Trying to use the netinst iso to install Fedora-Server 36 on a new 1T NVME drive. The drive is gpt has currently a 17M Microsoft Reserved partition and the rest of the disk is a single ntfs partition. The system is uefi and currently boots windows and fedora 35 on other drives
intended
/boot 1G
/ 200G
The netinst wants a bios boot partition, and a /boot/efi partition. It keeps getting hung on the Microsoft Reserved partition as a type none. The initial allocation for /boot was 1.86G. Attempted to resize to a 0.86G /boot/efi and a 1G /boot. Could not get the /boot/efi partition recognized for the install to proceed. Could not get the 1G freespace edited to mount as /boot. Could not resize the remainder of the disk for the desired 200G /.
How does one do an install on multiple drve systems?
Am 10.07.2022 um 22:18 schrieb Robert McBroom via users users@lists.fedoraproject.org:
Trying to use the netinst iso to install Fedora-Server 36 on a new 1T NVME drive. The drive is gpt has currently a 17M Microsoft Reserved partition and the rest of the disk is a single ntfs partition. The system is uefi and currently boots windows and fedora 35 on other drives
intended
/boot 1G
/ 200G
The netinst wants a bios boot partition, and a /boot/efi partition.
Wondering about the biosboot partition if it is an uefi system. Did you try with enough free space before you boot net install?
With no free space available it may treat the hardware as newly to install and delete the current content of the hd completely. And maybe struggle with an unknown partition type. With enough free space for installation available, it should ignore the existing partitions.
Dual boot is a bit tricky today. And we assume Server to be the only inhabitant on the system. Co-existence is not a test case.
Did you specifically use the Server net install disk (not another one and then switch to Server as install target).
-- Peter Boy https://fedoraproject.org/wiki/User:Pboy pboy@fedoraproject.org
Timezone: CET (UTC+1) / CEST (UTC+2)
Fedora Server Edition Working Group member Fedora docs team contributor Java developer and enthusiast
On 7/10/22 17:43, Peter Boy wrote:
Am 10.07.2022 um 22:18 schrieb Robert McBroom via users users@lists.fedoraproject.org:
Trying to use the netinst iso to install Fedora-Server 36 on a new 1T NVME drive. The drive is gpt has currently a 17M Microsoft Reserved partition and the rest of the disk is a single ntfs partition. The system is uefi and currently boots windows and fedora 35 on other drives
intended
/boot 1G
/ 200G
The netinst wants a bios boot partition, and a /boot/efi partition.
Wondering about the biosboot partition if it is an uefi system. Did you try with enough free space before you boot net install?
With no free space available it may treat the hardware as newly to install and delete the current content of the hd completely. And maybe struggle with an unknown partition type. With enough free space for installation available, it should ignore the existing partitions.
Dual boot is a bit tricky today. And we assume Server to be the only inhabitant on the system. Co-existence is not a test case.
Did you specifically use the Server net install disk (not another one and then switch to Server as install target).
Setting up the custom install on the drive as described. There was no free space as such since the configuration was to be changed and the existing ntfs partition reconfigured. Trying to set up the configuration gave me an error that it needed a biosboot partition and would not allow the install to continue.
On 7/10/22 17:43, Peter Boy wrote:
Am 10.07.2022 um 22:18 schrieb Robert McBroom via users users@lists.fedoraproject.org:
Trying to use the netinst iso to install Fedora-Server 36 on a new 1T NVME drive. The drive is gpt has currently a 17M Microsoft Reserved partition and the rest of the disk is a single ntfs partition. The system is uefi and currently boots windows and fedora 35 on other drives
intended
/boot 1G
/ 200G
The netinst wants a bios boot partition, and a /boot/efi partition.
Wondering about the biosboot partition if it is an uefi system. Did you try with enough free space before you boot net install?
With no free space available it may treat the hardware as newly to install and delete the current content of the hd completely. And maybe struggle with an unknown partition type. With enough free space for installation available, it should ignore the existing partitions.
Dual boot is a bit tricky today. And we assume Server to be the only inhabitant on the system. Co-existence is not a test case.
