Bug 5951 - 6.1 upgrade overwrote MBR without asking
Summary: 6.1 upgrade overwrote MBR without asking
Keywords:
Status: CLOSED CURRENTRELEASE
Alias: None
Product: Red Hat Linux
Classification: Retired
Component: installer
Version: 6.1
Hardware: i386
OS: Linux
medium
medium
Target Milestone: ---
Assignee: Jay Turner
QA Contact:
URL:
Whiteboard:
Depends On:
Blocks:
TreeView+ depends on / blocked
 
Reported: 1999-10-14 15:59 UTC by ryan_gustafson
Modified: 2015-01-07 23:38 UTC (History)
1 user (show)

Fixed In Version:
Clone Of:
Environment:
Last Closed: 1999-10-22 16:32:09 UTC
Embargoed:


Attachments (Terms of Use)

Description ryan_gustafson 1999-10-14 15:59:17 UTC
I had a 6.0 install on my system.  I was using System
Commander (a commercial product) to handle loading the
multiple OS's I run (Linux, 98, NT).

I recently tried upgrading to 6.1.  First time thru the
install, I figured I'd try doing an "upgrade" (I normally
do complete re-installs).  I followed the graphical
installer instructions, and 6.1 was installed/upgraded.
When the system rebooted I found that LILO was setup on
my MBR, not on my Linux Partition (as I had been using).

Not exactly what I was expecting.  During an upgrade, why
setup LILO on a partition where it does _not_ exist? I can
see on a new install (and the installer explicitly asks in
that case), but during an upgrade, presumably one does not
change the location of the existing boot loader.  The
installer should _not_ _assume_ the location of the boot
loader.  It should make a best effort to determine where to
install, and then ask if that is what I want.

Anyway, some more data points...

LILO had a 'dos' entry available, so I tried it out.  That
got me into Win98 (not System Commander, and
co-incidentally the OS I booted before my upgrade attempt).
Curious thing though, when I rebooted after that System
Commander came up (and has since).  I presume System
Commander "reinstalled" itself in the MBR somehow.

BTW, I things are really great otherwise, it even detected
my SB!Live card.  Although I don't think it works under SMP
kernels yet, perhaps I try just to see, I'd be pleasantly
surprised if it did work.

Comment 1 Jay Turner 1999-10-21 18:24:59 UTC
*** This bug has been marked as a duplicate of 5576 ***

Comment 2 Bill Nottingham 1999-10-22 16:32:59 UTC
*** This bug has been marked as a duplicate of 5798 ***


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