More FC3 install problems 'Assertion (heads >0)' Workaround

[Graeme Nichols]

Rick Stevens wrote:

> Graeme Nichols wrote:
>
>> Rick Stevens wrote:
>>
>>> Graeme Nichols wrote:
>>>
>>>> Graeme Nichols wrote:
>>>>
>>>>> Hello Folks, After getting over the media check failures of FC3 I 
>>>>> am now encountering the following error that pops up straight 
>>>>> after selecting the keyboard. It is as follows:
>>>>>
>>>>> BUG
>>>>> Assertion (heads >0) at disk_dos.c:485 in function 
>>>>> probe_partition_for_geom() failed
>>>>> 96
>>>>>
>>>>> BUG
>>>>> Assertion (sectors<=63) at disk_dos.c:490 in function 
>>>>> probe_partition_for_geom() failed
>>>>> 96
>>>>>
>>>>> Clicking on the right button (can't remember what it was labelled 
>>>>> now) resulted in a revolving hourglass cursor and a very long 
>>>>> wait. Clicking on the 'Ignore' button resulted in aborting the 
>>>>> install.
>>>>>
>>>>> I have tried the suggestions in the http://www.fedorafaq.org/
>>>>> website (boot: linux ide=nodma) but no joy.
>>>>>
>>>>> Has anyone come across the same problem? If so, what is the 
>>>>> workaround?
>>>>>
>>>>> My system is P4 3G, 512 Mb RAM, hda 200G (Win XP SP2), hdb 40G 
>>>>> (FC2), Radeon 9800XXL video and the usual hardware. The system is 
>>>>> a Medion (German make/design)
>>>>>
>>>>> TIA
>>>>>
>>>> I hope this may help others who encounter the media test failure 
>>>> and 'Assertion (heads >0)' bug during an upgrade of FC2 to FC3.
>>>>
>>>> The workaround which definitely works (The workaround on the RH 
>>>> site doesn't!) is to boot from your FC2 CD1 and run the media test 
>>>> from there. Once the media check is completed then Ctl +Alt + Del 
>>>> to re-boot the machine and start the upgrade again.
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>> And bypass the media check of FC3's install.  You know the discs are
>>> good by now.
>>>
>>>> When the 'Assertion (heads >0)' bug bites after selecting the 
>>>> keyboard just keep banging away on the 'Cancel' button and the 
>>>> upgrade will continue. The same bug will bite again a little later, 
>>>> just keep banging away on the 'Cancel' button until the upgrade 
>>>> continues and all will be OK.
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>> Yes, that will work.
>>>
>>>> According to bugzilla it is resolved but, probably due to my 
>>>> ignorance, I could not find what the resolution was. HOWEVER.... 
>>>> the bug is caused by the bug-ridden version of PARTED v1.6.15 that 
>>>> comes on the FC3 CDs. ( run PARTED 1.6.15 from the command line as 
>>>> root and you will see what I mean). I would imagine, but I haven't 
>>>> tried it, that if you install the latest version of PARTED before 
>>>> doing the upgrade to FC3 then IF PARTED is run from the HD and not 
>>>> the install FC3 CD1 (I haven't found the PARTED executable on the 
>>>> FC3 CD1) then the bug will not occur
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>> The parted used during installation is buried in the image of the RAM
>>> disk that anaconda installs for its operation.  It does not depend on
>>> the hard drive at all.  anaconda is pretty much self-contained.
>>
>>
>> Hi Rick, so my 'workaround' for parted will not work. Oh well... 
>> pity, but the effort is worth it for FC3.
>
>
> Yup.  Sorry about that.  I'm glad to hear you got it sorted out.  I
> hadn't heard about the problems with parted.  Sounds like it gets
> confused by head counts >15.  Ick!
>
>> I'm working on trying to move from StarOffice 5.2 to OOo-1.1.2 
>> (StarOffice 5.2 will not run with the 2.6.9 kernel) by converting all 
>> my templates and document files but the document conversion does not 
>> work, 'missing file' is the error it throws up. I 'think' the problem 
>> is old 1.1.1 stuff left on the HD. As soon as I get a chance I'll rpm 
>> -e openoffice* and do an rpm -Uvh openoffice* so all the old stuff 
>> will, hopefully, be erased.
>
>
> That's a possibility.  To be honest, I haven't tried conversion of my
> old StarOffice stuff.

Thanks to rpm -q --filesbypkg openoffice.org I managed to locate the 
'setup' file I am instructed to run when I try and convert my files and 
templates but running it doesn't fix anything so I converted all my 
StarOffice 5.2 files and templates on my Windows install of OO and 
copied them all across to the appropriate directories on FC2. Worked 
fine. The question, I guess, is why has FC3 (and FC2 by the way) been 
supplied with a broken OO? I fired up my Lindows CD and my Knoppix CD 
and both the OO versions on them, 1.0 and 1.1 respectively, have the 
document conversion working as expected. Ahhh.. the idiosyncrasies of 
RedHat ...

>
> At the office, I have three machines.  The main machine is "prophead",
> which is quite old (believe it or not a P-III/866 with 512MB) and still
> runs FC1.  I have requested a new machine, but haven't pushed the issue
> so far, but I'm getting to the point that I really need a better machine
> (I develop a LOT of software and it takes forever to compile stuff).
>
> Most of my docs are on prophead with OpenOffice 1.1.0.  It reads the
> stuff I had from StarOffice without too many issues.  When it gets
> replaced and sent to FC3 with OO 1.1.3, I may have problems.  I'll worry
> about that later.

My FC3 only has OO 1.1.2

-- 

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Kind regards,

Graeme.
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May all your PUSHes be POPped.