Description of problem: when creating partitions and checking for bad blocks - if bad blocks are found then clicking "ok" is the only option and the installation quits. I haven't tested with other redhat installations (yet) but according to the earlier installation manuals it looks like the badblocks program should be called and any badblocks are skipped and never written to. I assume with earlier versions that you could continue an installation even if bad blocks were detected. Version-Release number of selected component (if applicable): 8.1 beta (phoebe) How reproducible: everytime Steps to Reproduce: 1. have a disk with bad blocks 2. try to install ext3 on a partition that contains bad blocks and check the "check for bad blocks" option 3. during the actual checking for bad blocks a dialog will display saying "bad blocks were found! we do not recommend that you install on this disk" and the only option is to click "ok" - which reboots the system and you are back to square 1. Actual results: i click ok and i am trapped in a vicious circle of checking and failing and clicking ok! Expected results: when bad blocks are found - the badblocks tool is used to add the bad blocks to the bad blocks list and these blocks are tagged to never be used again - but the installation continues on the rest of the disk that is good. Additional info:
In early versions badblocks was run and then ignored when creating filesystems. We changed the behavior so at least you would not continue as before with a bad drive. I do not think we're going to add code to support formatting drives with bad sectors.
but dont you think it would be a good idea to give the user the option of whether or not they want to continue the installation. Give some very serious warning about the chance of data being lost etc. but have a button for "continue anyway". if the user chooses to continue - run badblocks like in previous versions of redhat linux and allow the installation to continue (with the badblocks now being hidden). not sure if this interests redhat or not but i didnt realise that i had badblocks on my disk until i tried to install phoebe. As i couldnt continue with the installation it left me with limited choices - 1. buy a new disk (which i cant afford, and if many people are installing on old hardware then they dont want to buy new disks either) 2. reinstall a previous version of redhat linux that will install on a disk with badblocks anyway anyway - i reinstalled redhat linux 8.0 right after my phoebe install failed and i have no problems with corrupted data - even though i know now my disk has bad blocks. even though i am aware of my dodgy disk - i am prepared to take the risk and have the installation complete - at least the option to continue would be nice.
The option to continue will just lead to people filing bug reports with random crashes and the like and they may or may not remember saying "go ahead and install on my dodgy disk".