Colin Charles Agenda - Latest Comments in XP Dual Boot problem fix?

Re: XP Dual Boot problem fix?

Chhoy Yam — Sun, 04 Jul 2004 01:21:46 -0000

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.

Re: XP Dual Boot problem fix?

wahlau — Tue, 01 Jun 2004 07:48:17 -0000

it shows something positive: FC2 is getting all the attention :)

Re: XP Dual Boot problem fix?

Gareth Russell — Mon, 31 May 2004 14:18:31 -0000

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.

Re: XP Dual Boot problem fix?

byte — Sun, 30 May 2004 17:40:58 -0000

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.

Re: XP Dual Boot problem fix?

WiraOne — Sun, 30 May 2004 04:07:40 -0000

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 :) ).

Re: XP Dual Boot problem fix?

byte — Sat, 29 May 2004 23:16:45 -0000

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.

Re: XP Dual Boot problem fix?

WiraOne — Sat, 29 May 2004 17:01:57 -0000

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 ..

Re: XP Dual Boot problem fix?

Ruben — Thu, 27 May 2004 09:07:48 -0000

A better solution: Dont install Linux!!!

a prevention that is better than any cure.