Description of problem: After working around bug 198063 (rescue mode fails to mount non-root filesystems), and being chroot'ed to /mnt/sysimage with / and /boot mounted correctly, and with a correct mknod for /dev/hda, [and incidentally having good stuff left over in /boot/grub from a previous install] then running "grub-install /dev/hda" fails with "The file /boot/grub/stage1 not read correctly" and indeed the bootloader has not been installed on /dev/hda. Version-Release number of selected component (if applicable): anaconda-11.1.0.54-1 How reproducible: always Steps to Reproduce: 1. On /dev/hda, erase the bootloader portion of the first sector (the first 446 bytes [512 - 4*16 - 2]), and sectors 2 through 63 of /dev/hda [origin is 1]. Be sure to keep the last 66 bytes of the first sector, which are the head of the DOS partition table. 2. "boot: linux rescue", language, keyboard, no network 3. Choose a system to rescue that is already OK [/boot/grub/* is good] 4. chroot /mnt/sysimage [and evade bug 198063 if necessary] and be sure that the root and /boot are correct. 5. grub-install /dev/hda Actual results: "The file /boot/grub/stage1 not read correctly" and the boot loader has not been installed at the beginning of /dev/hda. The disks FC6-development-i386-rescuecd (2006-07-08), FC5-i386-rescuecd (2006-04-11), and FC5-i386-DVD.iso (2006-03-20) all fail in the same way. I finally suceeded with KNOPPIX_V4.0.2.CD-2006-09-23-EN. Expected results: grub installed correctly on /dev/hda1 Additional info: I tried running it again with "strace -o strace.out grub-install /dev/hda", and will attach the strace.out. I notice that there are [non-consecutive] lines ----- stat64("/usr/share/grub/i386-redhat/stage1", {st_mode=S_IFREG|0644, st_size=512, ...}) = 0 read(3, "/grub/stage1\n", 128) = 13 write(1, "The file /boot/grub/stage1 not r"..., 47) = 47 ----- which tend to indicate confusion between /boot/grub/stage1 and /grub/stage1.
Created attachment 132115 [details] strace.out from "strace -o strace.out grub-install /dev/hda"
Created attachment 132116 [details] /tmp/grub-install.log.aoV921 There were 5 files all 364 bytes long, from each of my unsuccessful attempts. They all had essentially the same error message, differing only in the randomized filename for /tmp/grub-install.img.* .
Silly me; "grub-install" was from the system I had chosen to rescue (and was chroot'ed into), not from the rescue CD. So my original complaint above is a "No bug." But there is a functionality and usability issue with rescue mode: it should be easy to install grub from rescue mode, and it should be obvious how to do it, and probably there should be good "hand holding" available. So please turn this into a Request For Enhancement so that installing/re-installing/fixing the grub boot loader is easy from rescue mode.
You really need to be in the chroot to install grub unless you're really really clever. We've talked a bit about adding a menu of common rescue mode "tasks" like reinstalling the bootloader, but haven't actually gotten to doing so due to higher priority things.
Fedora Core 5 and Fedora Core 6 are, as we're sure you've noticed, no longer test releases. We're cleaning up the bug database and making sure important bug reports filed against these test releases don't get lost. It would be helpful if you could test this issue with a released version of Fedora or with the latest development / test release. Thanks for your help and for your patience. [This is a bulk message for all open FC5/FC6 test release bugs. I'm adding myself to the CC list for each bug, so I'll see any comments you make after this and do my best to make sure every issue gets proper attention.]
requested by Jams Antill
Fedora apologizes that these issues have not been resolved yet. We're sorry it's taken so long for your bug to be properly triaged and acted on. We appreciate the time you took to report this issue and want to make sure no important bugs slip through the cracks. If you're currently running a version of Fedora Core between 1 and 6, please note that Fedora no longer maintains these releases. We strongly encourage you to upgrade to a current Fedora release. In order to refocus our efforts as a project we are flagging all of the open bugs for releases which are no longer maintained and closing them. http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/LifeCycle/EOL If this bug is still open against Fedora Core 1 through 6, thirty days from now, it will be closed 'WONTFIX'. If you can reporduce this bug in the latest Fedora version, please change to the respective version. If you are unable to do this, please add a comment to this bug requesting the change. Thanks for your help, and we apologize again that we haven't handled these issues to this point. The process we are following is outlined here: http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/BugZappers/F9CleanUp We will be following the process here: http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/BugZappers/HouseKeeping to ensure this doesn't happen again. And if you'd like to join the bug triage team to help make things better, check out http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/BugZappers
This bug is open for a Fedora version that is no longer maintained and will not be fixed by Fedora. Therefore we are closing this bug. If you can reproduce this bug against a currently maintained version of Fedora please feel free to reopen thus bug against that version. Thank you for reporting this bug and we are sorry it could not be fixed.