setup-storage/parted problems with FAI 4.0.3 (also with 3.4.8ubuntu2)

[Ralf Aumueller]

On 09/06/2012 02:22 PM, Peter Langer wrote:
> Hi,
> 
> i have a computer with Win7 pre-installed and i'd like to install FAI on 
> it. Everything seems to work fine, however i get this warning:
> "Preserved partition /dev/sda1 does not end at a cylinder boundary, 
> parted may fail to restore the partition!"
> Grub installs fine and i can boot Linux without problems. However my 
> Windows doesn't boot anymore ( status 0xc000000e ). I can fix the 
> Windows issue using the Win7 DVD but that's not really something i want 
> to do on multiple computers.
> I'll try to give you as much information as possible.
> 
> Here is the "debug=1 disklist=sda setup-storage" output 
> http://pastebin.com/2dEGqP2D ( the output is missing STDERR stuff as i 
> couldn't seem to 2>&1 properly. The STDERR output doesn't contain 
> anything of interest though except for the warning ).
> 
> I also tried installing Windows 7 in Virtualbox ( killing the 100mb 
> partition that Windows 7 creates ) and installing FAI afterwards. The 
> same problem occurs.

I had the same problem. Probably You "preserve_always" e.g. partition 1 (which
has Windows 7 installed). The problem is that "preserve_always" don't mean
"Don't touch partition 1" -- it means "Create partition 1 with same size and
type" (If I understand it right). So a new MBR is written to disk with a new
disk-signatur and this is the reason why Windows 7 doesn't boot (The Windows 7
boot loader checks the disk-signature).

Workaround I test at the moment:
Use a hook to save old disk-signature (e.g. partition.GRUB_PC):

for disk in $disklist
   dd if=/dev/${disk} of=${LOGDIR}/disk_${disk}_signature ibs=1 skip=440 count=4
done

And run a script to just restore the disk-signatur e.g.:
dd if=${LOGDIR}/disk_sda_signature of=/dev/sda obs=1 seek=440 count=4

Maybe somebody has a better solution?

Best regards,
Ralf