Install of Fedora 9 Beta (i386) On USB Disk Fails

[Robert L Cochran]

I attempted to install the Fedora 9 beta (i386 arch) to a 60 Gb Hitachi
laptop drive I had purchased off of Ebay and promptly put in a Nexstar
external USB hard drive enclosure. The Nexstar enclosure was connected
to a powered USB hub which in turn was connected to a Dell Latitude D420
laptop. So this is a long way of saying I was installing Fedora 9 Beta
to an external hard drive, which shows up as /dev/sdb. I attempted to
install Fedora 9 no less than 4 times.

*I ran the media checker, and the DVD passed the media check.

First install attempt:

I selected "install from local CD/DVD", "obtain networking parameters
from DHCP", "remove all partitions on hard drive", "install to
/dev/sdb", "boot from /dev/sdb", encrypt the hard drive=checked,
provided a passphrase for the hard drive encryption, and change the LVM
Volume Group and Logical volume names. At the point where anaconda wants
to write the disk partitions to the install drive, the install process
stops with an unhandled exception condition. I'm not sure how to save
the error report, so I shut down the laptop by holding down the power
button.

Second install attempt:

I set up the install as above, except I noticed after changing the
logical volume names of the install drive that there was a partition
labelled as vfat. This hard drive was purchased off of ebay and I know
it has Windows 98 installed on it. When I finally "saw" the vfat
partition (I should have noticed it earlier in the install process but
didn't) I deleted the partition via anaconda. Then I clicked to allow
anaconda to write the partition layout to the install drive. Result:
installation freezes up, nothing happens. I'm entirely locked up. I hit
the power button again.

Third install attempt:

This time, I deleted the still-living vfat partition from the install
hard drive before changing the LVM Volume Group and Logical Volume
names. Then I clicked to allow anaconda to write the partition layout to
the install drive. Result: installation freezes up, nothing happens. I'm
entirely locked up. I hit the power button again.

Fourth install attempt:

The vfat partition seems gone from the target hard drive. This seems to
make a difference, and the installer is able to write the partition
layout to the install drive. The install proceeds, and 1402 packages are
installed. I take the DVD out of the DVD drive, unplug the DVD drive (it
is an external Dell-branded drive), and boot to the USB drive with F9
installed on it. Grub comes up, the kernel starts to boot...but then it
freezes up at a "switchroot" event. I am puzzled that I wasn't asked for
my passphrase to unlock the hard drive encryption, too.

Is there any way for me to get F9 to boot?

Thanks

Bob Cochran
Greenbelt, Maryland, USA