Bug 19657

Summary: Mageia 5/4.1 GUI Installer does not format the disc.
Product: Mageia Reporter: Chris Kirsten <krakkeroe>
Component: InstallerAssignee: Mageia tools maintainers <mageiatools>
Status: RESOLVED OLD QA Contact:
Severity: major    
Priority: Normal CC: marja11, pterjan
Version: CauldronKeywords: NEEDINFO
Target Milestone: ---   
Hardware: x86_64   
OS: Linux   
URL: https://forums.mageia.org/en/viewtopic.php?f=7&t=11416
Whiteboard:
Source RPM: CVE:
Status comment:

Description Chris Kirsten 2016-10-26 10:19:57 CEST 
Please read this report with the topic 'Messed up my beautiful Mageia 5 install' under Basic Support.

I installed Mageia 5 directly after letting go of Ubuntu 16.04 LTS after a week of not really getting anywhere.  The very first time I used the installer, I was pleasantly surprised that Mageia will erase and reformat the disc entirely.  I have never opted for anthing else from the word go.  This not the case, but I was left under the impression that the disc was wiped of all previous content. 

@benmc suggested that my BIOS boot image may be damaged.  Followed that lead and got nowhere.  Topic has follow up reports.

Then after that I followed @doktor500's advice to do fdisk -l which revealed the cause of it all.  The disc is still, as I write here, formatted in Ubuntu's DOS format.

I am conversant and comfortable with DOS/UEFI issues.  This laptop was bought in 2013 with a gpt label all along.  Mageia 4 is now installed and works.

I suspect Mageia 5 not being able to install by reason of the incompatibility with the disc's dos formatting.

[root@localhost ~]# fdisk -l

Disk /dev/sda: 931.5 GiB, 1000204886016 bytes, 1953525168 sectors
Units: sectors of 1 * 512 = 512 bytes
Sector size (logical/physical): 512 bytes / 4096 bytes
I/O size (minimum/optimal): 4096 bytes / 4096 bytes
Disklabel type: dos
Disk identifier: 0x00000000

Device    Boot     Start        End    Blocks  Id System
/dev/sda1 *         2048   25189919  12593936  83 Linux
/dev/sda2       25192440 1953520064 964163812+  5 Extended
/dev/sda5       25192448   33367004   4087278+ 82 Linux swap / Solaris
/dev/sda6       33370112 1953520064 960074976+ 83 Linux
Comment 1 Marja Van Waes 2016-10-26 13:26:07 CEST 
The forums thread is here:

https://forums.mageia.org/en/viewtopic.php?f=7&t=11416


In general, for things that go wrong during installation, we need the information that's suggested here:

https://wiki.mageia.org/en/Triage_guide#Installer-related_bugs

(Note the different sections for traditional (=non-Live) and Live installs!)

But I understand the Mageia5 installation was overwritten with a Mageia4 installation, correct?

@pterjan

Is it any use to ask for Mga4 installer logs in this case, even if Mga4 is no longer supported?

URL: (none) => https://forums.mageia.org/en/viewtopic.php?f=7&t=11416
CC: (none) => marja11, pterjan
Assignee: bugsquad => mageiatools

Marja Van Waes 2016-10-26 13:26:45 CEST

Keywords: (none) => NEEDINFO

Comment 2 Marja Van Waes 2021-06-19 17:06:03 CEST 
The requested information wasn't supplied and it's over four years later, closing

Resolution: (none) => OLD
Status: NEW => RESOLVED