Bug 875404

Summary: Cannot create mount point / doing manual partitioning during install to hard disk of Live System
Product: [Fedora] Fedora Reporter: Fred J. Tydeman <tydeman>
Component: anacondaAssignee: Brian Lane <bcl>
Status: CLOSED DUPLICATE QA Contact: Fedora Extras Quality Assurance <extras-qa>
Severity: unspecified Docs Contact:
Priority: unspecified    
Version: 18CC: anaconda-maint-list, bcl, g.kaviyarasu, jonathan, levinedl, sbueno, 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: 2012-11-12 21:01:17 UTC Type: Bug
Regression: --- Mount Type: ---
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Verified Versions: Category: ---
oVirt Team: --- RHEL 7.3 requirements from Atomic Host:
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Embargoed:

Description Fred J. Tydeman 2012-11-11 01:29:52 UTC
Description of problem:
Booted FC 18 alpha Live System from USB memory stick on 64-bit Intel x86.
Trying to do Install to Hard Disk.  My wireless hardware not found, so no network access (not sure if it matters).  This wireless is OK in FC 17.
Picked Manual Partitioning.  Bottom left corner says:
 available space: 3.46 Mb (megs)
 total space: 476.94 Gb (gigs)
I already have FC 14, 15, 16, 17 on this computer.  I have an empty partition
already setup for FC 18 (it is known as Spare5 to the existing FCs).
It has been formatted as ext4 and is 4.14 Gb big.
Clicking '+' to add new mount point to New Fedora 18 installation gets me
a popup.  I fill in '/' as the mount point.  I have tried various things
in the Desired Capacity field (such as: 4.14 Gb), but nothing appears to
be valid.  I get no option to pick the existing Spare5 partition as /
So, quit installation.

Comment 1 Brian Lane 2012-11-12 16:08:55 UTC
Please retry this with the Beta TC8 Live image (http://alt.fedoraproject.org/pub/alt/stage/18-Beta-TC8/Live/x86_64/). Remember that this is pre-Beta, so make sure to have your data backed up first.

Comment 2 David Lehman 2012-11-12 21:01:17 UTC
See https://bugzilla.redhat.com/show_bug.cgi?id=870430#c5

*** This bug has been marked as a duplicate of bug 870430 ***

Comment 3 Fred J. Tydeman 2012-11-13 00:24:40 UTC
Tried the suggested beta.  System now finds my wireless card and network.
The first screen I see is: Installation summary
The Storeage area has a ! warning along with Automatic parititioning selected.
I do NOT want automatic partitioning.  I want to set / to an existing ext4
formatted partion.  I believe that the ! warning is due to having only 3.46 Meg
(not Gig) of free disk space.

Comment 4 David Levine 2012-11-13 01:41:42 UTC
Does this work?

1. Select INSTALLATION DESTINATION under STORAGE.
2. Select the disk.  Click CONTINUE.
3. On Installation Options popup,
   select "Let me review & customize the partitioning of the disks anyway".
   Click Continue.
4. Expand "Unknown" and/or the older Fedora installations to
   find the desired partition, and select it.
5. set the mountpoint (near the top on the right side)
6. click the "Customize" expander on right side of screen
7. choose a filesystem type
8. activate the "Reformat" checkbutton
9. click on "Apply Changes" button

Comment 5 Fred J. Tydeman 2012-11-13 03:16:01 UTC
The screens and popups did not match those instructions.  However, I made my best
guess and it appears something was written to the hard disk.  One of the buttons
I clicked said "Reclaim" which sounded like the wrong thing to do, but it was the
only button I could click.  No where in that process did I see an option as to
where I wanted the boot loader; I am used to the choice of MBR or /boot.  I hope
this process has not destroyed my MBR that is supposed to go to the IBM Boot 
Manager -- which lets me pick Windows, Solaris, or FC14, 15, 16, or 17.  Now for
a reboot to see what was just done.

Comment 6 Fred J. Tydeman 2012-11-13 04:55:19 UTC
The system boots.  But, it boots FC 18 instead of the IBM Boot Manager.  So, the 
MBR was overwritten.  With other tools (DFSee) I can change the MBR to boot the
IBM Boot Manager partition.  But, I assume something needs to be done to the FC 18 / partition so it is bootable (before I alter the MBR).  What?

Comment 7 David Levine 2012-11-13 14:12:09 UTC
Are your other Fedora partitions bootable (fdisk -l)?  If so, I'd make the Fedora 18 partition bootable.

I don't know anything about IBM Boot Manager so I can't help beyond that.

Comment 8 Fred J. Tydeman 2012-11-13 17:59:15 UTC
Yes, the other Fedora partitions are bootable from the IBM Boot Manager (BM).
However, once I altered the MBR to point to the IBM BM, when I tried to boot
FC 18, it said that the partition was not formated.  The other Fedoras still
booted.  So, I booted FC 15 (which as GRUB, instead of GRUB2).  I added FC 18
to the /boot/grub/grub.conf file using the information from FC 18 /boot.
I booted FC 18 via the FC 15 grub boot menu.  Once FC 18 was up, I did:
su -
 GRUB_DEFAULT=saved
 grub2-mkconfig -o /boot/grub2/grub.cfg
 grub2-install --force --boot-directory=/boot /dev/sda5

I then could boot FC 18 from the IBM BM menu.  I believe that the key item is
to have the grub2-install write the boot code to /boot instead of the MBR.

The only issue I see now is the install to the hard disk from the Live system
alters the MBR and appears to give no way to install the boot code to /boot

Comment 9 David Levine 2012-11-13 22:31:51 UTC
OK, that makes sense.  I don't think that it fits this bug report.  I suggest looking for one about no longer being about to select the location of the boot loader.  If there isn't one, I suggest filing a new bug report.