Exception when creating installation partition

Jerem · #1 9th November 2009, 03:54 PM

Hi,

I'm having problems with the setup of Fedora 11 64 bits on my PC. When I and order a new 30500 Mb ext3 partition for / (personalized partioning method chosen), an "exception occured" message box appears with the following message :

"An unhandled exception has occured. This is most likely a bug. Please save a copy of the detailed exception and file a bug report against anaconda at https://bugzilla.redhat.com".

As a workaroud I tried to have the partition created by myself with Gparted LiveCD 0.4.5-2: the Fedora 11 setup process then went to its normal term; I copied the first sector of the partition to a file in the vista partition under Ubuntu 9.10 64bits (sudo dd if=/dev/sda12 of=/media/ACERVista/fedo1264.bin count=1 bs=512) and I added a line (c:\fedo1264.bin="Fedora 11 64 bits on sda12") to the boot.ini file of the Vista partition in order to choose Fedora at boot time. But when I choose Fedora in the Vista boot manager, I get nothing more than a blinking cursor on the black screen.

Notice this is the way I run Ubuntu 9.10 and Red Hat 5.0.3 every day and they work as well as two XP and one Vista instances.

I also tried to update Ubuntu's Grub2, hoping that I would first boot Ubuntu from Vista boot manager, then boot Fedora from Ubuntu's Grub2. It failed as the Fedora partition was not added to the Ubuntu's Grub2 list.

I've tried to install from the Fedora 11 Gnome LiveCD instead of the DVD but I got the same result.

Everything appears as if Fedora was not able to manage the partition as bootable. May this be caused by the residence of this partition logical (sda12) in the extended partition (sda2) ?

This PC is an ACER X3200 75 built in october 2008 with an AMD Phenom X4 cpu, an NVIDIA 9300+8200 gpu (I have 2 screens, one landscape, one portrait), 4 GB RAM, a 1500 GB SATA Seagate disk (originally a 640 GB that I replaced) partitionned as follows (partition sorted by time of creation not by position) :

Is there a way to get Fedora 11 64 installed on this computer ? Should I try Fedora 12 RC 4 ?

regards,

Jer

More info (and also see bug report in the file InstallError.txt attached)

Fedora11 LiveCD Gnome fsdisk reports :

[root@localhost liveuser]# fdisk -v

fdisk (util-linux-ng 2.14.2)
[root@localhost liveuser]# fdisk -l

Disk /dev/sda: 1500.3 GB, 1500301910016 bytes
255 heads, 63 sectors/track, 182401 cylinders
Units = cylinders of 16065 * 512 = 8225280 bytes
Disk identifier: 0x3ac031da

Device Boot Start End Blocks Id System
/dev/sda1 * 1 4571 36712448 7 HPFS/NTFS
/dev/sda2 4572 172087 1345572270 5 Extended
/dev/sda3 172088 176792 37792912+ 83 Linux
/dev/sda4 176793 182401 45054292+ 83 Linux
/dev/sda5 4572 100182 767995326 7 HPFS/NTFS
/dev/sda6 100183 118029 143355996 7 HPFS/NTFS
/dev/sda7 119305 124276 39937558+ 7 HPFS/NTFS
/dev/sda8 124277 128124 30909028+ 7 HPFS/NTFS
/dev/sda9 128762 131948 25599546 83 Linux
/dev/sda10 131949 135833 31206231 83 Linux
/dev/sda11 170804 172087 10313698+ 82 Linux swap / Solaris
/dev/sda12 135834 139721 31230328+ 83 Linux

Partition table entries are not in disk order

Disk /dev/dm-0: 3221 MB, 3221225472 bytes
255 heads, 63 sectors/track, 391 cylinders
Units = cylinders of 16065 * 512 = 8225280 bytes
Disk identifier: 0x00000000
Disk /dev/dm-0 doesn't contain a valid partition table

Disk /dev/dm-1: 3221 MB, 3221225472 bytes
255 heads, 63 sectors/track, 391 cylinders
Units = cylinders of 16065 * 512 = 8225280 bytes
Disk identifier: 0x00000000
Disk /dev/dm-1 doesn't contain a valid partition table

