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Obsolete Releases => SME Server 9.x => Topic started by: j_radue on November 23, 2017, 02:45:30 PM

Title: Hard Drive Partitioning During New Install
Post by: j_radue on November 23, 2017, 02:45:30 PM
I am installing SME 9.2 on a brand new server and right off the bat, the installer won't continue because it says I do not have a root partition or a boot/efi partition.  On previous installs this all happened automatically.  What am I doing wrong?
Title: Re: Hard Drive Partitioning During New Install
Post by: ReetP on November 23, 2017, 03:36:21 PM
Type of server/hardware?
Title: Re: Hard Drive Partitioning During New Install
Post by: j_radue on November 23, 2017, 03:49:33 PM
Hi, it is a Dell PowerEdge T30.
Title: Re: Hard Drive Partitioning During New Install
Post by: ReetP on November 23, 2017, 06:27:50 PM
Hi, it is a Dell PowerEdge T30.

And.... ? RAID ? Type, drives, RAM, you know, all the normal stuff :-)

Remember, we aren't sitting in front of the box....

Anyways, to save you all the work of searching for your issue here are a couple of links for starters...

https://duckduckgo.com/?q=centos+6+installer+root+partition+or+a+boot%2Fefi+partition

https://www.centos.org/forums/viewtopic.php?t=4444

https://superuser.com/questions/520068/efi-partition-vs-boot-partition

Suggest the first thing is to do a bit of reading up on UEFI and partitions.
Title: Re: Hard Drive Partitioning During New Install
Post by: j_radue on December 07, 2017, 02:56:10 PM
Thanks for the reply.  I am not an Linux expert.  I know enough to be dangerous.  Anyway, I have SME 9.2 installed now and I offer these thoughts:
1.  My original problem apparently was due to corrupt media.  The UEFI and GPT issue can be avoided by changing to legacy boot in the bios.
2.  Using a flash drive for installation worked, but the installer made the flash drive the primary boot loader which was no good.  Installation from a DVD worked perfectly,
3.  Not sure why the installer does not allow the user to select what drive to be part of the system instead of grabbing all mounted drives.


Thanks again ...
Title: Re: Hard Drive Partitioning During New Install
Post by: Jean-Philippe Pialasse on December 07, 2017, 08:01:34 PM
Thanks for the reply.  I am not an Linux expert.  I know enough to be dangerous. 

that is at least a first step to be less dangerous, acknowledging we are able to be :)


Anyway, I have SME 9.2 installed now and I offer these thoughts:
1.  My original problem apparently was due to corrupt media.  The UEFI and GPT issue can be avoided by changing to legacy boot in the bios.
still frequent issue, could comes from the download, from the iso burning.... did the media test helped in detecting this ?


for the legacy  option this is still the best approach yet with linux to avoid headaches, as long as manufacturer offer it.

2.  Using a flash drive for installation worked, but the installer made the flash drive the primary boot loader which was no good.  Installation from a DVD worked perfectly,

This has been reported multiple times, and few weeks ago I gave it a try and were not able to reproduce. Having a second though I should try a gain, I used old drives to test so there is chance the previous boot loader installation have hidden the issue...

How did you create the flash drive installer ?

3.  Not sure why the installer does not allow the user to select what drive to be part of the system instead of grabbing all mounted drives..

the installer for SME9  uses the  philosophy : keep it simple.
You can however add some options at boot time : https://wiki.contribs.org/Booting
Title: Re: Hard Drive Partitioning During New Install
Post by: j_radue on December 07, 2017, 08:08:35 PM
Quote
still frequent issue, could comes from the download, from the iso burning.... did the media test helped in detecting this ?
Not sure I ran the media check in the installer.  I was originally using the ISOtoUSB utility to burn, it appears to have mixed success.  I believe the ISO was corrupted during download.

Quote
How did you create the flash drive installer ?

I used the Fedora utility mentioned in the wiki.