On Sun, Aug 9, 2009 at 12:23 AM, Howard Wilkinson wrote: > Alan Evans wrote: > > >> Just did a fresh install of F11 on a P4. The SATA hard disk was > >> repatriated from a broken iMac. > > >> I didn't have install disks handy, so I downloaded the netinstall > >> image and installed the whole thing over my home DSL. This took nearly > >> a day and a half, and I don't want to repeat that process if I can > >> avoid it. > > >> I instructed anaconda to remove everything and use the whole drive. > >> The installer never complained of any trouble. When I went to reboot, > >> the system refused to recognize the hard drive as bootable. I jacked > >> around with BIOS settings to no avail. Finally, I booted from the > >> install CD and selected rescue mode. > > >> Rescue mode mounted /dev/sda2 on /mnt/sysimage. I looked and the > >> install appears intact. > > >> I ran fdisk on /dev/sda and it complained, "Device contains neither a > >> valid DOS partition table, nor Sun, SGI or OSF disklabel." And then > >> further down, "Warning: invalid flag 0x0000 of partition table 4 will > >> be corrected by w(rite)." There are no partitions listed when I select > >> "p" to do so. > > >> At this point, I'm petrified. What can be done to fix this and get > >> Fedora to boot? > > > > Ok, maybe I'm asking the wrong question... > > > Does anybody have an idea why anaconda/rescue mode can find and mount > > my root partition on /dev/sda2, but fdisk can't even recognize that my > > disk has a partition table at all? > you are running fdisk on /dev/sda and not /dev/sda2? Thanks for taking an interest in my plight! I am, indeed, certain that I ran fdisk against the correct device. I've done it several times. Just confirmed it again. I did miss one thing in my original description. I misread the output from df, which now appears to show /dev/mapper/vg_home-lv_root mounted on /mnt/sysimage and /dev/sda2 is mounted on /mnt/sysimage/boot. So it would appear that my boot partition is sda2. (I didn't choose any special partitioning during install, just accepted the default.) I'm still confused about how anaconda can possibly mount a partition (two, including the boot partition) when fdisk thinks the partition table is invalid. -Alan -- fedora-list mailing list fedora-list@xxxxxxxxxx To unsubscribe: https://www.redhat.com/mailman/listinfo/fedora-list Guidelines: http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Communicate/MailingListGuidelines