ianacces

Hello,

I'm having a bit of trouble with a custom Fedora 9 install. I've used the install media to do a default install already so I don't think the media are faulty. I usually only do default installs and the subsequent custom install failure is mystifying me.

After the default install, I started a fresh install, wiping all the disks and I tried to do a custom install, where I added a couple of extra partitions /aaaa and /bbbb to the logical volume group that Fedora created with my 4 installed physical drives.

I didn't edit the /boot settings at all, but when I rebooted after the install completed (without showing any errors) the system stalled with the grub prompt and progressed no further. Later I discovered that neither the /boot partition, nor my /aaaa or /bbbb partitions, had been created! Why not!!!?????

After using CD1 rescue disk, I was informed that my file system was mounted on /mnt/sysimage, and looking in that directory, I found /boot and /aaaa and /bbbb and other directories, but if I did ls -l on / none of those 3 directories were present, which is I guess what led to the boot failure.

I realize my explanation might be lacking in places but if anyone can make any suggestions, based on the information I've given, as to where I went wrong, I'd be very grateful.

Very confused,

Ian M

Looking for Linux Hosting? Click Here

khafa

hi,

i think you problem here is LVM. LVM is quite daunting. if you wanna make some custom partitions you can avoid using LVM and make the custom layout as you want it. if you wanna use LVM by all means then you have to tell us exactly how you wanna configure your Volumes(LV, PV, VG etc)

__________________
Linux and me it's a love story

ianacces

khafa

Thanks for the reply

I didn't particularly want to use LVM, but as Fedora had already put the / partition within it, I thought maybe I had to put my /aaaa and /bbbb partition within it too.

I also tried not using the LVM and putting my custom partitions on sdc but that produced the same results of dumping me at the grub prompt, presumably because the installer had not properly installed the /boot partition. I still don't understand why.

I really don't care if I use LVM or not. My only requirement is that I need these 2 custom partitions to be defined during install.

I've never come up against this problem before and I'm still confused,

ianacces

khafa

if you want to create new partitions inside LVM you can create a LV(logical volume). notice that by default LVM creates two LVs(one for / and one for /boot)

i suggest not to use LVM as it is a little bit tricky (even though it is very flexible).
if you decide not to use it then during installation you choose to customize then you delete LVM volumes and create your own partitions the way you like them

__________________
Linux and me it's a love story

ianacces

khafa

Thanks again for the reply.

I tried to create a logical volume but it didn't seem to work: That's when the grub problems started.

Also I thought the 2 LVs that LVM created were for / and for swap. According to Fedora's documentation for Fedora 9, "The boot loader cannot read LVM volumes. You must make a standard, non-LVM disk partition for your /boot partition."

OK, I'll bear that in mind. We're now trying out CentOS 5.2 to see if we encounter the same problems or not.

Thanks

ianacces

khafa

my only system where am using LVM is a Fedora7. and on that machine LVM created two LVs / and /boot as i wrote earlier.

if you want to create some LVs and that fools your grub you can make room in the VG(i mean not using the whole VG for the LVs) , then after installation you can create as many LVs as you want .
if this gets messy you can from the beginning make a small boot partition (just to make grub feel free as you mentioned above) , then the VGs and LVs are yours

__________________
Linux and me it's a love story

ianacces

khafa

Thanks again for persevering with me on this. This post is basically to update my situation for the benefit of anyone else who has a similar problem. We successfully installed CentOS 5.2 (which is, as you probably know, tied closely to RedHat Enterprise Linux) including our custom partitions with *no problems* whatsoever. I can only presume that the Fedora 9 install is a bit kooky ...

Thanks again for your helpful information,

ianacces