[root@localhost liveuser]#

fstab created by Fedora 11 DVD 64 setup :

jer@FIXE:~$ cat /media/Fedora11-64/etc/fstab

#
# /etc/fstab
# Created by anaconda on Mon Nov 9 13:47:23 2009
#

# Accessible filesystems, by reference, are maintained under '/dev/disk'
# See man pages fstab(5), findfs(8), mount(8) and/or vol_id(8) for more info
#
UUID=3e739853-a398-41c5-ba78-a545e3e34303 / ext3 defaults 1 1
UUID=1ab7553b-3344-4e15-a9fe-8e7fe587bfff swap swap defaults 0 0
tmpfs /dev/shm tmpfs defaults 0 0
devpts /dev/pts devpts defaults 0 0
sysfs /sys sysfs defaults 0 0
proc /proc proc defaults 0 0
jer@FIXE:~$

stoat · #2 9th November 2009, 04:50 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Jerem

Everything appears as if Fedora was not able to manage the partition as bootable. May this be caused by the residence of this partition logical (sda12) in the extended partition (sda2) ?

No, Fedora can exist entirely in logical partitions. Mine do. And I boot them with XP using the same method you described. Something else is wrong.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Jerem

I copied the first sector of the partition to a file in the vista partition under Ubuntu 9.10 64bits (sudo dd if=/dev/sda12 of=/media/ACERVista/fedo1264.bin count=1 bs=512) and I added a line (c:\fedo1264.bin="Fedora 11 64 bits on sda12") to the boot.ini file of the Vista partition in order to choose Fedora at boot time. But when I choose Fedora in the Vista boot manager, I get nothing more than a blinking cursor on the black screen.

Something about all of that doesn't make sense. Vista doesn't use boot.ini. Vista uses a BCD store for its boot loader configuration data, and it's not a plain text file that you can edit. The same general concept you described does work with Vista though. You can install Fedora's GRUB in the first sector of the Fedora boot partition, copy that boot sector to a binary file in root directory of the Vista partition, and then use the Vista utility bcedit.exe to create a Vista menu entry that will launch it. But the whole process is not as easy as it is with XP where we can simply edit boot.ini. The free utility EasyBCD is very popular for simplifying that whole thing for configuring the Vista boot loader to boot Fedora (and it doesn't need that binary file step).

So I have to ask...

Did you install Fedora 11 in a single ext3 root partition? Nothing's wrong with that. Just clarifying what you wrote. I did that for my laptop where Fedora 11 replaced Fedora 10 in a single root partition, and I couldn't create a separate boot partition without a lot of partition work.
Did you choose to install Fedora 11's GRUB in the first sector of the boot partition (or in this case /dev/sda12, I guess)? Sorry. Don't be insulted. I had to ask because you didn't say it.
Did you really edit boot.ini and all that Vista talk was a thought error while you typed that? If so then, Fedora should be in your XP menu. And the XP menu is usually in the Vista menu. It's kind of a nested thing, but it's the MS way.

P.S.: I have no suggestions regarding the Anaconda log file and the problems with the original attempt to create the partition in Anaconda.

P.P.S.: Try re-installing GRUB in the first sector of the Fedora boot partition. Sometimes, GRUB is just botched immediately after a new installation. Then repeat your dd and boot.ini steps.

Jerem · #3 9th November 2009, 06:40 PM

Thank you stoat for your useful help.

Quote:

Originally Posted by stoat

Something about all of that doesn't make sense. Vista doesn't use boot.ini. Vista uses a BCD store for its boot loader configuration data, and it's not a plain text file that you can edit. The same general concept you described does work with Vista though. You can install Fedora's GRUB in the first sector of the Fedora boot partition, copy that boot sector to a binary file in root directory of the Vista partition, and then use the Vista utility bcedit.exe to create a Vista menu entry that will launch it. But the whole process is not as easy as it is with XP where we can simply edit boot.ini. The free utility EasyBCD is very popular for simplifying that whole thing for configuring the Vista boot loader to boot Fedora (and it doesn't need that binary file step).

You're completely right. What I explained is a shortcut: in fact I initially ran Easy BCD once to have Vista and XP proposed in the Vista boot menu, but I did not have to use it again after Red Hat and Ubuntu setups, I just had to update boot.ini, as the Vista boot manager adds in its menu the items found in boot.ini. The reason I work this way is that I avoid using Vista, I don't use it, it is there because Acer provided it already installed.

