From Bugzilla Helper: User-Agent: Mozilla/4.0 (compatible; MSIE 6.0; Windows NT 5.0) Opera 7.20 [en] Description of problem: I cannot install RH9 on my Dell OptiPlex GX300 system. I get to the point where I am in Disk Druid trying to setup my partion information (before package selection) and the installer completely locks up. I really don't know how to make it happen, but its 100% reproducable. Before I explain further let me give you an idea of how my HD's are currently partitioned. I have 3 HD which look something like this: /dev/hda (120 GB Maxtor) /dev/hda1 - 20 GB FAT32 (Win2k) /dev/hda2 - 48.6 GB NTFS /dev/hda3 - 48.6 GB NTFS /dev/hdb (40 GB WD) Unallocated /dev/hdc (40 GB Maxtor) /dev/hdc1 - 15.7 MB Unallocated /dev/hdc2 - 20 GB NTFS /dev/hdc3 - 18.8 GB ext2 /dev/hdc4 - 290 MB Unallocated I'm trying to install RH9 on the second disk (hdb), but when I get into Disk Druid I see it has checked off /dev/hdc3 as to be formatted as swap since it shows it as being swap instead od ext2! After going to properties for the partition and setting it to leave the partition unchanged the installer locks-hard. I can move the mouse but nothing, including Ctrl-Alt-Del do anything. I have to Alt-SysRq-B to reboot. I have been unable to work around this problem. This is a very serious flaw, which is perpetuated by the fact, I know that if installation were to continue even though I unselected /dev/hdc3 and checked leave it alone Disk Druid would still try to format it (I have had this problem before :-/) If this is corrected in RawHide, how would this help me? I need to install from CD, and I don't see how an anaconda rpm sitting in rawhide is going to solve the problem since I do not have a linux install anywhere I can use anaconda tools on to create a new installation CD... so unless there is another way I don't think I WILL EVER be able to install RH9... -sb Version-Release number of selected component (if applicable): How reproducible: Always Steps to Reproduce: 1. Boot install off RH9 CD1 2. Choose Custom Configuration 3. Try to modify existing partition settings on 3rd IDE disk Actual Results: Installer totally locks up. Plus recognizes a valid ext2 partition as swap! Expected Results: No freeze and I can setup my partions without brainfarts in anaconda or kernel. Additional info:
First thing to try is to boot up the installer and when you get to the first graphical screen, hit CNTL-ALT_F2. Then type 'parted /dev/hdc' and then hit 'p<ENTER>' and it will print out a listing of all the partitions on the drive. What does it list /dev/hdc3 as?
I tried parted, if gave me a warning that another program may have generated an incorrect partition table and asked me to ignore or exit. It said it was fixable. It showed the partition incorrectly as linux-swap. I don't understand why its doing this. partition magic shows it as ext2 with the correct hex, so I'd think parted should do the same? I don't see why this whole disc even matters in the first place. When I choose manual partitioning it shouldn't be selecting ANY partitions for me...right?
Can I correct this problem safely in parted?
nm my previous comment, I can't even check the partion in parted it segfaults when I try. Funny how partition magic will even let me explore the partition and parted segfaults before it can even touch it...thoughts?
Maybe I'll try SuSE. At least their installer isn't broken crap.
Sorry that was curt. Anyways I'm gonna try Severn, so I can see if it is fixed there.
Did you try Severn? I have seen the problem you have reported a few times in the last 2 releases, but we've never been able to reproduce the issue here. I believe it is related to how the partition table was originally partitioned. What tool(s) were used to create the partition tables originally? Thanks for the information you have supplied, I would like to try and resolve this issue.
Same problem on Severn. And I can't get anything else to verify there is something wrong with my partition table like parted thinks there is. And a little digging shows the partition is correctly labeled as ext2 so I dunno why parted thinks its swap, why the installer won't leave it alone, etc... what's the next debugging step here?
I missed the last part of your comments. I'm not sure I remember what tool I made the partitions with anymore. It was prolly partition magic back 3 years ago...and I never once had an issue installing RH7.2 or using 7.2 on that partition, so I dunno what gives. The ext2 partition itself was generated during RH7.2 install. -sb
This sounds like an issue with libparted (part of the parted package) incorrectly detecting the partition type. Do you care what is on that partition or can you reformat it?
I DO NOT want to reformat that partition. I want to leave it as is, at least until I have another partition to move the data to. Hence the empty 40 gb drive I'm trying to put RH9 on. Unplugging the drive is a last resort, because I don't want to deal with my Dell bios afterwards. -sb
I do not know of any workaround. It seems whatever tool(s) were used in creating the filesystems on your disk left a signature that is confusing the libparted library. We have not seen this problem in our testing and it is not clear it is something that is reproducible that we would then be able to investigate.