Red Hat Bugzilla – Bug 220075
Anaconda dislikes USB boot media, leading to backtrace
Last modified: 2007-11-30 17:11:51 EST
I generally boot machines via USB. FC6 seems to dislike having the boot media still plugged in once the install process begins. I get a dialog containing the text: --- /dev/sda currently has a loop partition layout. To use this disk for the installation of Fedora Cored, it must be re-initialized, causing the loss of ALL DATA on this drive. Would you like to format this drive? --- Not wanting to erase my boot media, I click "Ignore drive", at which point I receive the included backtrace. Unfortunately the log includes my entire kickstart file, which contains things I would rather not make public, so I will attach just the backtrace and the local variable dump; please let me know if there's additional information I can provide. Description of problem: Version-Release number of selected component (if applicable): How reproducible: Steps to Reproduce: 1. 2. 3. Actual results: Expected results: Additional info:
Created attachment 143930 [details] Anaconda backtrace
Gak, I apologize for not deleting that junk at the end. In any case, a reasonable workaround for my situation is to boot with "nousbstorage", which disables detection of USB storage media. This is only useful if you don't need to access any USB-based media in the installation. Unfortunately, it is not uncommon for me to need to pull driver disks off of a USB stick.
The traceback should be resolved in rawhide; unfortunately, I don't really know of a way to avoid popping up and asking the qeustion as generally, we want to a) allow people to install to USB devices but b) require a partition table to be present
I suppose it's possible to hide USB storage devices by default but then allow them to be installed to via the "Advanced" button in the manner that iSCSI targets are accessed. I guess the question is whether it's more common to boot from a USB device or install to one. I know I've done the former hundreds of times but have never done the latter, but it's quite possible my experience is atypical.