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http://bugzilla.redhat.com/bugzilla/show_bug.cgi?id=116653

(probably easier to read the link then to read the post - I just post it in case the site goes down)

Opened by (andrej) on 2004-02-24 03:19

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Description of problem:
I'm sorry - but I have filed this bug under anaconda simply because I
don't know wether it's a problem of the kernel, anaconda, parted ...
or what else

...anyway, I have(had) a dual boot system (MSwinXP) and
Fedora(FC1stable); I upgraded to FC2-test1; FC2-test1 boots&runs now
without major problems really - while winXP resulted now as being
unbootable - while trying to boot I have a message saying a vital
.dll cannot be found.

- transferring my HDD (a 80GB IDE Seagate, no precise data on model at
the moment) to another winXP-only PC, I tried to check the partition
table with with "partition magic 8.0" - and right at the beginning I
can see that program giving out a warning message about errors in the
partition table (CHS and LBA values reportedly don't match); PM8.0
suggests LBA values are the correct ones.

-anyway, the only way I managed to get (temporarily) the thing to work
right (to boot winXP again) was to copy the content of the active NTFS
partition from my HDD to the other PC's HDD; remove all the partitions
from my HDD; produce a brand-new partition table on it, with a new
NTFS partition marked as active; copy my winXP OS files back to this
partition

...in this way (and with the help of of a winXP boot disk) I managed
to get winXP again up&running

...but as a proof there's more intelligence on Mars that in my
head...I tried again to install FC2-test1...and got basically the same
result again...winXP won't boot - a check with "Partition magic" gives
the same result again.

- if I'm not mistaken, on the first installation "parted" gived out a
warning there was something wrong with the partition table (some kind
of problem it said it should be fixable); subsequently parted gives
out no warning whatsoever.









Version-Release number of selected component (if applicable):


How reproducible:
Always

Steps to Reproduce:
1.install FC2-test1 on a (MSWinXP) dual boot sys
2.try to boot into winXP
3.


Actual Results: winXP won't boot

Additional info:


------- Additional Comment #1 From Erich Hoover on 2004-02-29 15:14 -------

I upgraded from FC1 to the FC2 test and I have no problems accessing
my existing WinXP partition. You should try running some of MS' MBR
check tools if parted gives a partition table warning, they're under
the console recovery option.


------- Additional Comment #2 From andrej on 2004-03-01 14:24 -------

Many thanks indeed, Erich!

you suggestion under #1 did the job; now I have a dual-boot machine
again...

-I'm glad you had no problems whatsoever; however, perhaps it would be
nice to include some words of such a troubleshooting procedure in the
release notes?! - just in case some other user experiences the same
problem (...two times in a row...)
...or perhaps I must suppose the test-forum is the place to do that...


------- Additional Comment #3 From Erich Hoover on 2004-03-01 14:50 -------

Personally, I think that parted should provide more details about the
error and a required "do this to fix it and run parted again".
Especially with disk problems I feel that it is important to not allow
the user to proceed when the operation might damage the system.


------- Additional Comment #4 From Jeremy Katz on 2004-04-12 23:40 -------

*** Bug 116501 has been marked as a duplicate of this bug. ***


------- Additional Comment #5 From Jeremy Katz on 2004-04-12 23:46 -------

Could people who have experienced difficulty with dual-booting between
their FC2 test2 installs and a Windows install of some sort get as
much as possible of the following information for me?

1) The geometry as reported by parted (if you can get from an old FC1
install and an FC2, that would really rule)
2) modprobe edd and then get the values from all of the files in
/sys/firmware/edd/int13_dev80
3) The output of 'geometry (hd0)' from a grub prompt in a running 2.6
kernel
4) The output of 'geometry (hd0)' from a grub prompt when booting from
the BIOS


------- Additional Comment #6 From Gene Czarcinski on 2004-04-13 13:47 -------

I thought there would be more response. Anyway, I am attaching the
results I got from running parted, etc. on FC1 and FC2T2 (kernel-smp
2.6.5-1.319).

