WTH! preupgrade just wiped all my partitions!

[miatacarpc]

WTF???!!!!!

I had an F10 system running Mythdora distro (Mythtv on top of F10), and my entire system is now fscked. Everything seemed to go fine - preupgrade ran, all was good, except for getting an error about /boot being too small for the install.img. It let me continue and finish though, so I rebooted into anaconda, made some selections, all defaults. Then it seemed to download an install.img, carried on, then I seem to remember I got some kind of error about anaconda not being present or something, but it started up the GUI.

It started prompting me for root password and hostname, which I thought was odd, but I pressed on. Stupid ass that I am. At the disk partitioning screen, I chose the default "replace existing linux system". I didn't review the partition layout (stupid ass again), and I noticed it said it was creating an LVM volume, which wasn't there before. Then I got some other error about the installer image, I think, and it rebooted... into a grub prompt!

Now, instead of 5 partitions on my primary disk, one of which contained all my Music and DVD collection, I now have 2. One of those is an empty ext3 partition (just a lost+found dir), and the other is an LVM volume. That's it, no kernel images, no packages installed, absolutely fricking nothing. My secondary disk, which had about 450Gb worth of recorded TV, still has one partition, but it too is an LVM volume, part of the same group as partition 2 on my primary disk, which I can't mount from the F12 rescue image.

Thanks a fricking million Fedora, I am serious PO'd right now. How can your upgrade process COMPLETELY WIPE A MACHINE??????!!!!!

FSCK.

Does anyone have any suggestions that might help me recover anything? No, I don't have a good backup (see previous comments re:unintelligent donkey).

[Dan]

I understand your frustration guy, but get a grip on the language.

[SlowJet]

It wiped out your installed upgrade (less a completed /boot) because ...
drumb roll
You did a second install and told it to
drumb roll, bass drubs, lots of dancing around the fire,
cymbals sound ...
"replace existing linux system"

TA-DA

SJ

[miatacarpc]

Originally Posted by Dan

I understand your frustration guy, but get a grip on the language.

I have a fairly solid grip thanks. But I see no reason to be all nicey-nice when such a complete disaster happens.

---------- Post added at 10:05 AM CST ---------- Previous post was at 10:02 AM CST ----------

Originally Posted by SlowJet

It wiped out your installed upgrade (less a completed /boot) because ...
drumb roll
You did a second install and told it to
drumb roll, bass drubs, lots of dancing around the fire,
cymbals sound ...
"replace existing linux system"

TA-DA

SJ

Yes, "replace existing LINUX system". I didn't tell it to completely replace all partitions on all drives, or at least I didn't think I had. WHY OH WHY would an UPGRADE process WIPE ALL PARTITIONS?

Even Windows is better than this when it comes to upgrades. At least they recognize that DATA LOSS IS THE WORST SCENARIO.

[Dan]

Man, I can sure understand, but we're just users helping users here. And human nature, being what it is, nicey-nice will get more help than whackity-whack.

Short answer, I think you're basically screwed here. The dang thing did exactly what you told it to do ... which doesn't really help in light of a bunch of lost data. I think we're down to sadly shaking our heads and offering the advice that backups should be a religion, and offering our sympathy.

Moved to things that make you scream.

[miatacarpc]

Originally Posted by Dan

Man, I can sure understand, but we're just users helping users here. And human nature, being what it is, nicey-nice will get more help than whackity-whack.

Short answer, I think you're basically screwed here. The dang thing did exactly what you told it to do ... which doesn't really help in light of a bunch of lost data. I think we're down to sadly shaking our heads and offering the advice that backups should be a religion, and offering our sympathy.

Moved to things that make you scream.

Huh?

I told it to replace my existing linux system. As a user, I'm thinking, well, I'm doing an upgrade, so of course I want it to "replace my linux system". Saying it "did what you told it to" is only a relevant answer when I know what it is I'm telling it to do.

I can't believe this is being met with a big shrug by both the comments so far. Any wonder people pay for software, geez.

[Dan]

Paul ... we're meeting it with a shrug because if you add up all the things you can do about it now, including voodoo and witchcraft, your entire compliment of solutions is ... ZIP!

Yeah, I've never been any too pleased at the rather cryptic process of manually partitioning in fedora myself, but I long ago learned (way back in Windows98) that automatic anything has consequences, and you fully backup your data when doing anything of this type, and if you've got a data drive with a bunch of irreplaceable stuff on it ... disconnect it before doing any partitioning!

That qualifies as one of those lessons learned the hard way.

EDIT: By the way, if you get mad and decide to switch distros ... be advised that MINT can and will do the same thing ... except it won't inflict LVM on you too.

[SlowJet]

"WTH! preupgrade just wiped all my partitions!"

No, you did not and neither did preupgrade. It failed because of the small boot size, because preupgrade is put into the boot and was there before you started the preupgrade.

"...so I rebooted into anaconda, made some selections, all defaults"

Anaconda is an installer. The only upgrade it does is via a radio button that says, upgrade the installation found on the disk when the iso is a new release.
All disk space is used for the install unless you un chck the disk(s) on the disk screen.
The default uses the whole disk or the freespace or replaces the linux partitions.
That 3 out of 5 install options, the forth is reduce the windows ntfs partition to make room.

