recover from a bad F16 install

[Paul Allen Newell]

On 3/17/2012 10:50 PM, Pete Travis wrote:
>
>
> On Mar 17, 2012 11:37 PM, "T.C. Hollingsworth" 
> <tchollingsworth at gmail.com <mailto:tchollingsworth at gmail.com>> wrote:
> >
> > On Sat, Mar 17, 2012 at 10:03 PM, Paul Allen Newell 
> <pnewell at cs.cmu.edu <mailto:pnewell at cs.cmu.edu>> wrote:
> > > On 3/17/2012 9:52 PM, Ed Greshko wrote:
> > >> On 03/18/2012 12:49 PM, Paul Allen Newell wrote:
> > >>>
> > >>> Though I appreciate the suggestion, I can't get any further 
> progress once
> > >>> I do the
> > >>> install to hard drive option ... its does the same "No usable disks"
> > >>> message (and
> > >>> therefore no option to try anything).
> > >>
> > >> I don't think I ever suggested doing an install to hard drive....
> > >>
> > >> I was suggesting you check out the disk partitions using 
> something like
> > >> parted to see
> > >> how things are set up.  Did you do that?
> > >>
> > >
> > > Ed:
> > >
> > > Oh, I did misread you and I apologize. Since I had never used a 
> Live CD, I
> > > jumped to the faulty conclusion that its install to hard disk was 
> different
> > > than the installation DVD.
> > >
> > > PartedMagic was the one option I asked about in my original email 
> and it
> > > looks like that or the other two suggestions of sysresccd.org 
> <http://sysresccd.org> or fdisc will
> > > keep me busy tomorrow. I don't see parted when I did a which so I 
> figured it
> > > was PartedMagic. I just tried as root on my working system and see 
> it (saved
> > > myself an email about how I have to be root see it). As the 
> memtest86 is
> > > going to go for a long time, I was under the impression that the 
> LiveCD user
> > > doesn't have "root" access to munge with the hard drives et al ... 
> am I
> > > mistaken?
> >
> > Odd, `parted` has been included on every Fedora LiveCD I've ever used.
> >
> > To get root on a LiveCD just open a terminal and run `su -`, no
> > password required.
> >
> > > One good thing is I finally have a Live CD image that works. Every 
> other
> > > time I've tried to create one it has been a horrible failure.
> > >
> > > Paul
> >
> > -T.C.
> > --
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>
> Hey Paul,
>
> I've had anaconda fail to recognize drives due to leftover fake raid 
> metadata, among other things. Try using dd to zero out the first few 
> megs of the drive, assuming you don't need the existing partition 
> table, and see if it helps.
>
> `dd if=/dev/zero of=/dev/sdx bs=512 count=512`
>

Pete:

Thanks for reply. Tried your suggestion and no change to the message. I 
did confirm that the window says "Examining Devices" to clarify an 
earlier question that was asked.

Am in process of downloading and creating CD of systemrescuecd ... but I 
won't try it until tomorrow as I am getting tired and know I will 
probably screw things up even worse if I get "too adventuresome in 
something I am not familiar with"

Paul
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