<!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.01 Transitional//EN"> <html> <head> <meta content="text/html;charset=ISO-8859-1" http-equiv="Content-Type"> </head> <body bgcolor="#ffffff" text="#000000"> Alan, see in-line ... Alan Evans wrote: <blockquote cite="mid:ec0de77f0908090117j6b9d2981yea4610dc1253ca0a@mail.gmail.com" type="cite"> <pre wrap="">On Sun, Aug 9, 2009 at 12:23 AM, Howard Wilkinson wrote: </pre> <blockquote type="cite"> <pre wrap="">Alan Evans wrote: </pre> <blockquote type="cite"> <blockquote type="cite"> <pre wrap="">Just did a fresh install of F11 on a P4. The SATA hard disk was repatriated from a broken iMac. </pre> </blockquote> </blockquote> <blockquote type="cite"> <blockquote type="cite"> <pre wrap="">I didn't have install disks handy, so I downloaded the netinstall image and installed the whole thing over my home DSL. This took nearly a day and a half, and I don't want to repeat that process if I can avoid it. </pre> </blockquote> </blockquote> </blockquote> </blockquote> No install discs so a network install <blockquote cite="mid:ec0de77f0908090117j6b9d2981yea4610dc1253ca0a@mail.gmail.com" type="cite"> <blockquote type="cite"> <blockquote type="cite"> <blockquote type="cite"> <pre wrap="">I instructed anaconda to remove everything and use the whole drive. The installer never complained of any trouble. When I went to reboot, the system refused to recognize the hard drive as bootable. I jacked around with BIOS settings to no avail. Finally, I booted from the install CD and select</pre> </blockquote> </blockquote> </blockquote> </blockquote> Now have an install CD - is this for a different version of Fedora? <blockquote cite="mid:ec0de77f0908090117j6b9d2981yea4610dc1253ca0a@mail.gmail.com" type="cite"> <blockquote type="cite"> <blockquote type="cite"> <blockquote type="cite"> <pre wrap="">ed rescue mode. </pre> </blockquote> </blockquote> <blockquote type="cite"> <blockquote type="cite"> <pre wrap="">Rescue mode mounted /dev/sda2 on /mnt/sysimage. I looked and the install appears intact. </pre> </blockquote> </blockquote> </blockquote> </blockquote> Now I remember seeing something on the anaconda list about scanning discs to find partitions ... not sure what and maybe a Red Herring, but this has changed in the F11/F12 timeframe so you may have got some of this functionality. <blockquote cite="mid:ec0de77f0908090117j6b9d2981yea4610dc1253ca0a@mail.gmail.com" type="cite"> <blockquote type="cite"> <blockquote type="cite"> <blockquote type="cite"> <pre wrap="">I ran fdisk on /dev/sda and it complained, "Device contains neither a valid DOS partition table, nor Sun, SGI or OSF disklabel." And then further down, "Warning: invalid flag 0x0000 of partition table 4 will be corrected by w(rite)." There are no partitions listed when I select "p" to do so. </pre> </blockquote> </blockquote> <blockquote type="cite"> <blockquote type="cite"> <pre wrap="">At this point, I'm petrified. What can be done to fix this and get Fedora to boot? </pre> </blockquote> </blockquote> <pre wrap=""> </pre> </blockquote> </blockquote> There is a utility called kpartx that anaconda now uses (I think now is F11, not the upcoming F12) that can locate partitions - this may help, not sure. <blockquote cite="mid:ec0de77f0908090117j6b9d2981yea4610dc1253ca0a@mail.gmail.com" type="cite"> <blockquote type="cite"> <pre wrap=""></pre> <blockquote type="cite"> <pre wrap="">Ok, maybe I'm asking the wrong question... </pre> </blockquote> <blockquote type="cite"> <pre wrap="">Does anybody have an idea why anaconda/rescue mode can find and mount my root partition on /dev/sda2, but fdisk can't even recognize that my disk has a partition table at all? </pre> </blockquote> </blockquote> <pre wrap=""> </pre> <blockquote type="cite"> <pre wrap="">you are running fdisk on /dev/sda and not /dev/sda2? </pre> </blockquote> <pre wrap=""> Thanks for taking an interest in my plight! I am, indeed, certain that I ran fdisk against the correct device. I've done it several times. Just confirmed it again. </pre> </blockquote> I asked because that is the silly mistake I make about once every 6 months and I stare at it for hours before realising, usually late at night after having spent all day building a system. <blockquote cite="mid:ec0de77f0908090117j6b9d2981yea4610dc1253ca0a@mail.gmail.com" type="cite"> <pre wrap=""> I did miss one thing in my original description. I misread the output from df, which now appears to show /dev/mapper/vg_home-lv_root mounted on /mnt/sysimage and /dev/sda2 is mounted on /mnt/sysimage/boot. So it would appear that my boot partition is sda2. (I didn't choose any special partitioning during install, just accepted the default.) </pre> </blockquote> There must be an sda1 as well, which I had assumed would be your boot partition. So your disc layout is a bit iffy possibly. You may find the problem is that the partition table is OK but boot is too far up the disc. Depends if your fdisk is borked rather than the disc. Try another partition tool from the F11 collection - if you can see the disc under the resuce mode try a chroot and then run the installed fdisk! <blockquote cite="mid:ec0de77f0908090117j6b9d2981yea4610dc1253ca0a@mail.gmail.com" type="cite"> <pre wrap=""> I'm still confused about how anaconda can possibly mount a partition (two, including the boot partition) when fdisk thinks the partition table is invalid. -Alan </pre> </blockquote> Otherwise you are somewhere I have not seen and can't really imagine, so you need someone with more imagination to help. Howard. </body> </html>