The 5th is custom partitioning and is the only way to control what gets used in the install.

You can search on the form for testdisk knoppix.
Someone just did a recovery like this using the Knoppix live - it has testdisk on it.
I converts the data it find into a mountable partition that can be browsed and backed up or copied to another f/s.
The first disk has lost about 3 GB, the second disk about 12 MB.
But that is a lot of data so be moved somewhere.

SJ

[Dan]

Neat trick! I'll try to remember that. <....>

[leigh123linux]

Originally Posted by miatacarpc

WTF???!!!!!

I had an F10 system running Mythdora distro (Mythtv on top of F10), and my entire system is now fscked. Everything seemed to go fine - preupgrade ran, all was good, except for getting an error about /boot being too small for the install.img. It let me continue and finish though, so I rebooted into anaconda, made some selections, all defaults. Then it seemed to download an install.img, carried on, then I seem to remember I got some kind of error about anaconda not being present or something, but it started up the GUI.

It started prompting me for root password and hostname, which I thought was odd, but I pressed on. Stupid ass that I am. At the disk partitioning screen, I chose the default "replace existing linux system". I didn't review the partition layout (stupid ass again), and I noticed it said it was creating an LVM volume, which wasn't there before. Then I got some other error about the installer image, I think, and it rebooted... into a grub prompt!

Now, instead of 5 partitions on my primary disk, one of which contained all my Music and DVD collection, I now have 2. One of those is an empty ext3 partition (just a lost+found dir), and the other is an LVM volume. That's it, no kernel images, no packages installed, absolutely fricking nothing. My secondary disk, which had about 450Gb worth of recorded TV, still has one partition, but it too is an LVM volume, part of the same group as partition 2 on my primary disk, which I can't mount from the F12 rescue image.

Thanks a fricking million Fedora, I am serious PO'd right now. How can your upgrade process COMPLETELY WIPE A MACHINE??????!!!!!

FSCK.

Does anyone have any suggestions that might help me recover anything? No, I don't have a good backup (see previous comments re:unintelligent donkey).

FedoraForum.org is privately owned and is not directly sponsored by the Fedora Project or Red Hat, Inc.


Try communicating directly

http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Communicate

[marcrblevins]

I believe you would get a dialog that its going to wipe your selected partitions. You accepted those as well?

Let us know how the testdisk went for you.

[miatacarpc]

Originally Posted by leigh123linux

FedoraForum.org is privately owned and is not directly sponsored by the Fedora Project or Red Hat, Inc.


Try communicating directly

http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Communicate

I may well do that. Either way, I wasn't directing my comment at fedora forum, I was directing it at FedoraProject/Redhat. I thought that was pretty clear. That said, Iwasn't aware this wasn't an officially sanctioned forum, now I know.

---------- Post added at 09:16 AM CST ---------- Previous post was at 09:08 AM CST ----------

Originally Posted by SlowJet

You can search on the form for testdisk knoppix.
Someone just did a recovery like this using the Knoppix live - it has testdisk on it.
I converts the data it find into a mountable partition that can be browsed and backed up or copied to another f/s.
The first disk has lost about 3 GB, the second disk about 12 MB.
But that is a lot of data so be moved somewhere.

SJ

It works!!!

Thanks for some helpful advice, which is exactly why I came here. I got most of it back, I don't know how much is missing yet, but it looks like I have most of my music and DVDs back at least. The recordings were on an xfs partition, which I have less hope for, but also I'm less attached to that data.

I'm backing up what I recovered right now.

I still think the preupgrade process is retarded for leading me down this path in the first place. At the very minimum it should have asked some clarifying questions up front about "upgrade existing install OR perform fresh install". Yeah, yeah I know, contact Fedora directly, blah, blah.

I wanted to do an upgrade, not a complete reformat, hence "preUPGRADE", or I would have just done a fresh install, wouldn't I?

Thanks again for the tip SlowJet, that's a good one.

[Paulfocused]

By your post it seems like you didn't understand beforehand what you should be doing.

[smr54]

There should probably be more warnings somewhere--in the docs, if nowhere else. Taking a quick look at the docs, it gives little indication of the fact that during the new install, you can treat it as, errm, a new install, including the possibility of wiping out the old install.

One could argue both sides, but the point is that as it says preupgrade, there's an implication for those not used to it, and/or not used to Fedora in general, making the error, especially with the default of replace. As the OP pointed out, it's not completely illogical to think that it means to upgrade.

Poor choice of default, IMAO (a as in arrogant), and one problem is that those of us who are used to Fedora won't even notice that it's a poor choice of default (for preupgrade) as we're so used to it.

[Jake]

Generally speaking, this was user error

There are a few hints such as "How would you like to format your system, would you like to replace existing partitions, customize partitions etc", and the big "are you sure you want to format" button, before it installs. Not quite sure how you missed those.

As for the "boot" space, yeah that seems to be an issue on 200MB /boot partitions. As I found out when I went from F11 to F12, though was easy enough to by-pass, I just ran pre-upgrade, moved the F11 kernels out of /boot, and basically, it had enough room from there on out (Though I've since resized my /boot partition )

But I'm not quite sure how you ended up in the standard Anaconda anyhow, as preupgrade, *should* have created a "kickstart" for the upgrade :|

Anyhow, glad you managed to recover some data