Did you specifically use the Server net install disk (not another one and then switch to Server as install target).
It was netinst. In the past I've found the installer for netinst gave me more control over the installation and I could then configure the system as desired. That no longer seems to be the case.
On 2022-07-12 21:03, Robert McBroom via users wrote:
On 7/10/22 17:43, Peter Boy wrote:
Am 10.07.2022 um 22:18 schrieb Robert McBroom via users users@lists.fedoraproject.org:
Trying to use the netinst iso to install Fedora-Server 36 on a new 1T NVME drive. The drive is gpt has currently a 17M Microsoft Reserved partition and the rest of the disk is a single ntfs partition. The system is uefi and currently boots windows and fedora 35 on other drives
intended
/boot 1G
/ 200G
The netinst wants a bios boot partition, and a /boot/efi partition.
Wondering about the biosboot partition if it is an uefi system. Did you try with enough free space before you boot net install?
With no free space available it may treat the hardware as newly to install and delete the current content of the hd completely. And maybe struggle with an unknown partition type. With enough free space for installation available, it should ignore the existing partitions.
Dual boot is a bit tricky today. And we assume Server to be the only inhabitant on the system. Co-existence is not a test case.
Did you specifically use the Server net install disk (not another one and then switch to Server as install target).
It was netinst. In the past I've found the installer for netinst gave me more control over the installation and I could then configure the system as desired. That no longer seems to be the case.
I often use the Everything netinst because it lets me configure things how I want. I haven't had any problems with dual-boot or multiple drives. However, you are doing something that is probably not going to work with the installer. There is no support for having multiple Fedora instances on the same UEFI system. (Besides you seem to also have some other issue regarding UEFI or legacy boot.)
On Wed, 13 Jul 2022 00:03:44 -0400 Robert McBroom via users users@lists.fedoraproject.org wrote:
It was netinst. In the past I've found the installer for netinst gave me more control over the installation and I could then configure the system as desired. That no longer seems to be the case.
Did you go into the custom spoke? I've found that I can do whatever I want there (last time was f35). Usually I use pre-allocated partitions and tell anaconda how to use them and reformat them. But the option to erase and create also exists. I've never tried to shrink a partition, especially on windows, so I don't know if that works from the custom spoke.
On 7/13/22 12:11, stan via users wrote:
On Wed, 13 Jul 2022 00:03:44 -0400 Robert McBroom via users users@lists.fedoraproject.org wrote:
It was netinst. In the past I've found the installer for netinst gave me more control over the installation and I could then configure the system as desired. That no longer seems to be the case.
Did you go into the custom spoke? I've found that I can do whatever I want there (last time was f35). Usually I use pre-allocated partitions and tell anaconda how to use them and reformat them. But the option to erase and create also exists. I've never tried to shrink a partition, especially on windows, so I don't know if that works from the custom spoke. _______________________________________________
Tried custom both the text and gui but all the functions were grayed out. In hindsight had the thought that the problem was the drive was fully allocated. Didn't try custom after creating free space on the drive. The autoinstall worked after creating freespace but would have preferred btrfs instead of lvm2. Resulting configuration
1 microsoft Reserved
2 efi
3 boot
4 lvm pv
5 ntfs
The boot was put first in the bios menu and grub2 picked up the other fedora 35 system and the windows system on the other drives. They boot from the grub menu.
On Thu, 2022-07-14 at 10:00 -0400, Robert McBroom via users wrote:
In hindsight had the thought that the problem was the drive was fully allocated.
That's something that catches a lot of people. They know they have umpteen gigs of unused space on their drive, and think they can install Linux to it. But that unused space is part of an existing partition. The installer looks for unallocated space to install to.
You *can* use pre-existing partitions, but you have to select them manually, and be ready to deal with the consequences if those partitions aren't empty. If you had a spare empty partition, you can use it with less to worry about, you can even change the filesystem on it if you'd prefer something different. You can do that from the installer (or you used to be able to, I haven't tried all the recent installation options). Or you could use a drive prepping tool ahead of the installer (e.g. gparted).
