I've installed Debian many times, but this time I'm having an issue.
I've got Windows XP on /dev/hda1, and I have a pre-existing ext3 volume
with data I need on /dev/hdd. But I can't figure out a way to get the
installer to use /dev/hdd as the installation volume. What's the best
way to do this?


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> * From: "John Anthony Kazos Jr." <jakj@j-a-k-j.com>
> I have a pre-existing ext3 volume with data I need on /dev/hdd. But I
> can't figure out a way to get the installer to use /dev/hdd

I do not use debian installer since many years, but I can assure you that
using debootstrap or cdebootstrap form a debian based live cd
(debian-live, grml, knoppix, kanotix, ...) can easily attain this.
Linkname: D.3. Installing Debian GNU/Linux from a Unix/Linux System
URL: http://www.debian.org/releases/stabl...apds03.html.en


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On Sat, Apr 19, 2008 at 12:11:30PM -0400, John Anthony Kazos Jr. wrote:
> I've installed Debian many times, but this time I'm having an issue. I've
> got Windows XP on /dev/hda1, and I have a pre-existing ext3 volume with
> data I need on /dev/hdd. But I can't figure out a way to get the installer

What do you mean by that? hdd would designate a different *drive*. How
is it partitioned?

> to use /dev/hdd as the installation volume. What's the best way to do this?

I use manual partioning where I can choose exactly which partition to
use and how (as /, /var, /home, etc.).

Regards,
Andrei
--
If you can't explain it simply, you don't understand it well enough.
(Albert Einstein)

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Andrei Popescu wrote:
> On Sat, Apr 19, 2008 at 12:11:30PM -0400, John Anthony Kazos Jr. wrote:
>
>> I've installed Debian many times, but this time I'm having an issue. I've
>> got Windows XP on /dev/hda1, and I have a pre-existing ext3 volume with
>> data I need on /dev/hdd. But I can't figure out a way to get the installer
>>
>
> What do you mean by that? hdd would designate a different *drive*. How
> is it partitioned?
>
>
>> to use /dev/hdd as the installation volume. What's the best way to do this?
>>
>
> I use manual partioning where I can choose exactly which partition to
> use and how (as /, /var, /home, etc.).
>
> Regards,
> Andrei
>
I see no need to partition a drive if I'm going to have only one
partition on it, so I just use the entire drive as a volume. It's really
quite normal. Just "mke2fs -j /dev/hdd" and it's ready to go. Gives you
a few more sectors of space and slightly less overhead.

Can't do that with Windows, of course, because it's too stupid to
understand it. Linux has no problem with it, and I've been doing it for
years, but I just don't happen to know how to communicate that to the
installer. Once I get over the little hump of telling the thing to use a
premade volume as the root mount point instead of having to do it
through its partitioner, it'll be smooth sailing.


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On Sat, Apr 19, 2008 at 03:18:14PM -0400, John Anthony Kazos Jr. wrote:

> I see no need to partition a drive if I'm going to have only one partition
> on it, so I just use the entire drive as a volume. It's really quite
> normal. Just "mke2fs -j /dev/hdd" and it's ready to go. Gives you a few
> more sectors of space and slightly less overhead.

Ok

> Can't do that with Windows, of course, because it's too stupid to
> understand it. Linux has no problem with it, and I've been doing it for
> years, but I just don't happen to know how to communicate that to the
> installer. Once I get over the little hump of telling the thing to use a
> premade volume as the root mount point instead of having to do it through
> its partitioner, it'll be smooth sailing.

And what's the problem of using the partitioner? Doesn't it recognize
your volume? If it is possible to avoid that it must be by using
preseeding.

