Bug 34174 – rc2 anaconda won't reset trashed MBR

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Bug 34174 - rc2 anaconda won't reset trashed MBR

Summary:	rc2 anaconda won't reset trashed MBR

Status:	CLOSED RAWHIDE

Aliases:	None

Product:	Red Hat Linux
Classification:	Retired
Component:	anaconda (Show other bugs)
Sub Component:
Version:	7.1
Hardware:	i386 Linux

Priority	low Severity low
Target Milestone:	---
Target Release:	---
Assigned To:	Matt Wilson
QA Contact:	Brock Organ
Docs Contact:

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Depends On:
Blocks:
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Reported:	2001-03-30 16:50 EST by Bowe Strickland
Modified:	2005-10-31 17:00 EST (History)
CC List:	0 users

See Also:
Fixed In Version:
Doc Type:	Bug Fix
Doc Text:
Story Points:	---
Clone Of:
Environment:
Last Closed:	2001-09-17 16:17:43 EDT
Type:	---
Regression:	---
Mount Type:	---
Documentation:	---
CRM:
Verified Versions:
Category:	---
oVirt Team:	---
RHEL 7.3 requirements from Atomic Host:
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Description Bowe Strickland 2001-03-30 16:50:17 EST

Using 7.1-rc2, I overwrote /dev/hda w/ image of 
dhcp-kickstart-bootnet.img (to speed up loading of 
installer).

	cat dhcp.ks.bootnet.img > /dev/hda

upon rebooting, using TUI ftp install, anaconda 
complained:

fdisk error: cylinder boundaries don't match drive
geometry (naturally, i just hosed my MBR...)

my *only* option was to skip drive, resulting in
a "no valid drives found" error and a tailspin...

from the command line, fdisk knows how to reset the mbr.
the installer should offer this option as well...

as i understand it, currently, if your MBR is hosed, 
anaconda won't install. (assuming you don't know 
enough about fdisk to go to the command line).

thanx!  --bowe

Comment 1 Michael Fulbright 2001-04-02 10:51:15 EDT

We will consider different behavior in the future - admittedly your case is an
extremely rare incidence (most users do not mess manually with the boot sector).

You can just goto VC2 (cntl-alt-f2) when you get to this point in the install and

mknod /tmp/hda
fdisk /tmp/hda

and reset it as you like.

Comment 2 Bowe Strickland 2001-04-02 13:03:01 EDT

agreed, but note that VC2 is not an option for kickstart installs (where
'wipembr yes' has been defined!) (although inelegant scripting of fdisk through
%pre would be possible).

FWIW, i'm not sure it's "extremely rare" for someone to be handling an
unitialized drive at install time.  I've been frustrated with other
"unnamed vendors ;)" providing an installer that demanded that I had
an initialized MBR before.  For an installer not to be able to trivially 
configure blank media seems a bad assumption.

thanx!  --bowe

Comment 3 Brent Fox 2001-04-03 15:30:48 EDT

As msf said, this is something we will consider for the future.  It's much too
late in the cycle to consider this for the current release.  Deferring.

Comment 4 Michael Fulbright 2001-09-17 16:17:58 EDT

Should work better with roswell.

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