Description of problem: Installation overwritten and/or reformatted my /boot partition while I carefully unchecked the "reformat" check box. Version-Release number of selected component (if applicable): Fedora 18 X86_64 Live KDE How reproducible: Set up a disk partioned this way: * Primary partition /dev/sda1: /boot (previously used in F17) * Primary partition /dev/sda2: LVMGroup00 - LogVol00: swap (previously used in F17) - LogVol01: / (Fedora 17 previously installed) - LogVol02: / (Fedora 18 target partition) - LogVol03: / (unused here) - LogVol04: /home (previously used in F17) Steps to Reproduce: 1. Select LogVol00 as swap mount point, LogVol02 as / mount point (reformat as ext4), LogVol04 as /home mount point (do not reformat), and /dev/sda1 as /boot mount point (do *not* reformat) 2. Proceed installation 3. Restart Actual results: /boot partition as been "cleaned": all previous installed files (e.g. F17 kernel images) have disappeared. I suspect global reformat of the partition. Expected results: Every file previously in this partition should have been preserved. Additional info: Quite tricky to declare /dev/sda1 as /boot partition, I had to first check the Reformat box to be able to declare the mount point, and then I unchecked the Reformat box. See attachment.
Created attachment 683082 [details] Declaring pre-existing /boot partition
Created attachment 683462 [details] screenshot showing "/boot" on sda1 with Reformat unchecked Confirmed. The attached screenshot shows a preexisting "/boot" on sda1 with Reformat unchecked after it was added to a new installation. Clicking Apply Changes has no effect. After clicking Boot, however, Reformat is checked automatically. If Reformat is unchecked and Finish Partitioning is clicked, the install can be completed, and "/boot" is in fact reformatted. The latter was verified by creating a test file in "/boot" before reinstalling and noting that it was absent after reinstalling. Tested with: $ qemu-kvm -m 2048 -hda f18-test-3.img -cdrom ~/xfr/fedora/F18/F18-Final/Final/Fedora-18-x86_64-DVD.iso -vga qxl -boot menu=on -usbdevice mouse
I believe this is the same problem as bug 888132 - there's basically no way to uncheck the reformat box once it has been checked. Ouch. *** This bug has been marked as a duplicate of bug 888132 ***
My experience is NOT duplicate of bug 888132: I could perfectly check and uncheck the "reformat" box. The point is that my boot partition was reformatted while the box was unchecked. The special thing is that, while I did not want to reformat, I had first to check the reformat box to be able to edit the mount point. But then I unchecked it. At the user level all settings seemed ok, but obviously not in the background. I suspect that Anaconda behaved incorrectly because the file system of my boot partition was "unknown" (see screen capture). Curiously I was using and updating it regularly with my Fedora 17 installation. It was ext3 or ext4, but I can not remember now because I reformatted everything after Anaconda erased my boot partition. If Anaconda is not able to recognise the file system, and if the reformat check box is unchecked, I expect to have an error message in return, not reformat forced.
It might be more accurate to say that the reformat checkbox functions, but its state is ignored, and reformatting is always enabled. The installer should recognize ext3 and ext4 file systems, if they have not been corrupted in some way -- such as by a failed install. If you still have the log files from your install, they might give a clue. The log files should be in /var/log/anaconda/.