Quote:

Originally Posted by stoat

1. Did you install Fedora 11 in a single ext3 root partition? Nothing's wrong with that. Just clarifying what you wrote. I did that for my laptop where Fedora 11 replaced Fedora 10 in a single root partition, and I couldn't create a separate boot partition without a lot of partition work.

I installed Fedora 11 in a single ext3 logical partition, that I had previously created with GParted LiveCD in the free space of the extended partition of my hard disk, and configured to use the existing swap partition already used by Ubuntu and Red Hat: in Anaconda I just attached these partitions respectively to "/" and "/swap" without modifying anything else.

Quote:

Originally Posted by stoat

2. Did you choose to install Fedora 11's GRUB in the first sector of the boot partition (or in this case /dev/sda12, I guess)? Sorry. Don't be insulted. I had to ask because you didn't say it.

I installed Fedora 11's Grub in the first sector of its own partition, /dev/sda12, not in the boot partition of the disk, as I did before for Red Hat and Ubuntu. I didn't overwrite the mbr, I kept the Vista Boot Loader.

Quote:

Originally Posted by stoat

3. Did you really edit boot.ini and all that Vista talk was a thought error while you typed that? If so then, Fedora should be in your XP menu. And the XP menu is usually in the Vista menu. It's kind of a nested thing, but it's the MS way.

Exactly. Fedora, Ubuntu and Red Hat are in the XP menu, and in the Vista menu, as Vista boot manager nests what it finds in XP's boot.ini.

Quote:

Originally Posted by stoat

P.P.S.: Try re-installing GRUB in the first sector of the Fedora boot partition. Sometimes, GRUB is just botched immediately after a new installation. Then repeat your dd and boot.ini steps.

How may I re-install Grub ? Doesn't it require Fedora to run ? Is there a way to repare it in the DVD or in the Live CD ?

I will try this, and also Fedora12 RC4 (download just finished), many thanks again. I'll keep in touch to tell the results.

stoat · #4 9th November 2009, 10:36 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Jerem

How may I re-install Grub ? Doesn't it require Fedora to run ? Is there a way to repare it in the DVD or in the Live CD ?

Yeah, all of that. There is a variety of ways to do that job. But when there is another GRUB-booted system installed, I like to boot the wounded system with its GRUB. Then, from a terminal in the now running system, I would re-install GRUB in the first sector again.

Reboot and choose Ubuntu.
When you see the Ubuntu boot menu, press "c" to stop it at a grub> prompt.
At the grub> prompt, enter this: configfile (hd0,11)/boot/grub/grub.conf

That should boot Fedora. If it has never booted before, do all of that First Boot stuff until you arrive at your new Fedora 11 desktop. Open a terminal and...

Code:

su
grub-install /dev/sda12

If you get a "No corresponding drive in BIOS" error mesage, then do it again like this:

Code:

grub-install --recheck /dev/sda12

Do your dd step again to make a new binary file and copy to where it goes. Then reboot and try Fedora again from the menu.

If it still doesn't boot, then try one more time but use the GRUB shell in the Fedora terminal. Sometimes the GRUB shell will be successful when grub-install is not (and vice versa)...

Code:

grub
grub> root (hd0,11)
grub> setup (hd0,11)
grub> quit

Try it all again. Make a new binary file if it still doesn't work on the first try.

Jerem · #5 10th November 2009, 11:57 AM

Thank you stoat, I'm on the trail of a limitation of the BIOS, I'll keep you posted.

Jerem · #6 10th November 2009, 12:18 PM

Hi, I tried the following :

1. A setup of Fedora12 RC4 64 bits was worse than the one of Fedora11 as I can't boot any more from the hard disk, ("DISK BOOT FAILURE, INSERT SYSTEM DISK AND PRESS ENTER"). it seems the master boot record was overwritten, though I ordered both Fedora 12 and its grub to install on dev/sda12; fortunately the partition table is ok and I may boot through my Super Grub Disk CD on the previously installed OS (Vista, XP, XP', Ubuntu, Red Hat) ; but not on Fedora whose SGB doesn't propose the partition.

2. Thanks to stoat's advice I tried to boot Fedora under Ubuntu

Quote:

Originally Posted by stoat

At the grub> prompt, enter this: configfile (hd0,11)/boot/grub/grub.conf

That should boot Fedora.

But it answered: Error 18: selected cylinder exceeds maximum supported by BIOS. I got the same message with the same command in the grub under Red Hat.

