Re: moving from FC 5 to FC 8

"Mikkel L. Ellertson" <mikkel@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> · Sun, 03 Feb 2008 13:53:19 -0600

Terry - Fedora Core wrote:
Old computer died. Salvaged hard drive and installed on new computer.

New computer now has 3 hard drives in the following configuration.

  1. sda  - 120 GB - original drive from old computer. Used LVM under
     FC 5. partitions are:          * sda1 ext3 -- the boot partition, 
101.94 MB
         * sda2 ntfs -- the original Windows XP partition, 10 GB
         * sda3 extended -- contains sda5 and sda6, 104.93 B
         * sda5 fat3e2 -- origanilly used to communicate between FC5
           and Windows XP, 10 GB
         * sda6  ext3 I think - all of the original FC 5 directories
           and data, 94.93 GB
  2. sdb - new 500 GB drive with Windows Vista
  3. sdc - new 500 GB drive with Kubuntu Gutsy, 7.10, installed.

Normally the boot priority is:
  1. DVD drive
  2. sda
  3. sdb
  4. sdc

Used the BIOS to alter the boot sequence to:

  1. DVD drive
  2. sdc
  3. sdb
  4. sda

Got a no operating system message. If I make the priority:

It sounds like there is not boot loader on sdc.
  1. DVD drive
  2. sdb
  3. sda
  4. sdc

Then Windows boots - no GRUB.

So I'm pretty sure that the Kubuntu installation left the MBR on sdb 
intact from the Windows installation and upgraded the GRUB installation 
on sda from the FC 5 installation.

Under the Kubuntu Gutsy, 7.10 installation, grub allows me to boot into 
Kubuntu, Windows XP on sda2 and Windows Vista on sdb

Currently sda1 and sda6 are totally unreadable under Kubuntu. sda1 is 
the boot partition so that will remain unreadable. sda6 is under the FC 
5 LVM and so Kubuntu cannot read it.

You should be able to mount sda1, as the boot partition should be an 
ext3 formatted partition.

What I want to do.

I have the Fedora Core 8 DVD and want to upgrade FC 5 on sda above to FC 8.

Also, I would like to delete the LVM during the upgrade.

Have read the Installation instructions and I think the following can be 
done:

  1. upgrade FC 5 installing FC 8 on top of the FC 5 installation on
     sda6 - I think that the FC 8 upgrade will do this automatically -
     TRUE??

     I can boot the FC 8 Live CD, which can read sda6, and back-up all
     data from the FC 5 installation on sda6 to DVD so, I'm not really
     worried about losing anything on sda6.

I would do a backup and a new install, instead of an upgrade. This 
is the easiest way to get rid of LVM. An upgrade will have to use 
the LVM partition as LVM, but a new install can format it to ext3, 
or what ever you want. You will have to manually partition the 
drive, but you can do that during the install.

  2. I think that sda1 is still the boot partition used by the GRUB
     installed by Kubuntu for booting - is there any way to verify this
     more than altering the boot sequence as I did above?

     The file "/boot/grub/menu.lst" on sdc is currently the OS menu
     displayed on boot. The old menu from FC 5 is on the same file on
     sda6.

     Would the FC 5 to FC 8 upgrade maintain the sda1 boot partition
     and just alter it to reflect the FC 8 OS on sda6?

From the way the system boots, Kubuntu installed its Grub first 
stage on the first drive, with stage 1.5 on the third drive. You can 
use grub-install to change that to the MBR of the third drive, and 
chainload to it from the F8 installation. Or you can have F8 install 
Grub to the boot record of sda1 (You /boot partition for F8) and add 
an entry to your Kubuntu menu. Just keep in mind that if you remove 
the third drive, you will break the boot loader if you do this.

Mikkel
--

  Do not meddle in the affairs of dragons,
for thou art crunchy and taste good with Ketchup!

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