[rhn-users] unintentional reinstallation of RedHat OS

[Greg Forte]

Wow, that sounds like an awesome idea - a poorly labeled boot menu 
option that reformats your hard drive! ;-)

My guess would be that the option labeled "DOS" booted to a utility 
partition on the hard drive that was placed there by an OEM or a system 
admin.  That partition had the RedHat ISO images on it along with a 
jumpstart configuration (for unattended installation).  This would be a 
convenient and sensible way for an OEM to ship disks, if for some reason 
they didn't want to perform the install at the factory but still wanted 
to make it brainless for the end-user.  Why the installer would leave 
that cryptic "DOS" option in the boot menu is beyond me, though; aside 
from the pitfall you so neatly discovered, it seems like a waste of disk 
space ... though I suppose if you wanted to be able to re-image the 
system then you might want to keep that partition around.

"DOS" is a generic label used by the redhat installer when installig 
grub (The boot loader) for "other partitons that I see something 
installed on but am not sure what it is".  So I'm guessing that's why it 
was called that - whoever designed the jumpstart config didn't think to 
make it either ignore that partition completely or name it something 
more sensible (like "CAUTION - only choose this option if you want your
hard drive wiped!")

cheers

-g

Adam Retchless wrote:
> Hello,
> 
> Today, I had a very strange (even spooky) experience with Red Hat
> Enterprise Linux, Version 3. I would appreciate any comments that would
> illuminate this situation.
> 
> I'll provide some background in a moment, but the core of it was this:
> 
> My colleague was having trouble with the system and tried to reboot it.
> It failed to complete the reboot and he took it into diagnostic mode.
> When I entered, he left diagnostic mode and the system restarted. The
> boot-loader appeared, and offered four choices: three linux kernels and DOS.
> 
> On a whim, I chose "DOS". The system immediately reformatted the hard
> disk and reinstalled Red Hat Linux (thereby loosing important data).
> 
> The spooky thing is that the installation disks were not in the CD
> drive, and this did not look at all like a regular installation (it
> never asked for permission to continue, for one). Another odd thing is
> that Windows had never been installed on this system, so I have no idea
> of where the "DOS" option came from in the boot loader.
> 
> If anyone has any idea why the OS was reinstalled, or why there was a
> "DOS" option on the boot-loader, I would love to know.
> 
> Background:
> 
> The computer initially hung when we tried to install a couple of
> packages from the installation disk. All existing processes continued,
> but it was unable to install the packages and we were unable to shut
> down the installation windows. When we tried to reboot, it would not,
> and we entered into the above situation.
> 
> Any thoughts are appreciated,
> Thanks,
> adam
> 
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