Hi, I am trying to install Fedora (41) on some laptop. I did the iso-image on USB, and I am able to boot it, i.e., I am prompted to start the installation. The 2 first unproblematic questions work fine (language/keyboard), the third one about the disc-layout derails the installation.
For the layout of the disc-space, I choose (as I normally do):
- automatic
- reclaim/free used space
(and additionally “encrypt”). The intention is to wipe windows from the disc and do fedora instead.
When I press “start installation” it starts. An then 2 error-messages happen (2 pop-ups). The first one is pretty terse, afterward the installation continues for a short period (I assume) as there seems to be some “installation progress”. So I don’t know if the first error reporting is fatal or if the first error reporting is the cause of the second that halts the installation. At any rate:
first error message (after a few seconds): Error device busy
afterwards: Inknown errror: This program has encountered an unknown error.
(I am encouraged to “report” it, but I don’t know how resonably get it “off the machine” at that very early stage of the installatiion).
If I press on “more info”, there is some anaconda 41-35 exception report. In the “log”, it seems indeed that where the problem starts is at a point where there is
"pyanaconda.modules.common.errors.installation.StorageInstallation.Error: device is active.
If you’re installing from a Fedora Workstation live USB, then before starting the installation, you could prepare the partitioning with GNOME Disks, as to create an empty unformatted space for the future Fedora installation, then launch the Anaconda installer using the automatic partitioning option without reclaiming free space. The installer should propose the available free space to be used for the new installation.
Great, actually that did the trick. Though it’s the first time that something like that happened.
I did a lot of linux-installations (mostly fedora, previously suse) on quite a number of laptops (or PCs) over the years. In older times, I did more ``ambitious’’ stuff (dual-boots, or trying to manually choosing partition-specification, or maybe in the older times, you had to do that sort of fiddling).
Anyway, in recent years I got used to that it’s all smooth sailing, don’t think about it, go for the “defaults”, for instance just go for “automatic” and it will be fine. Therefore, stumbling about “unknown error/device busy” was something new, and I think it may derail someone who tries fedora the first time. If I hadn’t gotten the hint here with disks, I would have had to reflect on it for a while (I had already started to prepare older versions of iso-files to see if they would do the trick.)
[I also tried MediaWriter first, I downloaded it with some effort, but the execution under Windows failed. I did not try to look into it deeply, as I have no experience in Windows, maybe something with “security” or privileges.
Anaconda (the installer) is going through a major overhaul, therefore I didn’t propose troubleshooting the issue with the current version of the installer, given the available workaround.
.