I am include info on both hda and hdb since they are identical Maxtor
60GB drives.

I am attaching rather than pasting inline because the text is a bit
lengthy.


------- Additional Comment #7 From Gene Czarcinski on 2004-04-13 13:48 -------

Created an attachment (id=99368)
fdisk and parted info from FC1


------- Additional Comment #8 From Gene Czarcinski on 2004-04-13 13:50 -------

Created an attachment (id=99369)
info from Fc2T2

This includes fdisk, parted, grub under 2.6 kernel and edd info. In addition,
I have added the info I saw from running grub under the bios (which is
different that grub under 2.6 kernel


------- Additional Comment #9 From Jeremy Katz on 2004-04-15 01:02 -------

This should be better with test3. grub had some geometry handling and
I've fixed it up to read from the partition table as well as fixing
the one case where parted would slip up still


------- Additional Comment #10 From Johan Bondeson on 2004-04-15 16:35 -------

May I ask a question?
My machine is set up as a dual-boot with windows on /dev/hda and FC2
on /dev/hdb. hda uses the windows-compatible geometry and hdb uses the
geometry set during FC2 install. The problem is Grub is a bit kinky
about this. I have to use WinXPs native ntloader to boot win and grub
on a boot disk to boot FC2, cause grub can't handle two diffrent
geometrys at the same time, it seems.
First question: Is there a way to make grub handle this?
Second question: If there is'nt, can I change the geometry on hdb
without destroying my FC2 installation?


------- Additional Comment #11 From Jason Montleon on 2004-04-23 15:31 -------

I have an IBM T30 with Windows XP installed on /dev/hda1 with
Partition Magic 8.01, Fedora Core 1 on /dev/hda2 with a swap
partition on /dev/hda3. Fedora Core 2 Test 2 was installed and yum
update'd to Test 3 on /dev/hda4, again using /dev/hda3 as its swap.

I have the Windows XP boot loader installed in the MBR, FC1 has grub
loaded on /dev/hda2 with LBA enabled, and FC2 has grub loaded
on /dev/hda4 with LBA enabled.

I then ran from Windows XP:
bootpart 2 LBA c:linux.bin "Fedora Core 1"
bootpart 4 LBA c:linuxtest.bin "Fedora Core 2"

which makes it possible for me to chain load grub from the
appropriate linux partition and boot into whichever that version of
Fedora Core. I have not had any problems, per se but every time I
enter Partition Magic I am getting the error message:
http://www.montleon.com/pm1.png

If I click no it continues, if I click yes I get these:
http://www.montleon.com/pm2.png
http://www.montleon.com/pm3.png

And from then on when I start PM8 I get this messages:
http://www.montleon.com/pm4.png


These occur whether I create and format the partition with PM8 (but
only after installing FC2), or I create it via Disk Druid and FC2 and
format it during install. I've managed to do some really bad stuff
with selinux that have made it easier to reload about 4 times over
now, and each time I delete and recreate the partition PM8 stops
complaining reinstall FC2. Interestingly enough from its perspective
the partition is also full (http://www.montleon.com/pm5.png) from the
time I reboot from installing FC2 on, even though when I reboot and
log into FC2 and look it's more like 51% full., and I cannot access
it with the tool that also comes with PM8.

This is what it should and does look like for FC1:
http://www.montleon.com/pm6.png
and for FC2:
http://www.montleon.com/pm7.png

I have no idea how much of this is in any way related to what you are
looking at, or if it is a totally separate issue perhaps to do with
PM8 rather than FC2, but it has definately struck me as unusual, but
either way I hope you find this information useful:

'/sbin/parted /dev/hda print' on Fedora Core 1:
[root@jmontleon-note root]# /sbin/parted /dev/hda print
Disk geometry for /dev/hda: 0.000-38154.375 megabytes
Disk label type: msdos
Minor Start End Type Filesystem Flags
1 0.031 22266.562 primary ntfs boot
2 22266.562 29959.453 primary ext3
3 29959.453 30461.484 primary linux-swap
4 30461.484 38154.375 primary ext3
Information: Don't forget to update /etc/fstab, if necessary.

