How to lose partitions with RH 6.1: a Mini-HOWTO
Howdy All.
Having not installed RH since 5.x and seeing 'Automatic Partitioning'
as an option I mistakenly thought I'd trust it just a little.....
Try it out, give some feedback, do my bit.
Well I thought it must be well tested and safe, RH is a mature product.
Maybe the fact that it was the DEFAULT it couldn't do that much damage.
People can get it just by hitting return too many times too quickly etc etc
Maybe it was the red wine.
Even though it says 'all your linux _installations_ would be deleted'
they didn't mean all linux partitions... just where your previous
linux installations root partition was, it would work out the root
partition possibly using the active bit in the partition table, or lilos
pointers, or just the only primary partition of your first drive.
Either way, I was sure if it was confused after finding multiple linux
partitions, on something so important, it would prompt.. surely?.
Not so.
The next thing you see is root partition being formatted.
Not to worry, it had to pick the right one, it must have been sure.
Its was a bit quick doing it though.....
After that, in my case the next action was to install from the hard
drive data partition where I had the RedHat files... but it can't find
them... hmmm. Try the other partition as maybe the logical partitions had
been swapped. Python error, install fails.
Use RH 5.2 CD to get some useful rescue disks which 6.1 doesn't have.
Use fdisk, look at partition tables, and become just a little "bemused".
Thats a euphemism if you didn't guess. Still can't find our cat.....
What I had:
Device Boot Start End Blocks Id System
/dev/hda1 * 1 66 530113+ b Win95 FAT32
/dev/hda2 67 149 666697+ 83 Linux
/dev/hda3 150 851 5638815 5 Extended
/dev/hda4 852 1027 1413720 83 Linux
/dev/hda5 150 404 2048256 83 Linux
/dev/hdc1 1 16 128488+ 82 Linux swap
linux parts also on /dev/hdb and /dev/hdd.
Now a trivia question, what do you think it would do?
The only primary Linux partition is 650 Meg, choose that
as the root partition, use existing swap on hdc, and leave the rest??
no....
wipe this partition, and create a new one, 74 Meg in size, for _swap_.
Leave the resulting 580 Meg as permanently wasted space on the drive.
Never mind that /dev/hdc1 on the third drive was already swap.....
that just got deleted completely for no apparent reason....
Now the best bit, choose the _logical_ partition /dev/hda5 as place to put
your root partition. Of course, you need two partitions. So delete it
completely. Create a new 24 Meg partition at the start of the resulting
space, format that. Create a new logical partition unformatted, with what
used to be the last 99% of your 2 gig Linux data partition.
Now hunt down all other linux data partitions and swap partitions
on all four drives. e.g. /dev/hdb1 thats also a linux partition that takes
up the whole drive.... we'll just delete 'em all... why not?
There are a several issues in this.... most with obvious
counter-points, of varying degrees of justification.
So my question is... would it be a good idea to:
after someone selects Auto-partitioning, if there is only one
or zero linux partitions in total on all drives... proceed
as normal.
If there is more than one linux partition prompt
the user to see what partitions to wipe out on what drives?
Isn't the possibility of mistakenly wiping out ALL of a users data
on ALL drives worth the effort of an extra menu?
What percentage of users with mutilple partitions on several
drives are going to want all of those partitions destroyed
everytime they upgrade RedHat?
I've used Linux since 0.99 and most of it on the bleeding edge and
I'm used to suffering for that. But for a supposedly mainstream product
I would suggest that being even more brutal than Microsoft on
installation is not a thing to be proud of.
e.g. .. someone who has installed 5.x at his work, then tries 6.1,
installs it in front of his boss, thinks 'Auto-partitioning' sounds
cool and he's heard how user friendly the new install is.
Bye Bye to the 13 gig company database on the second drive.
Impressive.
Think this HOWTO would make the LDP ?? :)
Cheers :) Rod May <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
<[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
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