XP Dual Boot problem fix?
You think Fedora eats babies? Find that it’s irresponsible to release code that damages your other partitions?
An anonymous wizard has written: Prevention and Recovery of XP Dual Boot Problems. Read it, breathe it, report back to us if it works. Constructive comments folk – yes, it may sound technical, but good constructive comments will help everyone.
In other news, Jack has made a fairly good stand on the MySQL licensing issues and why FC has yet to bundle it in. Joe Orton too. Don’t say “Novell do it, they’re not stupid” and expect that to stand as an argument – we’d be shipping Mono apps otherwise, too.
Update: lwn picked it up… SuSE 9.1 users are complaining too (KB entry to fix it), as are Mandrake 10 users – they just released their final version, will that eat babies too?
A better solution: Dont install Linux!!!
a prevention that is better than any cure.
Well, this is a well know bug now .. it has been reported since FC2 T1 and nobody had taken any initiative to fix it and trying to blame it on the kernel .. I’ve been using FC1 with the latest kernel 2.6.X and I’ve no problem at all.. am wondering .. if this has to do with the kernel .. why change things that ain’t broken? Why there is a need to have a work around by changing the BIOS value etc? Just couldn’t believe it .. am sticking with FC1 for now .. it tossed by WinXP and I won’t upgrade until the fix (and not workaround) has been identified ..
Ah, WiraOne, this is where you haven’t done enough homework. All 2.6 based distros currently are suffering. Why, you might ask, do we blame the kernel? Because the kernel removed drive geometry handling support, and during installation, anaconda uses parted – parted doesn’t handle all this as well as it should. Previously it had kernel support, nowadays it doesn’t – so its eating up partitions, or so it may seem – its not 100% reproducible either, which makes it harder to debug.
So since userspace is taking control of hard disk geometry, and parted isn’t handling it as well, it breaks. Of course, if you aren’t doing an anaconda install, and are say, yum updating from FC1->FC2 (or in your case running a custom compiled kernel), it will just work and this “bug” won’t bite.
This is confirmed to be a 2.6 kernel issue, read the lkml archives… And remember, it bits every 2.6-based distro out there – Mandrake 10, SuSE 9.1, and so on. It’s not a Fedora isolated problem.
Ah .. get it now .. as long as I don’t run parted/anaconda install using the new kernel .. I’m safe. But as I said, still wondering why the kernel guy change thing that ain’t broken .. and why they don’t relayed/warned the developers (parted) .. well, I didn’t do the homework well until I got bitten. I did a yum upgrade from FC1 to FC2 T2 and I didn’t get this one and I thought hey, it is safe to do a fresh install of FC2 .. and I was too excited (you can tell by the tone when I got to know the FC2 final was avail on bittorrent network last time :) ).
Well, the “kernel guy” made the change because it was a decision made by all – let the kernel do less of handling partition tables, and let a userspace utility do it. They have “warned” the developers of parted, but that aside, time probably didn’t permit such fixtures. Yum upgrading probably would’ve “saved” you, so to speak.
I think its unfair how the majority of the bad press was aimed solely at Fedora Core 2, and hardly touched upon Mandrake or Suse.
it shows something positive: FC2 is getting all the attention :)
Fedora Core 2 and SuSE 9.1 eat-up partitions. I have had bad experient with both of them. I have destroyed 5 partitions on three hard disk drives in two PC in one week running Windows XP and SuSE 9.1 Pro(I played with Yast configure the system). I belive the disk subsystem and it utility need a major bug fix, but I like the interface.
Well, this is a well know bug now .. it has been reported since FC2 T1 and nobody had taken any initiative to fix it and trying to blame it on the kernel .. I've been using FC1 with the latest kernel 2.6.X and I've no problem at all.. am wondering .. if this has to do with the kernel .. why change things that ain't broken? Why there is a need to have a work around by changing the BIOS value etc? Just couldn't believe it .. am sticking with FC1 for now .. it tossed by WinXP and I won't upgrade until the fix (and not workaround) has been identified ..