Ubuntu 14.04 installer crashes running from USB

[Håkan Ågren]

I don't know what happened. It was downloading updates and then I just got a window popping up saying that the installer crashed. I wasn't doing anything strange. I have an external dock for SATA disks connected via USB3 with one disk in it. I cannot check the logs since the system hasn't even installed and the bug report tool is currently the only thing running.

ProblemType: Bug
DistroRelease: Ubuntu 14.04
Package: ubiquity 2.18.8
ProcVersionSignature: Ubuntu 3.13.0-32.57-generic 3.13.11.4
Uname: Linux 3.13.0-32-generic x86_64
ApportVersion: 2.14.1-0ubuntu3.2
Architecture: amd64
CasperVersion: 1.340
Date: Sun Jan 25 23:40:43 2015
InstallCmdLine: BOOT_IMAGE=/casper/vmlinuz.efi file=/cdrom/preseed/ubuntu.seed cdrom-detect/try-usb=true noprompt floppy.allowed_drive_mask=0 ignore_uuid boot=casper only-ubiquity quiet splash --
LiveMediaBuild: Ubuntu 14.04.1 LTS "Trusty Tahr" - Release amd64 (20140722.2)
ProcEnviron:
 TERM=linux
 PATH=(custom, no user)
 XDG_RUNTIME_DIR=<set>
 LANG=en_US.UTF-8
SourcePackage: ubiquity
UpgradeStatus: No upgrade log present (probably fresh install)

[Ubuntu Foundations Team Bug Bot (crichton)]

Thank you for taking the time to report this bug and helping to make Ubuntu better. Reviewing your log files attached to this bug report it seems that there is a problem with your installation media (CD/DVD). You can verify the integrity of the Ubuntu ISO files you downloaded by following the instructions at https://help.ubuntu.com/community/HowToMD5SUM. You might also retry your installation with new media. In the event that is is not in fact an error with your installation media please set the bug's status back to New. Thanks and good luck!

[This is an automated message. I apologize if it reached you inappropriately; please just reply to this message indicating so.]

[Håkan Ågren (hakanagren)]

I managed to solve the problem in a manner that doesn't seem to correspond with the automated response. I ran the installation to system disk /dev/sdd rather than /dev/sda. However grub was installed to /dev/sda and that failed (not the download of updates as I wrote earlier). I had several failed attempts with the same system drive and also tried another system drive (both of the SSDs) and that also failed for grup. Then I unplugged all the other drives and kept just the system drive during installation. This worked perfectly and grub installed without any problem. This leads me to believe there is a weak spot in the grub installation scripts.