'grub --no-floppy' on Fedora Core
1:

GRUB version 0.93 (640K lower / 3072K upper memory)


[ Minimal BASH-like line editing is supported. For the first word,
TAB
lists possible command completions. Anywhere else TAB lists the
possible
completions of a device/filename.]


grub> geometry (hd0)

drive 0x80: C/H/S = 5168/240/63, The number of sectors =
78140160, /dev/hda
Partition num: 0, Filesystem type unknown, partition type 0x7
Partition num: 1, Filesystem type is ext2fs, partition type 0x83
Partition num: 2, Filesystem type unknown, partition type 0x82
Partition num: 3, Filesystem type is ext2fs, partition type 0x83

geometry (hd0) from grub prompt at boot for FC2:

'modprobe edd' on FC1
I was able to do 'modprobe edd' on Fedora Core 1 but there is no /sys
directory so I've no idea where to grab this information from, or if
it is even available as you were asking for it; if it is somewhere
and you need it I will grab it.

'/sbin/parted /dev/hda print' on Fedora Core 2:
[root@fc2 root]# /sbin/parted /dev/hda print
Disk geometry for /dev/hda: 0.000-38154.375 megabytes
Disk label type: msdos
Minor Start End Type Filesystem Flags
1 0.031 22266.562 primary ntfs boot
2 22266.562 29959.453 primary ext3
3 29959.453 30461.484 primary linux-swap
4 30461.484 38154.375 primary ext3
Information: Don't forget to update /etc/fstab, if necessary.

[root@fc2 root]#

'grub --no-floppy' on Fedora Core 2:
GNU GRUB version 0.94 (640K lower / 3072K upper memory)


[ Minimal BASH-like line editing is supported. For the first word,
TAB
lists possible command completions. Anywhere else TAB lists the
possible completions of a device/filename.]


grub> geometry (hd0)
drive 0x80: C/H/S = 65535/16/63, The number of sectors =
78140160, /dev/hda
Partition num: 0, Filesystem type unknown, partition type 0x7
Partition num: 1, Filesystem type is ext2fs, partition type 0x83
Partition num: 2, Filesystem type unknown, partition type 0x82
Partition num: 3, Filesystem type is ext2fs, partition type 0x83


grub>

The above C/H/S values differ...

'geometry (hd0)' from grub prompt at boot for FC2 (albeit chainloaded
from XP bootloader):
Both FC1 and FC2 report 1023/240/63 when I run 'geometry (hd0)' from
a grub prompt before booting; is 1023 due to the BIOS limitation, and
FC2 differs from what FC1. The only other differentiation is grub
for FC1 reports version 0.93, and 0.94 for FC2. All other numbers
are identical to those above for FC1 and PM8 and bootpart:

http://www.montleon.com/pm8.png

'modprobe edd' on FC2:
[root@fc2 int13_dev80]# ls
default_cylinders extensions interface
legacy_sectors sectors
default_heads host_bus legacy_cylinders
mbr_signature version
default_sectors_per_track info_flags legacy_heads raw_data
[root@fc2 int13_dev80]# cat default_cylinders
0x3fff
[root@fc2 int13_dev80]# cat default_heads
0x10
[root@fc2 int13_dev80]# cat default_sectors_per_track
0x3f
[root@fc2 int13_dev80]# cat extensions
Fixed disk access
Enhanced Disk Drive support
[root@fc2 int13_dev80]# cat host_bus
PCI 00:1f.7 channel: 0
[root@fc2 int13_dev80]# cat info_flags
DMA boundary error transparent
[root@fc2 int13_dev80]# cat interface
ATA device: 0
[root@fc2 int13_dev80]# cat legacy_cylinders
0x3fe
[root@fc2 int13_dev80]# cat legacy_heads
0xef
[root@fc2 int13_dev80]# cat legacy_sectors
0x3f
[root@fc2 int13_dev80]# cat mbr_signature
0x26402640
[root@fc2 int13_dev80]# cat raw_data
J�??S��@ݾ,PCI ATA �[root@fc2 int13_dev80]#
[root@fc2 int13_dev80]# sectors
-bash: sectors: command not found
[root@fc2 int13_dev80]# cat sectors
0x4a85300
[root@fc2 int13_dev80]# cat version
0x30
[root@fc2 int13_dev80]#

