grub-installer failed in presence of memory card

[Fenyvesi Tamás]

I was installing Xubuntu 14.04.2 with partition encryption when grub-installer failed. It told that it couldn't install grub on /dev/mmcblk0 which is a memory card.

I didn't chose anywhere to install on my memory card. It may be the system installer's fault.

I think the installer (ubiquity?) chose the memorycard as target storage. However, I couldn't change this choice, until I tried the "advanced" formatting options. In the end, I rebooted without the SD card and I managed to install Ubuntu on my SSD properly.

ProblemType: Bug
DistroRelease: Ubuntu 14.04
Package: ubiquity 2.18.8.6
ProcVersionSignature: Ubuntu 3.16.0-30.40~14.04.1-generic 3.16.7-ckt3
Uname: Linux 3.16.0-30-generic x86_64
ApportVersion: 2.14.1-0ubuntu3.7
Architecture: amd64
CasperVersion: 1.340
Date: Mon Mar 30 21:59:03 2015
InstallCmdLine: initrd=/casper/initrd.lz file=/cdrom/preseed/xubuntu.seed boot=casper quiet splash -- BOOT_IMAGE=/casper/vmlinuz.efi
LiveMediaBuild: Xubuntu 14.04.2 LTS "Trusty Tahr" - Release amd64 (20150218.1)
ProcEnviron:
 LANGUAGE=hu_HU.UTF-8
 PATH=(custom, no user)
 LANG=hu_HU.UTF-8
 SHELL=/bin/bash
SourcePackage: grub-installer
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.]

[Will Cooke (willcooke)]

This is still happening in 17.10 and 18.04. It doesn't affect all machines though. It seems you need an SD card which appears as a /dev/mmc device instead of /dev/sd<n>.

I think to recreate this UEFI also needs to be switched on, at least that's what I understand from other bug reports.

[Will Cooke (willcooke)]

Correction/Addition: This was reported to me from a machine which was *booting* from an SD card, which might explain why the card appeared as /dev/mmc<foo> instead of /dev/sd<foo>.

So the use case is boot a machine from an SD card with UEFI on and try to do the default install.