Centos – Installing CentOS 6.3 via USB, cannot partition hard disk drives

centoscentos6ibm-xseriesinstallation

I'm currently attempting to install CentOS 6.3 on an IBM System x3650 M3 server using a 8GB USB boot drive that has been created using iso2usb for CentOS/RedHat.

During the installation process, when it comes time to setup partitioning, if any of the automated options are selected, an error occurs (could not find enough free space for automatic partitioning). If I instead choose a manual setup, then I find that the installer is attempting to partition the USB drive, and not the machine's virtual memory as desired.

I've attempted to Google the problem, and while I've found many with problems installing CentOS, I've yet to find any information that applies here.

Any help that you can give would be greatly appreciated.

Best Answer

Turns out, the previous owners of this system wiped the system's RAID configuration when they reformatted the machine.

Resetting the server to factory defaults in the BIOS, then booting in recovery mode recovered the lost RAID drivers, and allowed me to reconfigure the RAID to my liking.

I'd just like to thank Michael Hampton for his help, as it got me thinking about the machine's firmware, eventually leading me to the answer.

Related Solutions

Centos – How to remove previous RAID configuration in CentOS for re-install

It is an old thread but it ranks high on Google so many people read it and it needs to be updated.

The "correct" way would be to use mdadm with --zero-superblock.

## If the device is being reused or re-purposed from an existing array, 
##  erase any old RAID configuration information:
mdadm --zero-superblock /dev/<drive>
## or if a particular partition on a drive is to be deleted:
mdadm --zero-superblock /dev/<partition>

man mdadm

--zero-superblock
   If  the  device contains a valid md superblock, the block is overwritten with zeros. 
   With --force the block where the superblock would be is overwritten even if it doesn't appear to be valid.

The dd method with bs=<block size> works also but one needs to be careful because not all superblocks are written to the beginning of the disk - some are written to the end of the disk.

Update : rather use gdisk for wiping than any other method

# wipe any GPT data or MBR data
gdisk /dev/sdc
    x = extra functionality
    z = zap GPT data structures (+ MBR also after)

Source:

SQL2008R2 install issues on windows 7 – unable to install setup support files

This was due to a corrupt ISO file

Best Answer

Related Solutions

Centos – How to remove previous RAID configuration in CentOS for re-install

SQL2008R2 install issues on windows 7 – unable to install setup support files

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