Re: scsi and windows boot problem

[Andrew Clausen]

On Mon, Jul 19, 2004 at 12:47:39PM +0200, Szakacsits Szabolcs wrote:
> 
> On Mon, 19 Jul 2004, Andrew Clausen wrote:
> > On Fri, Jul 16, 2004 at 02:20:16PM -0700, Anthony Ewell wrote:
> > > On this parted bug:
> > > 
> > >     https://bugzilla.redhat.com/bugzilla/show_bug.cgi?id=115980
> > > 
> > > where you can no longer dual boot to Windows after installing
> > > FC2, can anyone tell me if this also affects SCSI drives?
> > 
> > As I haven't been able to reproduce the bug, I'm not sure what causes it,
> > and therefore not sure what circumstances are likely to lead to it.
> 
> Reproducing the problem is a no-brainer on any computer.

I've done what everyone has said they did, and I can't get it to break.
It isn't a no-brainer... while I understand some aspects of the problem
(i.e. sometimes there are inconsistent partition tables, or for whatever
reason, Parted gets the wrong geometry), I can't predict exactly when
there will be a problem.  I can't hand anyone a check list that says:
"if these criteria are satisfied, then you will have a problem".

Therefore, I (and everyone else) do not understand the problem entirely.

I cannot rule in or out many cases.

> Over the last 8
> months several people told you several times what's the problem in parted
> and how to fix it. There were over 100(!) emails sent to you in the
> subject. Everybody seems to understand except you. Even today. You keep
> repeating "nobody tells me anything, I can't reproduce anything".

I still plan to make Parted more robust.  (Sorry this didn't happen
already... I haven't had proper internet access for two weeks...  I've
been away for conferences + holiday.  I was expecting to have better
facilities)

> But you've also made many completely _non-sense_ statements, questions and
> produced new but also broken code. Andries Brouwer also pointed these out
> to you. Based on the last public info Andries sent, before he left for a
> long trip till September, you were working on some also non-sense solution
> but this time together with him. It seems you could fool him too but given
> that he is also partly lost in this area, it's understandable.

Actually, our plans are similar to what you recommended.

> As I see and think for over a year but I've never wrote down publicly
> before, the fundamental problem is that you were unable to grown up for
> the responsibilities and competence what parted requires today. Much
> worse, you still can't realize this. Hence you're causing even more damage
> then if you just passed over the maintainership to somebody who knows and
> understands software engineering better. There were volunteers.

I think you jump to conclusions.  In the history of dealing with
partition table problems, I've become skeptical of solving problems
without really understanding them, because fixing one problem has
frequently lead to introducing a new one.

> It's also pitty FSF failed to handle and resolve such a serious problem.
> At least tens, hundreds of thousands people trash their data for years due
> to bugs in the neglected http://www.gnu.org/software/parted/parted.html.

Where did you get that number from?
What should be changed?

> > However, I can't see any reason why SCSI would be more/less susceptible
> > than any other device.
> 
> You were told several times, too.

None of the discussion you provided below is convincing evidence IMHO.

Cheers,
Andrew