Public bug reported:
Binary package hint: debian-installer
Intrepid Alpha 4 (installation CD for x86)
I wanted to re-install (i.e. wipe over) an old installation on my laptop
but keep an old (home) partition. During the installation, I chose
manual partitioning and deleted all but the home-partion to create a new
partition for swap and /.
The first thing that failed was that I didn't get all space used up: the
partition I wanted to keep is at the end of the disk; deleteing all
partitions at the beginning and creating new ones always left some
unused space of about 100MB (= 1 cylinder) between the created
partitions and the (old=new) home-partition.
I continued anyway but subsequent formatting failed, and the installer
sent me back to the partitioning. After some unsuccessful further
attempts, I tried to partition manually with cfdisk. cfdisk complained
about overlapping partitions and wouldn't even start.
Some further attempts with fdisk finally revealed the problem: The swap
partition from the old system (which I wanted to delete) was used by the
installation system. This made a reload of the partition table in the
kernel impossible (so told me fdisk when exiting with "w") and partition
table/kernel information was out of sync.
I suggest that:
1. Installation system does not blindly use partitions marked as "swap" (it was
not even formatted as swap! It seems that the installation system relies on
partition labels and makes swap ignoring actual disk content!).
2. The partitioning program checks very carefully (as fdisk does when issueing
the write command) whether or not a sync with kernel succeeded. It could also
check whether some partitions are in use somehow (=mounted or swap) and
warn/fail/umount/ask user if so.
** Affects: debian-installer (Ubuntu)
Importance: Undecided
Status: New
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Partitioning fails when swap-partition already there
https://bugs.launchpad.net/bugs/263222
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