Heads-up on First Boot Issues

[ejket]

There's a bug in Anaconda (I found it in x86_64 boot.iso and earlier x86_64 Beta images) that makes any partition it formats unreadable by Grub. The error you get on first boot is Bad File or Directory. There's no way to solve this without reformatting the offending partition. This bug shows up in other distros that use Anaconda (I learned about it while trying to install x86_64 Foresight Linux 2.0.)

The best idea is to prepare your partitions before installing F9.

[premudriy]

Hi! I just hope you've already posted your findings to bugzilla. Thanks!

[marko]

How have so many people installed to x86-64 and not had this problem?
Do you need to fulfill a rare set of circumstances for the bug to happen?

[ejket]

@premudriy: Not yet, I'm new around here and also was hoping for confirmation from someone else ...

@marko: I too am surprised that no one else has reported this problem, so perhaps it's a fluke. Here are some details, though:

* SATA II drives (320GB and 500GB)
* nVidia chipset & disk controller
* GRUB is already installed, so I don't bother letting Anaconda install it again
* I've verified it twice: if Anaconda formats the partition, GRUB can't boot it; if I prepare the partition myself before installation, everything is fine

I've been on a distro-hopping binge, so many distros have come and gone from that partition space; I've only had a problem with FreeBSD and Anaconda (though not the same problem).

Mostly by posting I want to provide a forum search hit that I could have benefitted from over the past several days that I failed to get F9 to boot.

[marko]

GRUB is already installed, so I don't bother letting Anaconda install it again

That might explain something about why it wasn't reported much,
I bet most linux installers just let anaconda re-install
grub, I think I usually do

[Seve]

Originally Posted by ejket

There's a bug in Anaconda (I found it in x86_64 boot.iso and earlier x86_64 Beta images) that makes any partition it formats unreadable by Grub. The error you get on first boot is Bad File or Directory. There's no way to solve this without reformatting the offending partition. This bug shows up in other distros that use Anaconda (I learned about it while trying to install x86_64 Foresight Linux 2.0.)

The best idea is to prepare your partitions before installing F9.

Hello:
If you think it's a bug, then please file it at https://bugzilla.redhat.com/

An aside
I agree with marko and I don't think it is a bug .. at least from what you have posted to this point ? Also, I have not seen the same behaviour here with numerous F9 Beta installs ?

Try re-installing and this time create a /boot parition and install grub there.
Then edit your current [pre-Fedora install] grub and add an entry for Fedora Beta.

e.g.

PHP Code:

title Fedora 9 64 Bit Test 
       configfile (hdX,N)/grub/grub.conf 


Seve

[ejket]

Originally Posted by Seve

I agree with marko and I don't think it is a bug .. at least from what you have posted to this point ? Also, I have not seen the same behaviour here with numerous F9 Beta installs ?

Try re-installing and this time create a /boot parition and install grub there.
Then edit your current [pre-Fedora install] grub and add an entry for Fedora Beta.

Well, of course it was a bug, but F9 is a moving target, so it likely will amount to nothing. I reproduced it a few times, and fixed it twice the same way. I did what you suggested, too, just out of curiosity ... that booted okay, but I think my problem is caused only if you skip installing Grub.

Anyway, I've done enough net installs of F9 (I think it's been at least five) and if no one else is having this problem, I won't bother trying to reproduce it anymore

[martin.sourada]

I've experienced this issue with installing from 20080404 Live snapshot (i686 version)... And I don't think there's anything wrong with the partitions. Just boot to single user (which'll skip the firstboot part) and remove firstboot (will pull system-config-keyboard and anaconda as well). Then the computer boots OK.

I believe this is either cripled init script or init script parser... Didn't have time yet, though, to check bugzilla...

EDIT: It seems like you have a little different issue, since I was having file not found issues, but when starting firstboot service...

[ejket]

Originally Posted by martin.sourada

EDIT: It seems like you have a little different issue, since I was having file not found issues, but when starting firstboot service...

This is the Grub error I got:

2 : Bad file or directory type
    This error is returned if a file requested is not a regular file, but something like
    a symbolic link, directory, or FIFO.

The file requested was of course the kernel.

[backup95]

I have had the same issue as ejket. My setup is similar, I have a very small grub partition (sda1) that I use to chainload various other distros. So I installed F9 including the boot loader to sda12 (or whatever) and anaconda never touches sda1. Then I add a line to chainload grub.conf from sda1 to sda12. But grub on sda1 can't read the partition, gives a bad file error.

I will try to format the partition before installation using Gparted and report back.

This has been reported to bugzilla already (https://bugzilla.redhat.com/show_bug.cgi?id=443289).

[Perpetual]

It's funny because I did not have this issue with Fedora 9 Beta i686 but have had it happen with Foresight. With Foresight, I had to format the partition with gparted then install Foresight without formatting the partition. Otherwise I could not boot into Foresight.

[gamblor01]

I too am having this same problem:

http://forums.fedoraforum.org/showthread.php?t=186908


I am not letting Anaconda install grub because I have Ubuntu installed and it controls booting right now. I'll try the suggested solutions on here to see if they work for me. I sure hope so because I have been fighting with this for about a week now!