aarnes
9th June 2012, 11:21 PM
Here's the story:
I have (hopefully it's not 'had') old Fedora 14 and Windows XP on my hdd (it's only one hdd! 500GB).
The hdd was split roughly like this:
sda1
200GB for Windows (NTFS),
Extended partition sda2
50GB for Archive(NTFS) can't remember sda number - read the story to understand
250GB I used for Fedora 14 which is my main OS I use. There are partitions that Fedora makes...
524MB /dev/sda5 ext4 Filesystem Partition 5
236GB /dev/sda6 Linux LVM Partition 6
I don't know where there swap partition with original Fedora 14. I think it creates one but you'll see soon why I'm not sure.
I decided to try Fedora 17 through Live USB. Seemed nice so I tried to install it on Archive (50GB) NTFS partition. I delteed the partition and tried "Use free space" but instalation didin't work. I also created the partition again using GParted into NTFS and then used "Shrink partition" option thingy. It seemed like it's gonna work installation started until some point and then ERROR. It restarted the computer and to my surprise I couldn't boot into my normal Fedora 14 (or Windows for that matter). There was no old blue grub menu! Just grub in black and white command mode. It said grub>. I typed help. Commands listed. Seeing I have no clue what to do I decided to boot live USB again and seek help online.
After trying these commands found on the web on the aforementioned command-line grub:
find /grub/grub.conf
(hd0,4)
root (hd0,4)
root (hd0,4)
setup (hd0)
I got grub menu alright but it wasn't that nice bluish like menu before but black and white menu. Still it had my old options: three Fedora kernels and Windows (which I disguised as Fedora = changed the title) xD
Here's the problem, I can boot into Windows now, but not into Fedora. When I try to boot into Fedora I get this error:
Error 17: Cannot mount selected partition
Now, if I go run live USb and mount those partitions I can see all the files I had. I even copied some of them to Windows partition for safe keeping. Yes, I should've backuped my data BEFORE trying installation but I'm prone to f***up!
So, if I can see the partitions from live USb that means the filesystems and partitions are OK, right?
Then why can't I boot from the grub? At this point I'd use even that black and white looking grub as long as I can boot into Fedora 14.
Note that failed installations of Fedora 17 created their own partitions so there are more partitions than it used to be. I can't remember was there a swap partition for old Fedora 14 because there is one now but it seems this one was created during failed installation of Fedora 17 or of live usb because it's sda10 and in use while running live USB.
How do I fix this grub thing and boot into old Fedora 14?
fdisk -l
http://fpaste.org/XT82/
---------- Post added at 07:38 PM ---------- Previous post was at 01:39 PM ----------
Just an update. This error seems to be experienced by few other users online. It seems it has something to do with anaconda and system time. https://bugzilla.redhat.com/show_bug.cgi?id=811706
If the system time is before the last mount time of the live image, e2fsck fails and the installation stops.
Can that be exploited somehow to finish installation without this error?
Although, anaconda-17.21-1.fc17 fixes this issue https://admin.fedoraproject.org/updates/anaconda-17.21-1.fc17 the liveiso image on my usb has anaconda 17.29-1.fc17. That puzzles me because anaconda-17.25-1.fc17 sems to be the latest on https://admin.fedoraproject.org/updates/anaconda-17.25-1.fc17.
---------- Post added 10th June 2012 at 12:21 AM ---------- Previous post was 9th June 2012 at 07:38 PM ----------
SOLVED! If there are people out there who have the same issue here's what I did:
I went back to fedora webite and downloaded ISO image.
I verified it using sha256sum tool to make sure it is same as one given on fedora website.
Using Fedora instructions on how to use dd tool to create liveUSB I made sure the filesystem is vfat!
Before I used ext4.
During installation, I didn't nstall with LVM (although that isn't the solution since I tried doing that before) and I didn't check that thing during time setup about UTC. I think this is not the reason for success either.
All in all, I think it's the filesystem of liveUSB! Make sure it is vfat! Hope this helps someone.
