installer crashes during dpkg grub to /sdb/

[MR]

Ubuntu Gnome 15.04 RC 4-17-2015
grub-installer

When installing to /sdb/, installer encounters fatal error when attempting to run grub-installer

Will alter drive to sda within BIOS and re-attempt.

ProblemType: Bug
DistroRelease: Ubuntu 15.04
Package: ubiquity 2.21.22
ProcVersionSignature: Ubuntu 3.19.0-14.14-generic 3.19.3
Uname: Linux 3.19.0-14-generic x86_64
ApportVersion: 2.17.2-0ubuntu1
Architecture: amd64
CasperVersion: 1.359
Date: Tue Apr 21 00:34:02 2015
InstallCmdLine: BOOT_IMAGE=/multiboot/ubuntu-gnome-desktop-amd64/casper/vmlinuz.efi file=/cdrom/multiboot/ubuntu-gnome-desktop-amd64/preseed/ubuntu-gnome.seed boot=casper only-ubiquity cdrom-detect/try-usb=true noprompt floppy.allowed_drive_mask=0 ignore_uuid live-media-path=/multiboot/ubuntu-gnome-desktop-amd64/casper/ initrd=/multiboot/ubuntu-gnome-desktop-amd64/casper/initrd.lz quiet splash ---
LiveMediaBuild: It
ProcEnviron:
 PATH=(custom, no user)
 XDG_RUNTIME_DIR=<set>
 LANG=en_US.UTF-8
SourcePackage: grub-installer
UpgradeStatus: No upgrade log present (probably fresh install)

[MR (disposeaccount)]

I couldn't figure out how to redefine the install drive from sdb...

So I unplugged the second storage drive which was getting defined as sda.

With only one drive plugged in, it was forced as sda

grub-installer ran without issue

installer completed

[Ubuntu QA Website (ubuntuqa)]

This bug has been reported on the Ubuntu ISO testing tracker.

A list of all reports related to this bug can be found here:
http://iso.qa.ubuntu.com/qatracker/reports/bugs/1446459

[Phillip Susi (psusi)]

You are using GPT in a bios booting computer. To do this you have to create a 1 mb bios_grub partition.

[MR (disposeaccount)]

There was no partitioning on the disk. I formatted the disk in GParted with no partition scheme at all, just "Unallocated Space".

Grub-installer would still fatal error when OS HDD was defined as drive /sdb/

The ONLY way I could get the installer to complete was to unplug my storage HDD which was getting defined as /sda/ so that the OS HDD was getting defined as /sda/

[Phillip Susi (psusi)]

The default boot drive is /dev/sda, so if you intend to boot your machine from another drive, you need to change the drive grub is installed to.

[MR (disposeaccount)]

Exactly my point... When installing Ubuntu Gnome, I'm selecting /sdb/ as the HDD to install to. But when installer runs dpkg grub-installer, it fails with a fatal error.

The only way I could get the Ubuntu Gnome installer past this error was to unplug the drive which was getting defined as /sda/.

Then with only one drive plugged in, that one drive was getting defined as /sda/.

When installing Ubuntu Gnome to the drive when defined as /sda/, all packages - including grub-installer - complete successfully.