Description of problem: I'm trying to install Fedora 12 as second operating system on a 386 based Laptop. Windows is already installed and running fine (fault happened with XP and Win7). There is still unused disk space that shall be used for installation of Fedora. The installation starts normal and the DVD image is verified before installing Fedora. There are no failures detected on the DVD. After assigning the remaining disk space to Linux, configuration of grub the installation is started. During installation a critical error happens that stops the installation (e.g. a library could not be read from DVD). Just the error log is displayed, no other action is done/possible. The only action I can take now is to reboot the Laptop. This boot fails as there is no operating system available. Further checks showed that no partition was marked as 'active/bootable' and the MBR might have been destroyed. I've had this fault already with Fedora 11. I don't know if the fault might be related to parted or the parameter passed to parted during installation. Version-Release number of selected component (if applicable): How reproducible: I had this every time a Fedora installation was interrupted (by faulty access to DVD) Steps to Reproduce: 1. Running system with other operating system than Linux/Fedora with unallocated disk space to be used for new Fedora installation. 2. Run through installation procedure till software packages are installing on the disk (disk partitioning, grub setup, packet selection and dependency check done). 3. Somehow brake the installation with a critical fault so that the installation is aborted (just the error message is displayed, no further action possible). 4. Reboot the PC. Actual results: The PC does not start any longer as no active partition is available, MBR is destroyed. Expected results: PC should start with the previously installed operating system as this is not touched during installation of Fedora. Additional info: IMHO any modification of the MBR and active partition notification on the disk should be executed as the last action of the installation, just before a reboot is needed.
What you are seeing is a bug in parted which causes anaconda to overwrite the first and last 9k of the disk, even when (partly) re-using existing partitions. This was just discovered today, so you have good timing. I've just build a new parted: parted-2.1-5 for rawhide and F-13 development, which fixes this. *** This bug has been marked as a duplicate of bug 561976 ***