preupgrade grub2 failed: now can't boot

[sean darcy]

On 02/08/2012 12:48 PM, Michael Cronenworth wrote:
> Greg Woods wrote:
>> This is the area at the beginning of the disk, before the first
>> partition. Grub2 needs the first partition to start at 2048, but default
>> partition layouts from Grub-1 systems start at 63. I have run into this
>> several times and it is a royal pain. There may be some games you can
>> play with gparted (shrink the partition, then move it), or you can do
>> like I did, which is to dump the first partition, change it to start at
>> 2048 (shrinking it a bit), making a new file system on the new
>> partition, and restoring it.
>
> There is a way to force grub2 to install on systems with small starting
> areas. I have a system with only 64 sectors (0-63) running grub2 just fine.
>
> Yes, preupgrade should catch these cases before doing any work. Since
> I've gone through all the pain on several systems I'm too tired to file
> an RFE.

The more I think about this the more bizarre it is that preupgrade 
doesn't catch this.

Almost all (all?) users of preupgrade are using grub1.

As I understand it, most (all?) grub1 systems have the first partition 
starting at 63.

Any system with a first partition starting at 63 will be bricked if it 
runs preupgrade to F16.

Therefore, most systems using preupgrade to F16 will be bricked.

Am I missing something?

sean