Bug 150762

Summary:	An error can leave system unusable
Product:	[openSUSE] SUSE Linux 10.1	Reporter:	Vinay Khaitan <vkhaitan>
Component:	Installation	Assignee:	Olaf Dabrunz <odabrunz>
Status:	RESOLVED INVALID	QA Contact:	Klaus Kämpf <kkaempf>
Severity:	Enhancement
Priority:	P5 - None	CC:	suse-beta
Version:	Beta 3
Target Milestone:	---
Hardware:	i686
OS:	Other
Whiteboard:
Found By:	Other	Services Priority:
Business Priority:		Blocker:	---
Marketing QA Status:	---	IT Deployment:	---

Description Vinay Khaitan 2006-02-14 11:46:20 UTC

Suse Installation formats /boot if asked, but it writes bootloader after initial package installation from CD1 .
If there is a powercut, or there is some error after formatting the /boot , it will just leave the system unusable and no bootable parition(e.g. windows) can be booted.

So there is a need to write bootloader before package installation and just after erasing /boot .
Fortunately I was able to recover from error without rebooting the computer. Otherwise, my system could have been unusable totally.
Assuming that Everyone starts installation from CD would be foolish. There are people like me , who likes to install from Harddisk.

Comment 1 Michael Gross 2006-02-14 12:00:13 UTC

There is still a possibility to repair an abborted installation which would also repair the bootloader. And if /boot is getting formatted, it is clear that writing the bootloader makes no sense with no content on this partition, would you agree?

Let's wait for a comment of the module maintainer.

Comment 2 Vinay Khaitan 2006-02-14 12:20:50 UTC

Well, what is the possibility to repair the aborted instllation?
I meant to say that /boot should be written right after its formatting. 
There are two possibilities :-

1. format /boot and write immediately the /boot records .
and if that is not possible (because it requires some packages to be installed before) then
2. format /boot and bootloader just before when it writes bootloader and /boot records(I mean grub).

Comment 3 Michael Gross 2006-02-14 14:29:32 UTC

Olaf? Please provide a comment.

Comment 4 Stefan Fent 2007-05-10 11:49:11 UTC

Both can't be done.
1. as you said, we need quite a few things installed (writing the bootloader is done changerooted after installation)
We might be able to manage this with grub, as its able to read the filesystem, but this won't work with other bootloaders (eg lilo)
2. can't be done because somewhen during installation, the kernel gets installed, and after this we can't format the partition anymore

As it's not required to have such a partition, and with only a '/' partition this entire request is undoable.

(The reasons are valid for all SUSE versions)

I'll close this invalid