Bug 509957 - Cannot upgrade from Fedora 10 to Fedora 11: Error processing drive sdb...
Summary: Cannot upgrade from Fedora 10 to Fedora 11: Error processing drive sdb...
Keywords:
Status: CLOSED NOTABUG
Alias: None
Product: Fedora
Classification: Fedora
Component: parted
Version: 11
Hardware: All
OS: Linux
low
medium
Target Milestone: ---
Assignee: Joel Andres Granados
QA Contact: Fedora Extras Quality Assurance
URL:
Whiteboard:
Depends On:
Blocks:
TreeView+ depends on / blocked
 
Reported: 2009-07-07 06:46 UTC by Paul Kennedy
Modified: 2015-04-20 00:47 UTC (History)
5 users (show)

Fixed In Version:
Doc Type: Bug Fix
Doc Text:
Clone Of:
Environment:
Last Closed: 2009-07-22 13:42:36 UTC
Type: ---
Embargoed:


Attachments (Terms of Use)
File requested in Comment #5. (512 bytes, application/octet-stream)
2009-07-13 13:02 UTC, Paul Kennedy
no flags Details

Description Paul Kennedy 2009-07-07 06:46:01 UTC
Description of problem:
Cannot upgrade from Fedora 10 to Fedora 11. 
When running installer from Fedora 11 DVD, a dialog box displays this message:

Error processing drive sdb Maybe it needs to be reinitialized. YOU WILL
LOSE ALL DATA ON THIS DRIVE

+----------------+         +---------------------+
|  IGNORE drive  |         | Re-initialize drive |
+----------------+         +---------------------+




Version-Release number of selected component (if applicable):


How reproducible:


Steps to Reproduce:
1.
2.
3.
  
Actual results:


Expected results:


Additional info:

[root@Dell-L733r ~]# fdisk -l

Disk /dev/sdb: 20.0 GB, 20000000000 bytes
255 heads, 63 sectors/track, 2431 cylinders
Units = cylinders of 16065 * 512 = 8225280 bytes
Disk identifier: 0x00083270

   Device Boot      Start         End      Blocks   Id  System
/dev/sdb1   *           1          25      200781   83  Linux
/dev/sdb2              26        2491    19808145   8e  Linux LVM

Comment 1 Chris Lumens 2009-07-07 13:55:15 UTC
Please attach /tmp/storage.log to this bug report.  Can you also see what "parted /dev/sdb p" has to say?  Internally, anaconda's using libparted for all this stuff.  If parted itself also has a problem reading the disk, that's helpful in narrowing down where the problem is occurring.  Thanks.

Comment 2 Paul Kennedy 2009-07-08 03:21:23 UTC
There is no /tmp/storage.log available.

I ran "parted /dev/sdb p":
[root@Dell-L733r /]# parted /dev/sdb p
Error: Can't have a partition outside the disk!

Comment 3 Chris Lumens 2009-07-08 15:13:24 UTC
Yeah, something's definitely off here.  fdisk thinks your disk ends at cylinder 2431, but that your second partition ends at 2491.  parted simply refuses to play along with that.  Do you have any idea how your disk ended up in this configuration?

Comment 4 Paul Kennedy 2009-07-08 17:35:52 UTC
No idea on that. I did a clean install using f10 dvd. That's it.

Comment 5 Joel Andres Granados 2009-07-13 11:58:40 UTC
- Can you post the first 512 bytes of your disk?  You can do this by executing `dd if=/dev/sdb of=/tmp/first_512_bytes bs=512 count=1` and then attaching the resulting file to the bug.

- What application did you use previously to partition the device.

- In what operating system did you partition the device.

- What does `fdisk -l /dev/sdb' say.

Comment 6 Paul Kennedy 2009-07-13 13:02:40 UTC
Created attachment 351471 [details]
File requested in Comment #5.

/tmp/first_512_bytes is attached.

Other information
=================

In response to:
- What application did you use previously to partition the device?
- In what operating system did you partition the device.

Can't say for sure. I had installed a variety of Linux distros before this. Thought I had done a complete reformat using Fedora 10, but cannot say for certain.

- What does `fdisk -l /dev/sdb' say?

[root@Dell-L733r tmp]# fdisk -l /dev/sdb

Disk /dev/sdb: 20.0 GB, 20000000000 bytes
255 heads, 63 sectors/track, 2431 cylinders
Units = cylinders of 16065 * 512 = 8225280 bytes
Disk identifier: 0x00083270

   Device Boot      Start         End      Blocks   Id  System
/dev/sdb1   *           1          25      200781   83  Linux
/dev/sdb2              26        2491    19808145   8e  Linux LVM

Comment 7 Erik Heckers 2009-07-22 12:55:56 UTC
Hello!

The same interactive dialog stops all of our fully automated network
installations with Fedora 11.

To force clients to boot from network and not the HDD we clear
the bootblock first, so it is all zeros in our setup.

The section in our kickstart config file for the disk setup is this:

zerombr yes
clearpart --all --drives=sda
part /boot --fstype ext3 --size=100 --ondisk=sda
part swap --size=4096
part / --fstype ext3 --size=1024 --grow --ondisk=sda
reboot

With "zerombr" and "clearpart" it should be obvious, that we
want to reinitialize the drive without any warning that stops
the automated installation procedure.

Comment 8 Joel Andres Granados 2009-07-22 13:35:08 UTC
Erik:
The matter you describe in comment #7 is not related to the issue. I am sure that there is a bug already open for this.... Sorry but I can't find it anywhere.  If you are also unsuccessful at finding the issue, pls feel free to open a bug.

Comment 9 Joel Andres Granados 2009-07-22 13:42:36 UTC
Paul:
Your label (partition tabel) is broken.  there is a partition that thinks it ends somewhere past the device size.  This could have happened when partitioning the device in another operating system.  different OSs think differently of devices (for some unknown, to  me, reason).

My suggestion to you is to:
a. if you don't have important data in the disk, format it completely (dd if=/dev/zero of=DEVICE bs=1M count=2) and start a fresh installation of whatever your favorite distro might be :)

b. if you have important info, put it somewhere else and do a.

c. If you don't have an additional place to put it, you might try shrinking the last partition in your drive.  you can use fdisk and file system commands like resize2fs.

I prefer a or b.  c is to prone to error.

Closing this bug as parted can't really do anything here.

Comment 10 Paul Kennedy 2009-07-22 14:32:17 UTC
Joel:

It is not so much that there is important data, but applications that I have installed. From the sounds of it, because I have paraded several distros through this box until settling on Fedora, it appears that the partitioning is a little hosed. So, I'll bite the bullet and do as suggested in "a" in Comment #9. As a matter of troubleshooting, I'll install Fedora 10 and try an update after that. Thanks very much for your help.

Paul

Comment 11 Paul Kennedy 2009-07-24 13:44:49 UTC
Just for the record:
I erased the hard drive while running on Fedora 11 Live CD. Could not get format to happen with "a" in Comment #9. After that, installed Fedora 10 and let it format the drive during install. Then, I loaded Fedora 11 DVD and booted. Anaconda found the drive and is upgrading to Fedora 11 now.


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