Description of problem: Using the graphical installer it is possible to install the operating system and create big partitions up to the maximum allowed size of 8TBs (Supossedly RHEL 5 supports up to 16TBs but according to release notes this will be enabled in a future update). However, after the system installation is finished and the system boots up for the first time, the system will go directly into single user mode and ask to perform an fsck of the 8TB partition. Version-Release number of selected component (if applicable): 5.0 How reproducible: Always Steps to Reproduce: 1. Install the OS using the GUI interface and create the regular system partitions. 2. Create at least one partition that is 8TB 3. Finish installation and upon first boot the problem will be evident when you are prompted with an fsck. Actual results: fsck is necessary and system will never boot correctly. Expected results: System should boot up and have one usable 8TB partition The bug may be due to the fact that anaconda does not know that it should use gpt labels instead of mdsdos labels while creating partitions that are over 2GB. So far, I have not been able to find any location where I can force gpt partitions from the graphical installer. In any case, regardless of whether or not I can find the option, the anaconda installer should have some sort of check that if one of the partitions is over 2TB, then the disk label should be changed to gpt from msdos to avoid the problem of corrupted file systems. This may not have been a problem in the past since not too many computers would have internal arrays which such large storage. However, nowadays it is so easy to go over 2TB. My two servers currently have 16 750GB HDDs in raid 5 and I am using one hot spare, so the total usable space is 9750GB. I was planning to partition as follows: 1GB /boot 50GB / 100GB /var 2GB swap 2GB drbd raw partition All-space-left /export However I have hit two problems. The first is the limit of 8TB in ext3 as apparently there is still no support for up to 16TB. The second is the problem mentioned in this bug.
One minor correction... I have 16 HDDs in Raid 6, with one Hot spare, so 15-2=13*750=9750GB total usable space.
This is not an anaconda bug. It is a parted bug. it happens because parted creates a msdos partition by default. This will be fixed for 5.3. duping.... *** This bug has been marked as a duplicate of 447768 ***