Now I'm supposing that all this is caused by a boundary beyond which the bios cannot boot. I guess this boundary is at about 1024 GB, as Ubuntu and Red Hat respectively located at 986 GB (sda9), and at 1010 GB (sda10), boot, while Fedora located at 1040 GB (sda12) does not.

This limitation should be consistent with the size of the hard disk originally mounted inside the machine by Acer, a Western Digital 640 GB that I replaced by the current 1500 GB.

I guess I should first check this elucidation by trying a second Ubuntu or Red Hat setup in sda12 - it is expected not to work - and another Fedora 12 RC64 in one of the non allocated spaces 9.77 GB or 4.88 GB -it is expected to work.

If the explanation is proven, I would then
- install fedora's /boot in a separate partition within the first 1024 GB, for instance in the one of 4,88 Go
- or save space in the partitions below and move them to allow Fedora to start before 1024 GB;
- or update my bios with one able to allow boot beyond 1024 GB

Anyway if the loss of the MBR was really caused by the Fedora12 setup beyond the boundary, (I may have done a false move after all, I'll try to reproduce it) it would be great to avoid this situation by at least a warning to the user, I don't know if there is an API to foresee it before it happens, if other distros warn, but there may be people who will install Fedora at the beginning of the free space, beyond the boundary.

I'll keep you aware of these investigations.

markkuk · #7 10th November 2009, 12:48 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Jerem

1. A setup of Fedora12 RC4 64 bits was worse than the one of Fedora11 as I can't boot any more from the hard disk, it seems the master boot record was overwritten, though I ordered both Fedora 12 and its grub to install on dev/sda12; fortunately the partition table is ok and I may boot through my Super Grub Disk CD on the previously installed OS (Vista, XP, XP', Ubuntu, Red Hat) ; but not on Fedora whose SGB doesn't propose the partition.

This looks like the same bug that I met while trying to install F12Beta: https://bugzilla.redhat.com/show_bug.cgi?id=530894
Could you add your experiences as comments to this bug report to help in solving it?

stoat · #8 10th November 2009, 08:32 PM

You can try booting Fedora in /dev/sda12 with Ubuntu's menu.lst. Edit it and add a section for Fedora. Maybe the configfile command will be a simple update-proof way to do it...

Code:

title Fedora
configfile (hd0,11)/boot/grub/grub.conf

It will be a little bit of menu hopping (Vista => XP => Ubuntu => Fedora), but it might work until you figure out some other arrangement.

P.S.: Nevermind. I saw where you already tried that. Sorry.

Jerem · #9 11th November 2009, 12:11 PM

I had Fedora 12 RC4 run, I didn't try Fedora 11 again, I will.

I confirm the problems I had came from a BIOS disk boundary, but are more complicated to resolve and to explain than expected, They may be related to the bug that markkuk met while trying to install F12Beta, and that I will try to help to resolve by adding my experiences, but more investigations are required.

Therefore I will post more precise news later on.

About editing Ubuntu menu.lst, it cannot work as my Ubuntu is 9.10 with GRUB2 (not GRUB) embedded.

Quote:

Originally Posted by stoat

You can try booting Fedora in /dev/sda12 with Ubuntu's menu.lst. Edit it and add a section for Fedora. Maybe the configfile command will be a simple update-proof way to do it...

Code:

title Fedora
configfile (hd0,11)/boot/grub/grub.conf

It will be a little bit of menu hopping (Vista => XP => Ubuntu => Fedora), but it might work until you figure out some other arrangement.

P.S.: Nevermind. I saw where you already tried that. Sorry.

I didn't find menu.lst in my Ubuntu. The following search gave nothing :

Code:

sudo find / -name menu.lst

Nevertheless, I found the grub.cfg by typing :

Code:

sudo find / -name grub.*

Unfortunately, according to its header, it cannot be updated by hand:

Code:

#
# DO NOT EDIT THIS FILE
#
# It is automatically generated by /usr/sbin/grub-mkconfig using templates
# from /etc/grub.d and settings from /etc/default/grub
#

And after having reinstalled Ubuntu 9.10 after Fedora 12 RC4, Ubuntu 9.10 did not create an entry to its grub to switch to Fedora 12 RC4, although it did to Red Hat. But if it is an issue it is relative to Ubuntu, relatively far from the one in this thread, should not it rather be adressed to an Ubuntu's forum ?