From Bugzilla Helper: User-Agent: Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Windows NT 5.0; en-US; rv:1.7.7) Gecko/20050414 Firefox/1.0.3 Description of problem: Attempt install form bootable ISO on CD. Install completes throught formating and workstation package selection then gives error about addressing disk sda. System downloads to floppy error data and reboots. Same sequence on multiple tries, same error despite different effort to format disk in various formats. System is Abit NF7 mother board, 1 SCSI drive with Win 2k, Adaptec 29160N adapter one SATA drive as Dos Boot ( no Raid) and one IDE drive 14 Gbyte) reserved for Fedora as drive hda. Sata and SCSI unchecked in either auto format/partition or manual format /partition. Several different partition sizes tried on hda - same problem. Why does system look for sdX when I install only on hda. Version-Release number of selected component (if applicable): How reproducible: Always Steps to Reproduce: 1.Boot to FC4 ISO CD 2.Follow either text or graphical install 3.either partition manually or automatically to blank IDE unformatted disk. 4. Select this disk for boot (/boot) or (/) ext3 format and 500 meg swap. Select workstation and default packages. Actual Results: System appears to format disk but halts on package install, I copy errata to floppy and system reboots. Error message is something about error with disk SDA though disk HDA is formated to receive Fedora Expected Results: Operating system should have installed on disk reserved for Linux Additional info:
Created attachment 117135 [details] Error file dumped by Anaconda
There are write errors trying to write the partition table to your drive -- are you sure the drive isn't dying?
"There are write errors trying to write the partition table to your drive -- are you sure the drive isn't dying?" Answer - IDE disk appears OK. Have tried several methods of partitioning including 'Partition Magic' for ext3 or ext2. Also form clean, empty, unformated disk (all 14 Gb)- All seem to take and disk appears OK Tried Anaconda partition in manual and automatic then with Anaconda I get the error you see on floppy errata disk. Strange thing is text box in Anaconda ( just before request to insert floppy for error dump)says can't write to disk SDx which is not selected for install but IDE (HDx) is selected. Does floppy error data indicate which disk it is failing to write to? Disks on Computer are SATA(boot +DOS), SCSI(Win2K), IDE -unformated for Linux Thanks
After several more tries - have the following information: My BIOS (latest AWARD)allows setting the priority of hard disk boot sequence. My 3 disks are SCSI( WinNt kernel), IDE( new Disk installed and reserved for Fedora) and SATA(Boot disk with boot.ini for Win2k and DOS). If I change the order of disks in BIOS the system will not boot Win NT until the order is re-set to the order originally selected when Win2k was installed (SATA,SCSI). The forgoing is for info and not the core problem. I can un-plug the SATA and SCSI disks, load Fedrora and re-boot to Fedora OK (Full install and boot works with just IDE operative). I can un-plug only SCSI and load Fedora OK but can't boot Fedora for reasons probably related to sequence issues described above. The Core PROBLEM is Anaconda does not appear to work with Adaptec 29160 SCSI adapter and/or SCSI III drives. All disks other than IDE(ATA)including USB disks are labeled SDx by Linux and this may be a confusing issue. Fedora say "Problem communicating with SDA" (SCSI?)and crashes on install - despite all install placed on IDE drive and all SDx drives un-checked during Druid partitioning.
anaconda is still looking at your other drives in order to find out what filesystems are on those. We need this information to know whether to offer you the update option, if dual booting needs to be set up, and so forth. If your hardware is known to be working properly, then this looks to be a kernel problem.