Some tips:
A two-drive PC is very useful. Store your data on one (use it for /home), install the operating system on the other. You can unplug your home drive to preserve it during a new installation that wipes out your previous system drive. It's one of the most personal-stress-free ways to do installations.
Alternatively, a single-drive PC with a very large harddrive can have the harddrive partitioned leaving a large empty partition for the next release to be installed to:
Have the usual boot partitions, a home partition for your files, and two large partitions for the system installations (the current one, and one reserved for the next one). When you install the next one, keep the old one around until you're confident the new one works. Then erase the contents of the old system partition, so it's free for the next installation. I suggest erasing it as soon as you're sure the new install is good. That way you've committed yourself, and you don't have to agonise over erasing it when it's time for the next install in 6 months or a years time.
I dislike new installs over the top of prior installs (upgrade installs), there's so many things that come back to bite you on the bum (ages of yum/dnf computations for it to work out what it's going to do, lingering old files, incompatible old software and configurations). I've found it quicker to import old configurations and data from another drive, program by program, and make sure each works. Than try to unscramble the eggs of an over-the-top upgrade of everything that went haywire. I'd hate to try and deal with a scrambled database.
On 2022-07-14 07:00, Robert McBroom via users wrote:
Tried custom both the text and gui but all the functions were grayed out. In hindsight had the thought that the problem was the drive was fully allocated. Didn't try custom after creating free space on the drive. The autoinstall worked after creating freespace but would have preferred btrfs instead of lvm2. Resulting configuration
I suspect that's because you used the server install. It's the default, but you can easily change that. There's a dropdown box to select which partitioning method you want to use. Change that before clicking the automatic partitioning option.
On 2022-07-10 13:18, Robert McBroom via users wrote:
Trying to use the netinst iso to install Fedora-Server 36 on a new 1T NVME drive. The drive is gpt has currently a 17M Microsoft Reserved partition and the rest of the disk is a single ntfs partition. The system is uefi and currently boots windows and fedora 35 on other drives
intended
/boot 1G
/ 200G
The netinst wants a bios boot partition, and a /boot/efi partition. It keeps getting hung on the Microsoft Reserved partition as a type none. The initial allocation for /boot was 1.86G. Attempted to resize to a 0.86G /boot/efi and a 1G /boot. Could not get the /boot/efi partition recognized for the install to proceed. Could not get the 1G freespace edited to mount as /boot. Could not resize the remainder of the disk for the desired 200G /.
How does one do an install on multiple drve systems?
Multiple drives is not the problem. Your description is a little confusing. You mention multiple drives, but then describe only one? It's not clear. Which drive has the 17M reserved and rest ntfs? The new one? Your initial drive with windows should have an efi partition. That is what you should be assigning to /boot/efi. Anything else should be on the new drive, just delete any existing partitions first. The bios boot partition is strange because that suggests that you're not booting in UEFI mode. Make sure your USB(?) boot is using that mode and not legacy.
On 7/10/22 18:12, Samuel Sieb wrote:
On 2022-07-10 13:18, Robert McBroom via users wrote:
Trying to use the netinst iso to install Fedora-Server 36 on a new 1T NVME drive. The drive is gpt has currently a 17M Microsoft Reserved partition and the rest of the disk is a single ntfs partition. The system is uefi and currently boots windows and fedora 35 on other drives
intended
/boot 1G
/ 200G
The netinst wants a bios boot partition, and a /boot/efi partition. It keeps getting hung on the Microsoft Reserved partition as a type none. The initial allocation for /boot was 1.86G. Attempted to resize to a 0.86G /boot/efi and a 1G /boot. Could not get the /boot/efi partition recognized for the install to proceed. Could not get the 1G freespace edited to mount as /boot. Could not resize the remainder of the disk for the desired 200G /.
How does one do an install on multiple drve systems?
Multiple drives is not the problem. Your description is a little confusing. You mention multiple drives, but then describe only one? It's not clear. Which drive has the 17M reserved and rest ntfs? The new one? Your initial drive with windows should have an efi partition. That is what you should be assigning to /boot/efi. Anything else should be on the new drive, just delete any existing partitions first. The bios boot partition is strange because that suggests that you're not booting in UEFI mode. Make sure your USB(?) boot is using that mode and not legacy.
