Topic: Manual Partitioning Install

[Geoff Bennion]

I would like to install e-smith onto a compaq server.  
The problem is that compaq's use a system partition area for computer diag's and bios functions.

Is there any way of installing e-smith without allowing it to wipe and create partitions automatically.

Any help much appreciated.

Geoff Bennion

[Des Dougan]

Geoff,

I had the same problem recently with a Dell server. After I'd installed e-smith, I tried to re-implement the diag partition, but I wasn't able to get it to work. It seems (in the Dell case) to be a hidden DOS partition, which blows the Linux MBR, and I found no way of correcting it.


Des Dougan

[Robert Boerner]

Have you checked out this thread?

http://forums.contribs.org/index.php?topic=137.msg493#msg493

Looks like Charlie was looking into it, but I don't know if they figured it out.

[Alejandro]

Maybe it's a craizy idea, but at least is an Idea
If your box supports booting from cd, you can make an image with a minimal booting system and utilities on it, to check your hardware if you need working space you can enable it with a ramdrive or something and you could be able to make the system check.
alejandro

[Bobby]

I don't know how to get e-smith to leave the partition, but I know I've wiped those partitions on Compaqs before & you should be able to download boot disks with those diagnostics on them. The disks I've used also let you recreate the partition, so if you just kept them handy you could put the partition back if you ever remove e-smith.

[Stephen Street]

Is anyone out there from E-Smith.

I have the same issues with new Dell servers (1550 in my case).  E-Smith installs with a fairly simple partition scheme "/, /boot and swap."  A simple Q&A from the user at install time should be able to identify the manufacture partition.  With this info, the E-Smith installer can avoid wiping it out.  What does E-Smith think?

In the mean time, I'm checking out "GNU parted" to resize the E-Smith partition and "/" ext2 filesystem.  If this works I will then re-install the Dell diags partition.  I will post anything I find out.

[Des Dougan]

I tried that on a PE 300 and royally screwed up e-smith. If you get it working, I'd be very interested in a How-To.

Thanks,

Des Dougan

[Eric Womack]

I am working on this also, but for a differant reason.  The auto-partitioning uses the Disk Druid libraries to create the partitions.  Unfortunatly, the array I am using is incompatible with Disk Druid (my ~500gig array shows up as 19gig) but works fine with fdisk.

I have succesfully modified the install script to "drop out" of the automated process to allow me to manually partition with fdisk, then resume with the install.  Unfortunatly, upon reboot instead of the configuration dialog, I get a login prompt that I wont accept the password I gave it.

Let me know how it goes.

Eric

[Fernando]

The compaq  server will work fine witout the managment partition , it's to 7000 series.

[Jason Judge]

Did this problem ever get solved? I would like to install on Compaq servers also but don't want the DOS partition with the diags over-written. Unfortunately it gets zapped when I install E-smith.

Could the E-smith install prompt at install time with a list of partitions to over-write and save?

Jason

[Bart]

>Could the E-smith install prompt at install time with a list of partitions to over-write and save?

Solution: Make your own version of the boot-floppy.

You can find the bootfloppy-image on the e-smith cd itself, in /images/boot.img
Adapt the kickstart config-file (ks.cfg or install.cfg).
It's a dos-formatted floppy, so can be done with any dos-editor on a suitable (second) system.

Clear the section "# partitioning parameters"

Normally this sections contains something like
zerombr yes
clearpart --all
part /boot --size 10
part / --size 1 --grow
part swap --size 256

Ofcourse, after this you'd have to start installation of e-smith from the (boot)floppy, and dismiss using the CD-rom as a boot-device.
Partitioning will then have to be done interactively.

Good luck,
 Bart

[Wildpuss]

Eric,

Check out the work around for the users who installed e-smith from the faulty "Linux Format" magazine CD. It might be academic by now, but it tells you both the root password in that situation and how to revive the console on re-boot.

By the way, how did you alter the script to 'drop out' and resume? I would really like to know.

[Dan Tripp]

I am unable to read the boot images in /images...  

I am able to read other redhat boot images without a problem (using winimage) - the e-smith images will not read.  If I write one to a floppy, I get nothing at all displaying on the target machine, the floppy drive light comes on, goes off and the computer stops.

I can get it to boot with the /images/cdboot.img, but not /images/boot.img...  Is it possible my boot images are "corrupt"?  It would seem unlikey, because if the ISO image I downloaded had some corruption, one would think the whole thing would be trashed (I can read several of the files on the disk, text files - but not the boot images.

The label of the resulting CD from the ISO image appears correct to.