Regards,
Andrei
--
If you can't explain it simply, you don't understand it well enough.
(Albert Einstein)

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Andrei Popescu wrote:
> On Sat, Apr 19, 2008 at 03:18:14PM -0400, John Anthony Kazos Jr. wrote:
>
>
>> I see no need to partition a drive if I'm going to have only one partition
>> on it, so I just use the entire drive as a volume. It's really quite
>> normal. Just "mke2fs -j /dev/hdd" and it's ready to go. Gives you a few
>> more sectors of space and slightly less overhead.
>>
>
> Ok
>
>
>> Can't do that with Windows, of course, because it's too stupid to
>> understand it. Linux has no problem with it, and I've been doing it for
>> years, but I just don't happen to know how to communicate that to the
>> installer. Once I get over the little hump of telling the thing to use a
>> premade volume as the root mount point instead of having to do it through
>> its partitioner, it'll be smooth sailing.
>>
>
> And what's the problem of using the partitioner? Doesn't it recognize
> your volume? If it is possible to avoid that it must be by using
> preseeding.
>
> Regards,
> Andrei
>

When I'm in the partitioner, I can't select "/dev/hdd" to be the "/"
mount point; all it would let me do is clear the partition table. I
cannot skip that step and manually specify the mount point, however,
because the next step, installing the base system, requires the mount
points to have been created and set up by the partitioner.

Now, I haven't looked at the installer sources at all, but it would seem
to me that all I would (theoretically) have to do is do what the
partitioner would do, which is to mount the root drive under its
temporary mount point in the memory-based filesystem, and communicate an
"ok" signal to the next step. Because that's all the paritioner seems to
do: once you've specified all your mount points (and formatted volumes
and such), it just mounts the tree underneath the temporary filesystem
(like "/mnt/install-root" or whatever it actually is).

I can already mkdir+mount /dev/hdd wherever it needs to be. Is there a
way to manually invoke the next step without it complaining that I
haven't partitioned my drives? (We don't want to be inflexible and
predetermined about what our users want, like Windows, you know!)


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On Saturday 19 April 2008, John Anthony Kazos Jr. wrote:
> I've installed Debian many times, but this time I'm having an issue.
> I've got Windows XP on /dev/hda1, and I have a pre-existing ext3 volume
> with data I need on /dev/hdd. But I can't figure out a way to get the
> installer to use /dev/hdd as the installation volume. What's the best
> way to do this?

Choose "manual partitioning" in the first dialog and you can install Debian
basically anywhere and anyhow you want. If needed you can resize your
existing ext3 partition on hdd, or just create/use other partitions there.

You can even select that existing ext3 partition and use it on some
mountpoint (not / obviously) while keeping data if you want.

Just read all dialogs carefully, especially the confirmation dialogs before
changes are committed. See the installation guide for further info.

Be careful when grub gets installed: make sure it is installed on the disk
and MBR or partition you want.

Cheers,
FJP

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Frans Pop wrote:
> On Saturday 19 April 2008, John Anthony Kazos Jr. wrote:
>
>> I've installed Debian many times, but this time I'm having an issue.
>> I've got Windows XP on /dev/hda1, and I have a pre-existing ext3 volume
>> with data I need on /dev/hdd. But I can't figure out a way to get the
>> installer to use /dev/hdd as the installation volume. What's the best
>> way to do this?
>>
>
> Choose "manual partitioning" in the first dialog and you can install Debian
> basically anywhere and anyhow you want. If needed you can resize your
> existing ext3 partition on hdd, or just create/use other partitions there.
>
> You can even select that existing ext3 partition and use it on some
> mountpoint (not / obviously) while keeping data if you want.
>
> Just read all dialogs carefully, especially the confirmation dialogs before
> changes are committed. See the installation guide for further info.
>
> Be careful when grub gets installed: make sure it is installed on the disk
> and MBR or partition you want.
>
> Cheers,
> FJP
>
Yes, but the problem is that the partition is /dev/hdd, not /dev/hdd1.
The partitioner is incapable of recognizing /dev/hdd as an ext3 volume,
and the install base system refuses to proceed without the partitioner
giving the go-ahead. I can mount the filesystem myself just as the
partitioner would, but I have to have a way to communicate to the
install base system step that tells it to proceed anyway.


