When you do custom partitioning in anaconda, bootloader location is chosen after package installation in a dialog that doesn't occur on the non-custom path. In some cases there will be multiple disks that could potentially have the bootloader installed in their MBRs. For instance, you might have a USB stick plugged in during install, which anaconda identifies as a valid stage1 target; or you might just have two hard disks with different OSes on them. In the background, anaconda correctly identifies all these potential targets, but the dialog does not offer you a choice of which disk's MBR to put the bootloader on. Only one disk is offered as a possible MBR target.
Anaconda has never offered multiple options for mbr targets. Adding that ability would involve UI work that seems both risky and wasteful given the redesign that is already under way for F17. What if we show the "cleardisks" screen but with all disks on the right and no way to move them back to the left as a way to force boot disk selection? The only negatives I can think of are a) given the title of the screen it may be a bit confusing and b) you'd have to choose your boot disk prior to actually partitioning. Thoughts?
hum. if this isn't a regression it might be best just to leave it alone until the UI rewrite at this point. I was kind of assuming this was somehow a regression as we'd never come across it before, but I guess it was just because we happened to do more intensive multi-disk testing this cycle.
would it be easy/safe to make sure that, if there are multiple possible stage1 targets and one of them is the disk with Fedora's / (or /boot) on it, it should go for that one as the MBR target?
Too much guessing. I'm tired of all these attempts to guess correctly. I think from now on you should have to choose your boot device no matter what path you take through anaconda, unless there is only one disk.
well, the problem with using the 'cleardisks' screen is that you can't pick to install to /boot rather than MBR with that screen, can you?
or is the idea to show *both* screens and use the later one to decide between MBR and root/boot partition?
(In reply to comment #6) > or is the idea to show *both* screens and use the later one to decide between > MBR and root/boot partition? Yes -- this is it.
The patch is associated with this bug, but the naturally occurring failure is reported in bug 739389. One or both of these should probably block F16. For now I only marked this one since it's the one that's coherent and also mentioned in an existing anaconda commit.
anaconda-16.22-1.fc16 has been submitted as an update for Fedora 16. https://admin.fedoraproject.org/updates/anaconda-16.22-1.fc16
*** Bug 744209 has been marked as a duplicate of this bug. ***
Package anaconda-16.22-1.fc16: * should fix your issue, * was pushed to the Fedora 16 testing repository, * should be available at your local mirror within two days. Update it with: # su -c 'yum update --enablerepo=updates-testing anaconda-16.22-1.fc16' as soon as you are able to. Please go to the following url: https://admin.fedoraproject.org/updates/FEDORA-2011-14624 then log in and leave karma (feedback).
anaconda-16.22-1.fc16 has been pushed to the Fedora 16 stable repository. If problems still persist, please make note of it in this bug report.
*** Bug 748488 has been marked as a duplicate of this bug. ***
*** Bug 737430 has been marked as a duplicate of this bug. ***