Description of problem: I was helping my father try to do a clean install of FC5 on a dual boot FC3/Win98 box with 128M. It said that due to low memory, it had to do a text install. During the text install, it said something about having to immediately swap something to the hard drive, or something like that, which we OK'ed. Finally the install started. About 1/3 of the way through, it failed with an exception. We chose the "Save" option to save the output to a floppy, attached here. Version-Release number of selected component (if applicable): anaconda-11.0.5-1 How reproducible: don't know (probably always on this hardware)
Created attachment 127184 [details] anacdump.txt
Created attachment 127190 [details] anacdump.txt for graphical install with 256M
We temporarily increased the machine's memory to 256M and tried a graphical install, but with essentially the same result. Attachment above.
Should have mentioned above - the attempted installs were from CDs. All 5 CDs tested good with mediacheck, and the machine is known from past experience to not be vulnerable to the mediacheck bug (bug #186512). There was 8 GB available on the HD. I did a successful install on a very similar machine with more packages included and only 6 GB available, so HD space should not be an issue.
Reassigning to high severity since installation is impossible and there appears to be no workaround (other than another installation method, which due to being on dialup is impractical).
Looks like you have a bad CD-ROM drive. In the dump file, I see this: <4>hdc: command error: status=0x51 { DriveReady SeekComplete Error } <4>hdc: command error: error=0x50 { LastFailedSense=0x05 } <4>ide: failed opcode was: unknown <4>end_request: I/O error, dev hdc, sector 678584 <3>Buffer I/O error on device hdc, logical block 169646 Which indicates a hardware failure (either the drive itself, the cable, etc).
We tried switching the CD drive with an identical model, and got the same error in 2 or 3 attempts to install FC5, even though CD access seemed faster. Then we successfully installed FC4 on the first try. So even if it is a hardware issue, it must selectively affect the FC5 installer somehow. Is there NO way this could be an OS bug masquerading as a hardware problem?