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On Saturday 19 April 2008 21:18:14 John Anthony Kazos Jr. wrote:
> Andrei Popescu wrote:
> > On Sat, Apr 19, 2008 at 12:11:30PM -0400, John Anthony Kazos Jr. wrote:
> >> I've installed Debian many times, but this time I'm having an issue.
> >> I've got Windows XP on /dev/hda1, and I have a pre-existing ext3 volume
> >> with data I need on /dev/hdd. But I can't figure out a way to get the
> >> installer
> >
> > What do you mean by that? hdd would designate a different *drive*. How
> > is it partitioned?
> >
> >> to use /dev/hdd as the installation volume. What's the best way to do
> >> this?
> >
> > I use manual partioning where I can choose exactly which partition to
> > use and how (as /, /var, /home, etc.).
> >
> > Regards,
> > Andrei
>
> I see no need to partition a drive if I'm going to have only one
> partition on it, so I just use the entire drive as a volume. It's really
> quite normal. Just "mke2fs -j /dev/hdd" and it's ready to go. Gives you
> a few more sectors of space and slightly less overhead.
>
> Can't do that with Windows, of course, because it's too stupid to
> understand it. Linux has no problem with it, and I've been doing it for
> years, but I just don't happen to know how to communicate that to the
> installer. Once I get over the little hump of telling the thing to use a
> premade volume as the root mount point instead of having to do it
> through its partitioner, it'll be smooth sailing.

Well,IMHO you are out of the possibilies of the installer. Linux need a clean
partition to install. If you want to keep data , first use gparted-live,
create a small partion to save you data ( I would save it somewhere else
before!!!) at install time, choose manual, mount your saved partition, here
you are.
Thierry


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No need to CC me; I obviously read the lists (well, one of them anyway).

On Sunday 20 April 2008, John Anthony Kazos Jr. wrote:
> Yes, but the problem is that the partition is /dev/hdd, not /dev/hdd1.

Sounds to me like a mistake was made when the filesystem was created.
It was apparently created by running 'mkfs -t ext3 /dev/hdd' instead of
'mkfs -t ext3 /dev/hdd1', which probably means that the partition table
information was destroyed.

It also means, if you want to keep the existing data on /dev/hdd, that you
cannot "repartition" that device using partman, nor install Debian to that
drive. You'll have to fix the error first by saving your data somewhere,
create a proper partition table and then copy the data back to a partition.

Maybe it is possible to do all this while keeping the data on hdd, but I
would not bet on it and I certainly don't know how.

> The partitioner is incapable of recognizing /dev/hdd as an ext3 volume,
> and the install base system refuses to proceed without the partitioner
> giving the go-ahead.

That is correct. The installer does not support unpartitioned devices, so
you cannot install Debian to /dev/hdd. Installing Debian to it in the
current situation would destroy the existing data and, as you said you
wanted to keep the data, that seems like a bad move.

Cheers,
FJP

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Frans Pop wrote:
> No need to CC me; I obviously read the lists (well, one of them anyway).
>
> On Sunday 20 April 2008, John Anthony Kazos Jr. wrote:
>
>> Yes, but the problem is that the partition is /dev/hdd, not /dev/hdd1.
>>
>
> Sounds to me like a mistake was made when the filesystem was created.
> It was apparently created by running 'mkfs -t ext3 /dev/hdd' instead of
> 'mkfs -t ext3 /dev/hdd1', which probably means that the partition table
> information was destroyed.
>
It's not a mistake to do this. Partitioning a drive means you want to
have it in several pieces. I don't want to have it in several pieces, so
I just use the whole drive. I've been doing this for many years without
the slightest problem or issue anywhere under any circumstances. I've
just never done it with the boot volume before, and I don't see why it
should be any different.
> It also means, if you want to keep the existing data on /dev/hdd, that you
> cannot "repartition" that device using partman, nor install Debian to that
> drive. You'll have to fix the error first by saving your data somewhere,
> create a proper partition table and then copy the data back to a partition.
>
> Maybe it is possible to do all this while keeping the data on hdd, but I
> would not bet on it and I certainly don't know how.
>
>
>> The partitioner is incapable of recognizing /dev/hdd as an ext3 volume,
>> and the install base system refuses to proceed without the partitioner
>> giving the go-ahead.
>>
>
> That is correct. The installer does not support unpartitioned devices, so
> you cannot install Debian to /dev/hdd. Installing Debian to it in the
> current situation would destroy the existing data and, as you said you
> wanted to keep the data, that seems like a bad move.
>
> Cheers,
> FJP
>

