On Wed, 17 Aug 2011, Yasha Karant wrote:

> On 08/17/2011 01:35 PM, Connie Sieh wrote:
>> On Wed, 17 Aug 2011, Yasha Karant wrote:
>>
>>> I have to install SL 6.1 on a WD hard drive that uses a larger than 512
>>> block.
>>>
>>> I plan to burn the bootable 4 Gbyte base SL 6.1 installation DVD from an
>>> ISO image.
>>>
>>> 1. On a running 6.1 system that can see the unmounted raw target hard
>>> drive (via eSATA -- but it appears to be a regular SATA drive so far as
>>> the OS is concerned as /dev/sde ) and on which I have a DVD
>>> reader/burner -- can I have anaconda from the DVD install the OS on the
>>
>> Please clarify "and on which I have a DVD reader/burner"
>>
>>> unmounted raw target?
>>
>> The installer does not care about mounted drives as they are not mounted
>> when the installer runs.
>>
>>>
>>> 2. If not, and I have multiple drives that I do not want touched, do I
>>> simply boot the SL 6.1 bootable install DVD and then have anaconda,
>>> etc., ignore all drives but the target one? If this is the case, how do
>>> I do so?
>>
>> There is a option to disable drives but I would not trust it.
>> DO NOT pick autopartitioning . Pick custom and choose wisely.
>>
>>>
>>> 3. Must I force anaconda, etc., to use a larger block size on the
>>> target disk that is a Western Digital Advanced Format Hard Drive or will
>>> this happen automatically?
>>
>> What does TUV documentation have on this topic?
>>
>>>
>>> Yasha Karant
>>>
>>
>> -Connie Sieh
> Connie,
>
> My workstation is running SL 6.1 via the upgrade process from SL 6.0
> except for a kernel from a later release than that used by RHEL 6.1;
> this was necessary to fully support USB 3.
>
> My workstation has a number of hard drives and peripherals:
>
> two  harddrives with ext 2 bootable images of RHEL, one of which is SL
> 6.1 (one of which is EIDE and the other is SATA, but each appears as
> /dev/sdX under SL 6 -- no more /dev/hdX )
>
> one SATA harddrive with NTFS and a bootable image of MS Win XP Pro that
> is mounted under SL 6.1
>
> a number of other devices, including a SATA DVD reader/burner
>
> currently, a WD 1.5 Tbyte advanced format drive (with broken 512e
> emulation under the standard:  hard drives configured with 4096-byte
> physical sectors with 512-byte firmware are referred to as Advanced
> Format 512e, or 512 emulation drives, from
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Advanced_Format#Advanced_Format_512e ) that
> appears as /dev/sde but physically is done through eSATA -- but this
> drive appears as regular SATA hardware in the motherboard
> hardware/boot/configuration CMOS prior to booting SL.
>
> On a running SL 6.1 system booted from /dev/sda, I would like to use the
> DVD reader that has a bootable DVD from
> SL-61-x86_64-2011-07-27-Install-DVD.iso to install, without shutting
> down the running SL 6.1 system, from the DVD onto the eSATA harddrive,
> all of which hardware is visible to SL 6.1 , as though I had booted from
> the DVD (anaconda, etc., running under the X11 gnome WM of the booted
> hard drive system if possible, not the DVD boot).

The only way to do a new install is to boot the installation media.

>
> If this is not possible, then I will shutdown, reboot from the DVD, and
> only target for installation to the eSATA drive, unless that too is

Again I would not trust the "only target" a drive option.  DO NOT select
autopartitioning.  Select custom and choose wisely.

> impossible.  However, the installation must use at least a 4096 byte
> physical sector (block), not a 512 byte.

Have no idea.  Google and TUV documentation are your friend.

>
> Yasha Karant
>

-Connie Sieh