Bug#572215: debian-insaller: Cannot partition an already file system containing HDD

[Frans Pop <elendil@planet.nl>]

reassign 572215 partman-base
tag 572215 confirmed
thanks

On Tuesday 02 March 2010, Bhasker C V wrote:
>   Take a harddisk and create a file system (say ext3) on the whole disk.
> # mke2fs -j /dev/sdd
> # /dev/sdd is entire device, not just one partition!
> # Proceed anyway? (y,n) y
>
> Now use this disk to install debian. Under the partitioning menu, you do
> not get an option to parition or to intiialize the harddisk. How do I
> install debian on this HDD ?

Interesting. After selecting the disk device in manual partitioning you 
should be given the option to create a new disk label on the disk, but 
that does not work currently.

Reason is that the current "label type" returned by libparted is "loop", 
and there is an exception that disallows creating a new disk label in that 
case to avoid doing so on RAID or LVM devices.

The relevant code is in choose_partition/partition_tree/do_option in 
partman-base:
if [ -z "$id" ]; then
        # ask_user /lib/partman/storage_device "$dev" "$id" || true
        open_dialog GET_LABEL_TYPE
        read_line x
        close_dialog
        # do not try to create partition table on sw RAID device or LVM LV
        if [ "$x" = loop ]; then
                exit 0
        fi

Not sure yet how to distinguish this case, but I do think we should.


As a workaround you can choose "Guided partitioning - use entire disk" and 
then choose the device. This _will_ create a new disk label. After that 
you can do whatever you like again in manual partitioning.

Cheers,
FJP