Xen SLES 10 SP3 FV guest installation fails to boot from DVD or ISO

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Environment

SUSE Linux Enterprise Server 11
SUSE Linux Enterprise Server 10 Service Pack 3

Situation

There is a known issue with installing SLES 10 SP3 as a fully-virtualized (FV,HVM) guest using either an .iso image or CD/DVD media. When booting the installation from such sources an "installation media could not be found" error will occur.

Resolution

The following are suggested workarounds:

1) Either at the initial boot screen (where you enter boot/installation
options) or after getting the error message in Linuxrc (and being redirected to
the manual setup program), instead of initiating a CDROM install (or just
typing "linux" at the command line boot option screen), do either a network or
hard disk installation:

a) Network installation - As a command line boot option this would be
"install=ftp://installationsource/directory" (for an FTP installation).

In the Linuxrc manual setup program you would simply select "Network" and then provide
your network information and the installation server IP and directory.

b) Hard Disk installation - As a command line boot option this would be
"install=hd:/dev/hdc" (/dev/hdc is the VM's perspective of the device, not the host's).

In the Linuxrc manual setup program you would simply select "Hard Disk" and then
provide the disk partition (e.g. /dev/sdc) and leave the source directory empty
(Note: this option will result in the CDROM showing up as an extra disk during
installation and afterwards).

2) Use an alternate installation method such as PXE.

Additional Information

This issue affects all SLES 10 SP3 fully-virtual installations from ISO and DVD on all platforms (e.g. SLES 10 SP2 or SLES 11), but not fully-virtual ISO/DVD installations of other platforms (e.g. SLES 10 SP2 or SLES 11) on SLES 10 SP3. Para-virtual installations are not affected.

Disclaimer

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