Cannot install any more

[danast]

Hi,

this is about proxmox 3.x.

I tried to install following <http://www.howtoforge.com/proxmox-2-with-software-raid-p2> and it failed. When I tried to install again, it failed again. It seems proxmox installation does not really wipe anything nor zero superblocks or the like but just overwrite. So as a result dirty HDDs with previous data continued to have data where there shouldn't be any, like the volume group information.

As a last desperate measure I deleted all partitions from all drives using fdisk, but after rebooting from the CD it didn't manage to even setup a partition table.

So it seems, I really cannot use Proxmox without first using windows only to delete a hard drive clean. Is there no recovery floppy or disk or any conventional path considered to be taken to just erase a harddrive properly?

Thanks

 

[danast]

Hi,

this is about proxmox 3.x.

I tried to install following <http://www.howtoforge.com/proxmox-2-with-software-raid-p2> and it failed. When I tried to install again, it failed again. It seems proxmox installation does not really wipe anything nor zero superblocks or the like but just overwrite. So as a result dirty HDDs with previous data continued to have data where there shouldn't be any, like the volume group information.

As a last desperate measure I deleted all partitions from all drives using fdisk, but after rebooting from the CD it didn't manage to even setup a partition table.

So it seems, I really cannot use Proxmox without first using windows only to delete a hard drive clean. Is there no recovery floppy or disk or any conventional path considered to be taken to just erase a harddrive properly?

Thanks

You can download gparted from <http://gparted.sourceforge.net/download.php>

 

[AndyL]

Hi,

this is about proxmox 3.x.

I tried to install following <http://www.howtoforge.com/proxmox-2-with-software-raid-p2> and it failed. When I tried to install again, it failed again. It seems proxmox installation does not really wipe anything nor zero superblocks or the like but just overwrite. So as a result dirty HDDs with previous data continued to have data where there shouldn't be any, like the volume group information.

As a last desperate measure I deleted all partitions from all drives using fdisk, but after rebooting from the CD it didn't manage to even setup a partition table.

So it seems, I really cannot use Proxmox without first using windows only to delete a hard drive clean. Is there no recovery floppy or disk or any conventional path considered to be taken to just erase a harddrive properly?

Thanks

I had exactly the same problem. I found a solution - here are my notes:

Boot from the Proxmox CD. At the boot prompt type debug.
Now you are at a command line.

You can also use dd command (it removes the partition table):
# dd if=/dev/zero of=/dev/sdX bs=512 count=1

Just remove MBR, without removing the partition table (thanks to Martijn van Vliet at original site):
# dd if=/dev/zero of=/dev/sdX bs=446 count=1

Replace /dev/hdX with your actual device name such as /dev/sda. Use fdisk -l command to find out device name:
# fdisk -l

Output:

Disk /dev/sda: 251.0 GB, 251000193024 bytes
255 heads, 63 sectors/track, 30515 cylinders
Units = cylinders of 16065 * 512 = 8225280 bytes

Device Boot Start End Blocks Id System
/dev/sda1 * 1 13 104391 83 Linux
/dev/sda2 14 30384 243955057+ 83 Linux
/dev/sda3 30385 30515 1052257+ 82 Linux swap


So you can actually do it all from the Proxmox disk. It worked for me anyway. I think though that the install disk should remove the existing partition table, possibly with a warning that it's going to do it.