Bug 152996 – GTK installer partitioning renumbers existing partitions !!!

• Product: Gentoo Release Media
• Status: RESOLVED CANTFIX

[Description Lubos Soltes 2006-10-27 09:23:02 UTC]

I did experience a problem when the GTK installer after configuring partitions deleted my windows partition and crashed with an error. It complained something about overlaping partitions. Now I know how to recreate the error:

1. creat a primary (or logical) partition at the END of the disk. I had a 10240MB windows partition there, primary. I am still using ATA disk, no SATA.
2. boot the install cd, run installer.
3. in the partitioning step, start creating partitions. NOTICE that the partition number of the LAST (already existing partition) changes. Mine went from hda3 to hda8 when I noticed the behaviour.
4. finish the installation configuration, the installer will crash when partitioning the disk.

In any case it seems the partition configuration tool has some serious problem with already existing partitions when they don't start from the begining of the disk. Or with partitions like NTFS which it does "not know". Having a windows partition at the end of disk and clicking recommended layout, again errors will be displayed.

The GTK installer is a step in the right direction, but seems it needs another year or two to actualy work :)

[Comment 1 Andrew Gaffney (RETIRED) 2006-10-27 09:30:10 UTC]

Why exactly don't you have partitions 1 and 2?

[Comment 2 Lubos Soltes 2006-10-30 21:49:12 UTC]

(In reply to comment #1)
> Why exactly don't you have partitions 1 and 2?
> 

I had them:

hda1: swap
hda2: ubuntu /
free space
hda3: windows

With this scheme, I added one partition (logical) I wanted to use as / for gentoo. The windows partition was deleted by the installer as hda6:

hda1: swap
hda2: ubuntu /
hda5: gentoo /
free space
hda3 -> hda6 windows (relabeled by the installer)

I was wondering why the installer refered to the windows partition as hda6, when it was not hda6. Linux kernel uses 3 primary partitions (hda1,2,3) than hda4 as a container for all the logical ones, and starts logical partitions from hda5 (at least I am used to think like that from the past). However from the bug description this should be obvious. I created hda5 (gentoo /) in front of the windows partition. Seems the installer expects the partitions to go in sequence. That means it labeled the windows partition as hda6.

After this I used ubuntu for a while (like a week) but got fed up with a binary distro. I recreated the windows partition at the end of the disk (result was a complete working copy of windows, all the data was still there) and deleted both partitions at the begining of the disk:

free space
hda3: windows

With the next attempt to install gentoo, I created several partitions: swap, /boot, /, /usr, /home etc (I do not remember which ones). I noticed windows partitions is labeled hda8 (means I created 2 primary and 3 logical partitions). I repeated this 2 more times (I quit the installer without changes). Then wrote this bug report.

I know this is not a "standard" partition layout, but imagine you have 120GB drive, with 3 partitions: windows, games, media (vids, music). You decide to delete the games partition and try out gentoo linux. You'll loose the media partition to the installer.

[Comment 3 Andrew Gaffney (RETIRED) 2006-12-16 19:40:29 UTC]

No actual useful information.