Well, I guess I'll just have to deal with it then. I can crack the case
and install another hard drive, install Debian, copy the data -back-
over, and take the drive back out again. Since none of the e2+3fs
utilities for Windows XP are letting me mount the drive either.

It just seems like quite a silly thing, that we can boot to RAID, we can
boot to LVM, we can even boot over the network, but we can't manage to
boot to one cylinder of a disk drive.


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On Sunday 20 April 2008, John Anthony Kazos Jr. wrote:
> It just seems like quite a silly thing, that we can boot to RAID, we can
> boot to LVM, we can even boot over the network, but we can't manage to
> boot to one cylinder of a disk drive.

Feel free to file a wishlist bug report against partman-base with a request
to support this, but I doubt we'll make a priority issue out of it.

Please add some solid rationale why you think it should be sopported.

From your original message I still understand that you don't actually want
to install to hdd, but only use existing data there. What's the reason you
cannot just add it to /etc/fstab after the installation has been completed?

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Frans Pop wrote:
> On Sunday 20 April 2008, John Anthony Kazos Jr. wrote:
>
>> It just seems like quite a silly thing, that we can boot to RAID, we can
>> boot to LVM, we can even boot over the network, but we can't manage to
>> boot to one cylinder of a disk drive.
>>
>
> Feel free to file a wishlist bug report against partman-base with a request
> to support this, but I doubt we'll make a priority issue out of it.
>
> Please add some solid rationale why you think it should be sopported.
>
> From your original message I still understand that you don't actually want
> to install to hdd, but only use existing data there. What's the reason you
> cannot just add it to /etc/fstab after the installation has been completed?
>
I do want to install to /dev/hdd. That one cylinder of space isn't
crucial, so after I get the data off the thing I'll just partition it
and use /dev/hdd1 to save myself the hassle. But I didn't see any reason
this would be an issue when I wiped my old install to put XP on it to
switch to the current release of Debian in the other drive, so all I did
was make a directory and move everything into it, so I could just
install Debian around it.

It's just a matter if principle at this point, since existing tools are
my only option. I doubt many others on the planet would even do this; I
just like to do what's simplest for me, and makes the most sense
logically. Kind of a cleansing ritual against modern commercial
operating systems when I switch back into my GNU stuff.


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On Sun, Apr 20, 2008 at 09:53:13AM -0400, John Anthony Kazos Jr. wrote:
> Frans Pop wrote:
> >The installer does not support unpartitioned devices, so
> >you cannot install Debian to /dev/hdd.

wrong implication: the installer inside debian cd/dvd is NOT the only
officially aknowledged way to install debian. See my previous answer.

> It just seems like quite a silly thing, that we can boot to RAID, we can
> boot to LVM, we can even boot over the network, but we can't manage to
> boot to one cylinder of a disk drive.

debian contains boot loaders which can boot an installation on /dev/hdd
(lilo for sure, but possibly others)

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Informatica=arsenico: minime dosi in rari casi patologici, altrimenti letale.
Informatica=bomba: intelligente solo per gli stupidi che ci credono.


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