Upgrading from FC8 to F12 - please help

[Roberto Ragusa]

Andrew Junev wrote:

>> I apologise for such a messy description. If there's anything I can
>> provide or clarify - let me know how I could do it.
> 
>> I would really appreciate any hints on how to get my system back...
> 
> 
> 
> Update: now while trying to boot to an old FC8, I get an error:
> 
> 
> /sbin/init: error while loading shared libraries: /lib/libsepol.so.1:
> invalid ELF header
> Kernel panic - not syncing: Attempted to kill init!
> 
> 
> Doesn't look good... :-(
> 
> I would prefer to continue with an upgrade to F12 if possible, but I
> don't know how to do it and I'm not sure it is possible at all...

I think the fact that sda and sdb are now 1TB indicates that the
names got changed (extra controller vs motherboard).

I'm not sure about the sda sdb RAID1 configuration.
Is it possible that sometimes you use the couple as a RAID (old Fedora)
and sometimes you use one of them. If the partial upgrade
happened on only one of them the mirror has been broken and
all kinds of problems can happen.

I would suggest you to separate your recovery in steps.
First thing: disconnect your two 1TB drives where you have your data.
Second: try to fix the system when using only the 2 200GB disks.

Losing the system will be bad, losing the data would be worse.

When the system is OK again, you reconnect the data drive
and make them available.

When you have big drives/partitions, it is often a good idea
to remove them from /etc/fstab before upgrading.
Why should the upgrade progress have the filesystem with all
my photos dangerously mounted?

-- 
   Roberto Ragusa    mail at robertoragusa.it