can't boot fresh install

[Alan Evans]

On Sun, Aug 9, 2009 at 12:23 AM, Howard Wilkinson wrote:
> Alan Evans wrote:
>
> >> Just did a fresh install of F11 on a P4. The SATA hard disk was
> >> repatriated from a broken iMac.
>
> >> 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.
>
> >> 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 selected rescue mode.
>
> >> Rescue mode mounted /dev/sda2 on /mnt/sysimage. I looked and the
> >> install appears intact.
>
> >> 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.
>
> >> At this point, I'm petrified. What can be done to fix this and get
> >> Fedora to boot?
>
>
> > Ok, maybe I'm asking the wrong question...
>
> > 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?

> you are running fdisk on /dev/sda and not /dev/sda2?

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.

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.)

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