Install fail on writing partition table - SL 5.3 [Solved]

[ReemZ]

Short and sweet: upon writing the partition table to disk Anaconda crashed on me, came up with a nice bugreport which I had to copy-paste into a textfile, as the "Save" button only closed the bugreport but didn't save it in a place I could easily find it (or didn't save it at all, not sure). After this, Back and Next buttons did nothing.

After posting this I'll (try to) reboot back into the installation (SL 5.2) and hope it still works...

Edit: Saved bugreport as plain text, compressed and attached, as well as a few snapshots.

Reported as bug 1515

Solution: download the attached patch (SL53patch.txt), open a terminal, login as root or su to root, then enter

Code: Select all

patch /usr/lib/python2.6/site-packages/pyanaconda/storage/devices.py < /path/to/SL53patch.txt

(Naturally replace /path/to/ with the path to the folder where you saved the patch)
Thén launch the installer and make sure you leave "install grub to" as it is, the MBR.
Running liveinst-update-quick in a terminal did not work for me.

[joost]

You should really use the bugzilla for this.

If you report is 2MB, you might want to use plain/text instead of odt and then compress it.
If correct you can just use your forum login/password at the bugzilla.

[ReemZ]

You should really use the bugzilla for this.

If you report is 2MB, you might want to use plain/text instead of odt and then compress it.
If correct you can just use your forum login/password at the bugzilla.

I'll try bugzilla later mate, always keep mixing things up
About the filesize, sorry I wasn't clear, but the plain text file is 2MB...
By 'compress it' I take it you mean to say that I can actually attach tgz's to posts on the forum?
Cos tbh I dunno what I can or cannot attach anymore...

[ReemZ]

Just tried again (after installing PCLinuxOS and not really liking it...I mean c'mon, no Kontact, even in repos? ) and agáin it failed at the same point.
Gonna try bugzilla and if and when done, edit the original post and put the link there.

[krpasundarananda]

My installation also failed at the same point. Unfortunately it seems it over wrote the partition tables as the computer doesn't seem to have any file system anymore.

I always have back ups before doing these things... this was the first time I have not and this was also the first time things went wrong.

All my mail and 1000s of photo's were on this disk... Very stupid of me... but anyhow, is there a way to recover the partition tables? At least I think that's what went wrong.

Any help is appriciated.

[Fitzcarraldo]

^Dunno. Try Super GRUB2 Disk? You can download the ISO from the Super Grub Disk Web site.

[krpasundarananda]

Thanks Fitzcarraldo,

I will look at the super Grub disk. I already used: EASEUS Data Recovery Wizard Professional 5.0.1 It seemed to have recovered files and partitions. So I think the disaster is mostly over. Now I just have to fix the boot sector so it boots again. I am thinking to reinstall Open Suse as that's what was there before. It should also find my Windows partition and make it bootable.

Bit hesitant to try Sabayon again... It's too serious a bug to play with...

[ReemZ]

lxnay provided a patch, to be found in comment #4 on bug 1515.
Haven't tried it myself as I don't know how to apply patches yet, anyone else experiencing this problem that has applied it, please let me (and lxnay) know if it solved the problem.
As soon as I've learned how to apply patches and succesfully applied this one, I'll edit the original post and mark this as solved.

[Fitzcarraldo]

Reemz, it's straightforward. The basic syntax is for the patch command is:

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# patch file_to_be_patched < patch_file

But the patch is simple in this case so you could perform the edit manually. Looking at the contents of the patch file, you just need to look for the following code at around Line 1340 in the file /usr/lib/python2.6/site-packages/pyanaconda/storage/devices.py

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   self.setupParents(orig=True)
         self.disk.format.removePartition(self.partedPartition)
         self.disk.format.commit()
 
         self.exists = False



and replace it with:

Code: Select all

   self.setupParents(orig=True)
         self.disk.format.removePartition(self.partedPartition)
         try:
             self.disk.format.commit()
         except DiskLabelCommitError:
             # lxnay: catch commit errors here and cross fingers
             pass
 
         self.exists = False



[joost]

If you edit it manually, keep in mind that Python is strict with tabs.
(one extra space and it will "break").