I currently use Dual booting under System Commander7 into Dos6.22 and Win2K. Fedora load fails even with System commander completly removed. System has operated for a year with no problems and is virus free (including MBR). Note for reference: http://forums.fedoraforum.org/showthread.php?s=2b54ba802ec2d1f207b19df7422fc482&t=50383&page=1&pp=15 describing difficulty with BIOS re-ordering disk numbering similar to my problem where I can load Fedora and run Fedora when SCSI drive is removed from system. When I Add back SCSI with Fedora installed I can not run Fedora at all but can run Win2k if I re-order disk priority (disk numbering in BIOS). Disk info is as follows: Disk Info on Abit NF-7S motherboard (AMD processor)Dual Boot To true Dos6.22 or Win2k under 'System Commander' Windows 2000 Total Physical Memory (bytes): 536,330,240 Used Physical Memory: (bytes): 161,005,568 Maximum Page File Size: (bytes): 879,472,640 Current Page File Size: (bytes): 145,543,168 Disk1 - 17 GB SCSI ( contains Win2K kern on D:) =========================================================================================================== Partition Information for Disk 1: 17,500.5 Megabytes Volume PartType Status Size MB PartSect # StartSect TotalSects UsedSects FreeSects =========================================================================================================== D: FAT16B Pri 2,047.3 0 0 63 4,192,902 4,192,902 0 ExtendedX Pri 8,973.8 0 1 4,192,965 18,378,360 18,378,360 0 EPBR Log 2,047.3 None -- 4,192,965 4,192,965 4,192,965 0 H: FAT16B Log 2,047.3 4,192,965 0 4,193,028 4,192,902 4,192,902 0 EPBR Log 6,926.5 4,192,965 1 8,385,930 14,185,395 14,185,395 0 I: FAT16B Log 2,047.3 8,385,930 0 8,385,993 4,192,902 4,192,902 0 EPBR Log 4,879.1 8,385,930 1 12,578,895 9,992,430 9,992,430 0 J:J SCSI FAT32 Log 4,879.1 12,578,895 0 12,578,958 9,992,367 9,992,367 0 Unallocated Pri 6,479.3 None -- 22,571,325 13,269,690 0 13,269,690 --------- Disk 2 ATA/IDE reserved for Linux =========================================================================================================== Partition Information for Disk 2: 14,653.0 Megabytes Volume PartType Status Size MB PartSect # StartSect TotalSects UsedSects FreeSects =========================================================================================================== Unallocated Pri 14,653.0 None -- 63 30,009,357 0 30,009,357 Disk 3 SATA with boot sector for Win2K and Dos6.22 under 'System Commander' Boot selector program =========================================================================================================== Partition Information for Disk 3: 35,299.1 Megabytes Volume PartType Status Size MB PartSect # StartSect TotalSects UsedSects FreeSects =========================================================================================================== C: FAT16B Pri,Boot 509.8 0 0 63 1,044,162 1,044,162 0 Linux Ext2 Pri 101.10 0 2 1,044,225 208,845 208,845 0 Unallocated Pri 1,435.5 None -- 1,253,070 2,939,895 0 2,939,895 ExtendedX Pri 18,975.2 0 1 4,192,965 38,861,235 38,861,235 0 EPBR Log 2,047.3 None -- 4,192,965 4,192,965 4,192,965 0 E: FAT16B Log 2,047.3 4,192,965 0 4,193,028 4,192,902 4,192,902 0 EPBR Log 2,047.3 4,192,965 1 8,385,930 4,192,965 4,192,965 0 F: FAT16B Log 2,047.3 8,385,930 0 8,385,993 4,192,902 4,192,902 0 EPBR Log 14,880.5 8,385,930 1 12,578,895 30,475,305 30,475,305 0 G:G SATA F32 FAT32 Log 14,880.5 12,578,895 0 12,578,958 30,475,242 30,475,242 0 Unallocated Pri 14,276.5 None -- 43,054,200 29,238,300 0 29,238,300 Note: Linux Ext3 added to SATA (Disk3) drive below ~600 Meg for /Boot under Fedora (added this week) but Fedora Anaconda still refuses to load and freezes at "not able to communicate with SDA". Last 5 tries where Fedora also refused to load were with Disk 3's first 2047 MB ( Volume C:) all set to Fat16B ( no ext3).
This report targets the FC3 or FC4 products, which have now been EOL'd. Could you please check that it still applies to a current Fedora release, and either update the target product or close it ? Thanks.
requested by Jams Antill
Fedora Core 4 is no longer maintained. Setting status to "INSUFFICIENT_DATA". If you can reproduce this bug in the current Fedora release, please reopen this bug and assign it to the corresponding Fedora version.