Unable to align partition

[gplou at centrenad.com]

> -----Message d'origine-----
> De : "For testers of Fedora Core development releases"
<fedora-test-list at redhat.com>
> Envoyé : Sun, March 28, 2004 8:48
> À : fedora-test-list at redhat.com
> Objet : Re: Unable to align partition
>
> On Sunday 28 March 2004 07:48, gplou at centrenad.com wrote:
>> When installing core 2 test 1 the installer tell me about a problem with
>> my partion "Unable to align..." If I ignore it, disk druid show my
>> windows
>> xp disk with some weird cylinder number and partition. Thats fine with
>> me
>> because I want to install to an other disk anyway. When I do that Fedora
>> installation go fine but the installer write that broken partition over
>> the old working one and I endup with my system not booting anymore. I
>> think the installer shouldnt rewrite partition if you are not modifing
>> them.
>>
>> I tought the problem was due to the partition I made from windows XP or
>> something but every other distro I try install fine with no such
>> problem.
>> I got 2 computer with basicly the same setup and both get the error with
>> fedora. Last nigh I gave an other try to it with the development
>> boot.iso
>> and a ftp install to the development tree and the same problem occur
>> again.
>>
>> I did some googleing and search on the list but I couldnt find anyone
>> else
>> with the same problem and playing with my bios setting didnt help. Any
>> idea? thx.
>
> See https://bugzilla.redhat.com/bugzilla/show_bug.cgi?id=113201
>
> Supposedly (comments either in bugzilla or one of these mailing lists) the
> problem is that the 2.6 kernel has changed a few things and also parted
> has
> been changed to not "fixup" things.  The result is that (IMHO) things are
> broken.  OK, what can be done ...
>
> 1. Only use fdisk to do allocations ... with druid, only edit existing
> partitions.
>
> 2.  Never modify a screwed up partition or do an install if the screwed up
> partition is hda or has a swap area. (I have been OK installing to a
> partition on hda and with the screwed up partition on a SATA drive which
> was
> hde on FC2).
>
> 3.  The most likely case (at least for me) is an LBA32 partition which
> comes
> up with native parameters.  This can be "fixed".  Knowing the LBA32
> parameters, you can override at boot time (including the install boot) by
> specifying hdx=cyl,heads,sectors.  For example, for a 120GB drive with
> native
> parameters of 238216,16,63 but LBA32 parameters of 14946,255,63 you would
> specify something like hda=14946,255,63 at boot time.
>
> ----------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> I have seen the broken partition problem occur in two situations:
>
> 1. A 60GB Maxtor on hda was intially partitioned by win2k to install it.
> After that it was partitioned by FC1 (both parted initially and then
> fdisk)
> with no problems.  However, when I tried installed FC2 in a predefined
> partition, it came up "broken"  Interesting is that there is an identical
> 60GB Maxtor drive as hdb and it has a good LBA32 partition.  To install
> FC2Test1, I used the LBA32 override described above.
>
> 2.  The second situation occurred when I installed a 120GB SATA drive on a
> system running FC1.  Under the 2.4 kernel and FC1, this drive is seen as a
> scsi drive and had parameters of 238216,16,63.  When I went to install
> FC2Test1, it reported that the partition table was screwed up.  Since I
> was
> not touching that disk, I ignored this and everything seems to be OK.  On
> FC2
> with the 2.6 kernel, the SATA drive is seen as a ide drive (hde in my
> case).
>
> Hope this helps.
>
> --
> Gene
>

Thanks alot, the hda= things work great. I just finished installing the
march 27 tree.

The broken table is on hda and was created while installing Windows XP in
both computers. 1 as a western digital 80gig and the other one as a maxtor
30gig.

--
Guillaume