Specified only the target drive. Intended to be independent of the rest of the system.
Booted from the system boot menu as a uefi usb. Expectation is that it is a uefi boot.
If the efi partition on the windows disk is used what distinguishes the new OS from the existing Fedora 35?
On 2022-07-10 20:33, Robert McBroom via users wrote:
On 7/10/22 18:12, Samuel Sieb wrote:
On 2022-07-10 13:18, Robert McBroom via users wrote:
How does one do an install on multiple drve systems?
Multiple drives is not the problem. Your description is a little confusing. You mention multiple drives, but then describe only one? It's not clear. Which drive has the 17M reserved and rest ntfs? The new one? Your initial drive with windows should have an efi partition. That is what you should be assigning to /boot/efi. Anything else should be on the new drive, just delete any existing partitions first. The bios boot partition is strange because that suggests that you're not booting in UEFI mode. Make sure your USB(?) boot is using that mode and not legacy.
Specified only the target drive. Intended to be independent of the rest of the system.
Did you try letting the installer automatically create the partitions? (It won't actually modify the disk until you start the install.)
Booted from the system boot menu as a uefi usb. Expectation is that it is a uefi boot.
Then it shouldn't be wanting a biosboot partition.
If the efi partition on the windows disk is used what distinguishes the new OS from the existing Fedora 35?
I missed that part. That will be difficult. It will overwrite the UEFI boot entry of the other Fedora.
On 7/11/22 00:09, Samuel Sieb wrote:
On 2022-07-10 20:33, Robert McBroom via users wrote:
On 7/10/22 18:12, Samuel Sieb wrote:
On 2022-07-10 13:18, Robert McBroom via users wrote:
How does one do an install on multiple drve systems?
Multiple drives is not the problem. Your description is a little confusing. You mention multiple drives, but then describe only one? It's not clear. Which drive has the 17M reserved and rest ntfs? The new one? Your initial drive with windows should have an efi partition. That is what you should be assigning to /boot/efi. Anything else should be on the new drive, just delete any existing partitions first. The bios boot partition is strange because that suggests that you're not booting in UEFI mode. Make sure your USB(?) boot is using that mode and not legacy.
Specified only the target drive. Intended to be independent of the rest of the system.
Did you try letting the installer automatically create the partitions? (It won't actually modify the disk until you start the install.)
Booted from the system boot menu as a uefi usb. Expectation is that it is a uefi boot.
Then it shouldn't be wanting a biosboot partition.
If the efi partition on the windows disk is used what distinguishes the new OS from the existing Fedora 35?
I missed that part. That will be difficult. It will overwrite the UEFI boot entry of the other Fedora. _______________________________________________
The installer does not show what it is doing with the drive. Only choice is "begin installation". Had to modify the drive to create some free space. The install then proceeded. Created a /boot/efi partition and /boot partition with the rest of the free space as a lvm2 pv. The system is in a a 16G logical volume. The install of grub2 picked up Windows 10 and the Fedora 35 in grub2.cfg from the other drives. Filesystem is XFS.
Exploring the details.
Samuel Sieb:
I missed that part. That will be difficult. It will overwrite the UEFI boot entry of the other Fedora.
Robert McBroom:
The installer does not show what it is doing with the drive. Only choice is "begin installation". Had to modify the drive to create some free space. The install then proceeded. Created a /boot/efi partition and /boot partition with the rest of the free space as a lvm2 pv. The system is in a a 16G logical volume. The install of grub2 picked up Windows 10 and the Fedora 35 in grub2.cfg from the other drives. Filesystem is XFS.
I thought UEFI was supposed to be an improvement on boot choices, but it seems like the old GRUB that you could easily hand control its configuration was easier to deal with (for multiboot multi-OS PCs).
I get the impression UEFI is only good for one OS installation on the system, perhaps giving you a boot in safe mode or from a re-install partition. But all from one OS that had been developed with those choices in mind.
Maybe we need a UEFI probing program? One that finds all your potential installations, presents you with a list, asks you which you want to put into a boot list, and in what priority, and have it program the UEFI settings for us.