I have (hopefully it's not 'had') old Fedora 14 and Windows XP on my hdd (it's only one hdd! 500GB).
The hdd was split roughly like this:
sda1
200GB for Windows (NTFS),
Extended partition sda2
50GB for Archive(NTFS) can't remember sda number - read the story to understand
250GB I used for Fedora 14 which is my main OS I use. There are partitions that Fedora makes...
524MB /dev/sda5 ext4 Filesystem Partition 5
236GB /dev/sda6 Linux LVM Partition 6
I don't know where there swap partition with original Fedora 14. I think it creates one but you'll see soon why I'm not sure.
I decided to try Fedora 17 through Live USB. Seemed nice so I tried to install it on Archive (50GB) NTFS partition. I delteed the partition and tried "Use free space" but instalation didin't work. I also created the partition again using GParted into NTFS and then used "Shrink partition" option thingy. It seemed like it's gonna work installation started until some point and then ERROR. It restarted the computer and to my surprise I couldn't boot into my normal Fedora 14 (or Windows for that matter). There was no old blue grub menu! Just grub in black and white command mode. It said grub>. I typed help. Commands listed. Seeing I have no clue what to do I decided to boot live USB again and seek help online.
After trying these commands found on the web on the aforementioned command-line grub:
find /grub/grub.conf
(hd0,4)
root (hd0,4)
root (hd0,4)
setup (hd0)
I got grub menu alright but it wasn't that nice bluish like menu before but black and white menu. Still it had my old options: three Fedora kernels and Windows (which I disguised as Fedora = changed the title) xD
Here's the problem, I can boot into Windows now, but not into Fedora. When I try to boot into Fedora I get this error:
Error 17: Cannot mount selected partition
Now, if I go run live USb and mount those partitions I can see all the files I had. I even copied some of them to Windows partition for safe keeping. Yes, I should've backuped my data BEFORE trying installation but I'm prone to f***up!
So, if I can see the partitions from live USb that means the filesystems and partitions are OK, right?
Then why can't I boot from the grub? At this point I'd use even that black and white looking grub as long as I can boot into Fedora 14.
Note that failed installations of Fedora 17 created their own partitions so there are more partitions than it used to be. I can't remember was there a swap partition for old Fedora 14 because there is one now but it seems this one was created during failed installation of Fedora 17 or of live usb because it's sda10 and in use while running live USB.
How do I fix this grub thing and boot into old Fedora 14?
fdisk -l
http://fpaste.org/XT82/
---------- Post added at 07:38 PM ---------- Previous post was at 01:39 PM ----------
Just an update. This error seems to be experienced by few other users online. It seems it has something to do with anaconda and system time. https://bugzilla.redhat.com/show_bug.cgi?id=811706
If the system time is before the last mount time of the live image, e2fsck fails and the installation stops.
Can that be exploited somehow to finish installation without this error?
Although, anaconda-17.21-1.fc17 fixes this issue https://admin.fedoraproject.org/updates/anaconda-17.21-1.fc17 the liveiso image on my usb has anaconda 17.29-1.fc17. That puzzles me because anaconda-17.25-1.fc17 sems to be the latest on https://admin.fedoraproject.org/updates/anaconda-17.25-1.fc17.
---------- Post added 10th June 2012 at 12:21 AM ---------- Previous post was 9th June 2012 at 07:38 PM ----------
SOLVED! If there are people out there who have the same issue here's what I did:
I went back to fedora webite and downloaded ISO image.
I verified it using sha256sum tool to make sure it is same as one given on fedora website.
Using Fedora instructions on how to use dd tool to create liveUSB I made sure the filesystem is vfat!
Before I used ext4.
During installation, I didn't nstall with LVM (although that isn't the solution since I tried doing that before) and I didn't check that thing during time setup about UTC. I think this is not the reason for success either.
All in all, I think it's the filesystem of liveUSB! Make sure it is vfat! Hope this helps someone.
