/sdb1   *        8064     7827455     3909696    c  W95 FAT32 (LBA)


Expected results:

Anaconda succeeds in installing Fedora to hard drive


Additional info:

Comment 1 Brian Lane 2011-06-27 18:56:01 UTC

This is due to parted being over-zealous when it tries to detect the CHS of the USB stick. This has been fixed in parted-2.4 but we can't update the install media so:

You can work around this problem by removing the partitioning from the usb stick with dd if=/dev/zero of=/dev/blah bs=1M count=1 (this will delete all data from the stick). And then re-partitioning it with parted.

Comment 2 Mike Rubel 2011-07-23 06:33:26 UTC

I realize this is closed, but wanted to ask whether there are any other workarounds.  I can't use the workaround above, because I have to use the USB stick to install from.  (The network card in this Asus 1015PX-PU17 netbook is not recognized by gPXE, so network booting is out, and there are no optical drives or other interfaces.)

I tried formatting the partition as ext2, but the failure mode was the same as for FAT32.

Is my only option to wait for Fedora 16?