'df -kh' on FC2 (just as a comparison to the 100% full PM8 says):
Filesystem Size Used Avail Use% Mounted on
/dev/hda4 7.3G 3.5G 3.5G 51% /
none 126M 0 126M 0% /dev/shm
[root@fc2 /]#


------- Additional Comment #12 From Jason Montleon on 2004-04-28 21:59 -------

This problem is still occuring in Test3. I deleted, recreated, and
formatted the partition ext3. The same problem is occuring, except
that now when viewing it through Partition Magic it shows the real
full/empty space rather than reporting it 100% full. It is also
browseable using the Partition Browser tool that comes with PM8.
Otherwise all the same errors occur, and grub still reports the
incorrect geometry:



GNU GRUB version 0.94 (640K lower / 3072K upper memory)


[ Minimal BASH-like line editing is supported. For the first word, TAB
lists possible command completions. Anywhere else TAB lists the
possible
completions of a device/filename.]


grub> geometry (hd0)
drive 0x80: C/H/S = 65535/16/63, The number of sectors = 78140160,
/dev/hda
Partition num: 0, Filesystem type unknown, partition type 0x7
Partition num: 1, Filesystem type is ext2fs, partition type 0x83
Partition num: 2, Filesystem type unknown, partition type 0x82
Partition num: 3, Filesystem type is ext2fs, partition type 0x83


grub>




------- Additional Comment #13 From Jason Montleon on 2004-04-28 22:01 -------

I should add that PM8 maintained the ability to read the the partition
label for the FC2 partition after installing FC2T3 as well; this was
not the case with Test2.


------- Additional Comment #14 From Anthony DeStefano on 2004-05-17 20:21 -------

Created an attachment (id=100285)
Output from commands on FC2T3

I'll add a me too to the list. My problem was after install FC2T3 onto
/dev/hdc with XP on /dev/hda. My hardware is an Asus A7N8X using onboard
controller, /dev/hda is a 80GB WD, and /dev/hdc is a 17GB Maxtor. I have also
attached the output from the above commands.


------- Additional Comment #15 From Anthony DeStefano on 2004-05-17 20:22 -------

I forgot to mention my work around was to change the BIOS from auto
detection mode and force LBA mode for all disks.


------- Additional Comment #16 From Didier Moens on 2004-05-18 03:35 -------

Same experience with FC2t2, FC2t3 and FC2, with two different disk
geometries (Hitachi HTS726060M9AT00 60 GB and IBM Travelstar
IC25T060ATCS05-0 48 GB) : dual booting with a previously installed
Win2000 resulted in the dreaded "NTLDR is missing".


The only solution which worked for me (as I do not have an
LBA/Autodetect setting in my IBM ThinkPad A30p BIOS) :

1. get a MS WinME Emergency floppy ;
2. boot from floppy, copy A:IO.SYS to
C:WINDOWSCOMMANDEBDWINBOOT.SYS (mandatory for the SYS C: in step 3.) ;
3. SYS C: (this writes an updated disk geometry, which gets
interpreted by Win2000 in step 5.) ;
4. boot from Win2000 installation CD-ROM, go to Recovery Console ;
5. FIXMBR {xyz} (with {xyz} the result of MAP) ;
6. FIXBOOT C:

This allows Win2K to boot again.

7. boot from FC2 installation CD-ROM, "linux rescue"
8. # chroot /mnt/sysimage
9. # grub-install /dev/hda (or go to the grub console and 'install')


Definitely a regression of FC1.

Archived topic from Iceteks, old topic ID:2342, old post ID:19799