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Fedora Core 3 installation failed (disk_dos.c:485)

Table of Contents

Symptoms

Fedora Core 3 failed to install with the message:

Bug: Assertion (heads>0) at disk_dos.c:485
in function probe_partition_for_geom() failed.

Cause

In my case this was happened after I have installed FreeBSD. It seems that FreeBSD's installer has changed the logical disk geometry.

Solution

One of the powerfull utilities you can find in Linux is called sfdisk. Quoting from the sfdisk's man page: " sfdisk has four (main) uses: list the size of a partition, list the partitions on a device, check the partitions on a device, and - very dangerous - repartition a device. "

Some simple examples for using sfdisk:

Warning: Be sure to read the man page for sfdisk before usage !

In my case the following procedure has restored the logical disk geometry to normal but in your case it may NOT be the correct one, rendering to useless bits your whole partition table, and your data, of course.

Warning: Be carefull what you are typing !

One typing mistake and ALL YOUR DATA could be lost !

Warning: The example uses /dev/hda !

Replace /dev/hda with your harddisk name.

Next, is the procedure I have used to change the number of heads, in partition table, to 255.

  1. Boot your system from a bootable Linux CD. There are many examples here, a tipical one is a system rescue CD or, why not, a Knoppix distribution.
  2. Dump the partition table in a format suitable for input back in sfdisk: 
    # sfdisk -d /dev/hda > hddPart.out
  3. Because I have got a warning, I have edited the resulting file, hddPart.out, to remove the warning present there.
  4. The I have called sfdisk requesting the change of heads to 255 preserving the partitions as stated in the file hddPart.out: 
    # sfdisk --no-reread -H 255 /dev/hda < hddPart.out
  5. If you have reached this point, keep your fingers crossed and reboot...

History

Copyright and License

This document is copyrighted (c) 2005 by Calin Radoni. Permission is granted to copy and/or distribute this document.

Disclaimer

No liability for the contents of this document can be accepted. Use the concepts, examples and information at your own risk. There may be errors and inaccuracies that could be damaging to your system. Proceed with caution, the author do not take any responsibility.

All copyrights are held by their respective owners, unless specifically noted otherwise. Use of a term in this document should not be regarded as affecting the validity of any trademark or service mark. Naming of particular products or brands should not be seen as endorsements.


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