FC6 -> Fedora 7 upgrade: error enabling swap device

[Hilbert]

I tried upgrading from FC6 to Fedora 7 on my IBM Thinkpad.

The upgrade craps out imemdiately after I choose "upgrade" (as opposed to "install"), with the error message:

Error enabling swap device hda9: No such file or directory
The /etc/fstab on your upgrade partition does not reference a valid swap partition.
Press OK to reboot your system.

Presumably this arises from the hda -> sda renaming, but how do I get it to do what is obviously the right thing, i.e. reinterpret hda9 as sda9?

The "Common issues" webpage
http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Bugs/F7Common mentions something vaguely similar, and says " The work-around to upgrade such systems is to pass the module parameter 'libata.ignore_hpa=1' when booting the installer. For example, when booting the installer cd, boot with: boot: linux libata.ignore_hpa=1"
but the installation DVD never gives you the chance to type in kernel options like that.

[SlowJet]

I think the TAB key or F7 - Other will show the boot line prompt (which you can add the libata.ignore_hpa=1 to the end.
But I don't remember for sure.
Just press each Fn key and read the fine print.

SJ

[Hilbert]

OK, thanks for pointing that out. I pressed TAB and got
vmlinuz initrd=initrd.img
to which I added "libata.ignore_hpa=1", but this had no effect on the outcome. The upgrade still failed saying "Error enabling swap device hda9: No such file or directory".

[SlowJet]

Start up FC6 and
swapoff the /dev/hda9
fdisk to delete hda9

nano the fstab and # the swap mount

Reboot with the f7

at some point Ctl-Atl-F3
fdisk /dev/sda
create sda9 as swap
swapon -s

cleanup fstab to be sda9 after firstboot

SJ

[Seve]

Hello:

Just to add to SlowJet's response.

I would think you would be able to comment out the swap entry in your current fstab, reboot.
Then, upon finishing the upgrade, do a fdisk -l to identify the location / label / name of your swap partition and then just edit your fstab accordingly.
Then as root
swapon -a
then to check
swapon -s

Seve

[Hilbert]

Thank you for the suggestions. Here is what worked for me:

1) Boot FC6. Turn off the swap partition:
swapoff /dev/hda9
Edit /etc/fstab and comment out the /dev/hda9 line.

2) Boot off Fedora 7 DVD, select "upgrade" and proceed.
After the dependency check, when it is waiting for you to click on a button to start the installation, press Ctrl-Alt-F2 to get a bash shell prompt. Check that the swap is still the 9th partition on the hard drive: I ran parted and typed "p" to print the partition table; sure enough it was still the 9th.
Exit from parted and turn on the swap partition using its new name /dev/sda9:
swapon /dev/sda9
Then go back to the graphical install window (Ctrl-Alt-F6) and click on the button to start the install.

As of now the installation is still proceeding, but I assume when it's done I will be able to reinstate the swap partition line in /etc/fstab as suggested by SlowJet.

Thank you!

[105547111]

Correct you will. F7 uses new labeling, the old hda, hdb, etc is gone, everything is now sda, sdb, etc.

[dkoch]

Any reason not to just change the fstab entry from /etc/hda9 to /etc/sda9, shutdown and install? This is what I did and it worked fine. MInd you, if anything goes wrong and you have to reboot FC6, you'll have to use a rescue disk to edit the fstab file and change it back to /etc/hda9. No fdisk or swapoff/swapon required.

[Seve]

Originally Posted by dkoch

Any reason not to just change the fstab entry from /etc/hda9 to /etc/sda9, shutdown and install? This is what I did and it worked fine. MInd you, if anything goes wrong and you have to reboot FC6, you'll have to use a rescue disk to edit the fstab file and change it back to /etc/hda9. No fdisk or swapoff/swapon required.

Hello:
Thankfully several options are available.
I would think just commenting out the swap entry in /etc/fstab is the easiest and safest.
Then just amend the fstab swap entry after the install and swapon -a and you should be good to go.

Seve

[natalie]

So what do you do if you can't get any of these suggestions to work? The official Fedora wiki is of no use what-so-ever. Honestly, I feel like throwing my laptop out of the window and smashing the F7 disc into as many pieces as I possibly can. My other alternative is to move my loyalties to another OS, which is a shame since I've been using FC since the start. I'm at then end of my tether - can anyone please suggest something that stands a chance of working!?

[Hilbert]

Natalie:
I agree it is quite bizarre that this problem, which will presumably be encountered by many (all?) people who upgrade from FC6, wasn't caught and corrected already, and also isn't mentioned in the Fedora 7 "known issues" or other documentation. At a deeper level, the time-honored /dev/hda naming convention wasn't broke, so why "fix" it?

Back to your point: perhaps if you say more specifically what you did and what goes wrong in your install process then people here can help you better.

[natalie]

Hi Hilbert,

Thanks for getting back to me.

I have tried ammending fstab to sdc5, same error (but with sdc5 in the message instead of hdc5).

I have tried both

linux libata.ignore_hap=1 and

libata.igore_hpa=1

before and after the vmlinux initrd=initrd.img at the boot command, but same error.

The swapoff command says that it isn't a valid command.

Oh, and when I try a fresh install it wants to overwrite my windows partition!

So I've had many hours of fun!

Natalie.

[Hilbert]

swapoff is not a valid command? Impossible! Are you logged in as root? It should be in /sbin, which should be in root's path.

[natalie]

Of course I was logged in as root!!

[Hilbert]

Well, is there a "swapoff" in /sbin?

If not, you need to install the "util-linux" package (use "yum install util-linux")