Even on a single-boot system I've had the UEFI boot menu show me confusing choices: Fedora, a whole harddrive, and a particular harddrive partition (neither of the last two said anything more than the hardware details, no clue as to what trying to boot from those choices might do). That was on an installation on a brand new motherboard and blank hard drive, letting the installer run the installation without any customisations.
I've never done a Windows installation on one of them to see if it was any less messy. I haven't installed Windows on anything for about 20 years, except for amusing myself by installing Win98 on an ancient PC to see if it actually worked. That was a trip down headache memory lane.
On 2022-07-13 00:18, Tim via users wrote:
Samuel Sieb:
I missed that part. That will be difficult. It will overwrite the UEFI boot entry of the other Fedora.
Robert McBroom:
The installer does not show what it is doing with the drive. Only choice is "begin installation". Had to modify the drive to create some free space. The install then proceeded. Created a /boot/efi partition and /boot partition with the rest of the free space as a lvm2 pv. The system is in a a 16G logical volume. The install of grub2 picked up Windows 10 and the Fedora 35 in grub2.cfg from the other drives. Filesystem is XFS.
I thought UEFI was supposed to be an improvement on boot choices, but it seems like the old GRUB that you could easily hand control its configuration was easier to deal with (for multiboot multi-OS PCs).
It's a huge improvement for booting in normal cases.
I get the impression UEFI is only good for one OS installation on the system, perhaps giving you a boot in safe mode or from a re-install partition. But all from one OS that had been developed with those choices in mind.
No, the problem is that Fedora installs a boot entry labelled "Fedora" and I think it will either leave or overwrite an existing entry. And if it did add another one, it would be confusing as to which one was which since they have the same label.
You could manually add a new entry with a different label, it's pretty easy.
Hi,
I always use "netinst" and rarely had any problem with disk partition.
This what I do to have a dual boot installation. - Use the Window program to shrink the Win partition - start the installation, chose the HD and click "custom" - I prefer "standard partitions" and "xfs" but that's me - click on create partitions automatically as this create the /boot and /boot/efi if needed - increase the / partitions as F use 15GB (if I have space) - create "swap" if wanted - create "/home" leaving size blank so it uses all the space remaining - done
G
Tim:
I get the impression UEFI is only good for one OS installation on the system, perhaps giving you a boot in safe mode or from a re- install partition. But all from one OS that had been developed with those choices in mind.
Samuel Sieb:
No, the problem is that Fedora installs a boot entry labelled "Fedora" and I think it will either leave or overwrite an existing entry. And if it did add another one, it would be confusing as to which one was which since they have the same label.
You could manually add a new entry with a different label, it's pretty easy.
I did try changing one to say Fedora 34 instead of just Fedora. Calling that "easy" might be a bit of a stretch. It wasn't as straightforward as you might hope (especially since there was more than one entry, I need to remove the wrong one, customise the right one), nor was it well explained.
I also discovered that on a PC with 6 SATA slots, that it was easy to unplug a drive, forget which one it was plugged into, then find that UEFI wants the drive in the same port as before. Even on a system with only one drive plugged in, it couldn't find it, it had to be where it expected it to be.
On Wed, 13 Jul 2022 00:36:41 -0700 Samuel Sieb samuel@sieb.net wrote:
No, the problem is that Fedora installs a boot entry labelled "Fedora" and I think it will either leave or overwrite an existing entry. And if it did add another one, it would be confusing as to which one was which since they have the same label.
You could manually add a new entry with a different label, it's pretty easy.
There are two other alternatives: -systemd-boot allows multiple versions of any operating system from a single efi partition. It has to be a little larger. -If you have more than 1 disk you can put an EFI partition on the other disk and use the BIOS boot menu to switch between the two EFIs as default boot. Obviously not suitable for constant use, but if occasionally another boot is required it isn't too bad. I haven't tried two EFI partitions on the same disk, but that might work also, just by setting one as default in the BIOS.
I haven't tried the different label, I'll have to do some research and experiment.
-
GianPiero Puccioni -
Peter Boy -
Robert McBroom -
Samuel Sieb -
stan -
Tim