Ubiquity crashes while trying to install grub, then update-grub crashes afterward. Grub looks to be installed in the terminal, but won't boot Ubuntu.

[Dave]

Binary package hint: ubiquity

Sorry in advance if I don't provide all the necessary info, I'm new to Linux.

Anyway, I've tried multiple times to install Ubuntu 9.04 off the CD onto a 250 gig SATA drive that I had previously wiped clean with DBAN, and everything goes swimmingly until the very end. The installer tells me something like "Fatal error: could not configure grub" and quits, instead booting into the liveCD version. When I reboot without the cd, it just goes into grub, and nothing I've tried can get it any further.

Everything seems to be on the hard drive when I look in the file manager, and grub works through the terminal. I don't know what to do with grub at all, though. The reason I post this here instead of looking for help online is because I had a more linux-familiar friend try to fix it, and after about 4 hours he gave up, prompting me to think there's something more than just me not knowing how to use it - but I apologize if that's not the case. Also, I put it as a new issue because though some others looked similar, the ones I saw were either solved by older releases of Ubuntu, or they only mentioned an issue with the installer OR grub, not both. If I missed the right one, please direct me to it.

Some history: this is a laptop that originally had Vista on it. A program that I used frequently gave an error when I tried to run it again, so I thought I'd reboot - and after trying to reboot I never saw the Vista desktop again. This is a laptop that came with Vista preinstalled, so I have no cd. I burnt a vista repair cd that did absolutely nothing - the program I burnt it with claimed it was bootable, but I couldn't get it to boot. I have an XP cd that I tried, but apparently the XP install won't recognize SATA drives, so I decided to try linux. This same CD installed without a hitch on an old Thinkpad, so I don't think it's any fault with the CD.

ProblemType: Crash
Architecture: i386
DistroRelease: Ubuntu 9.04
ExecutablePath: /usr/sbin/update-grub
InterpreterPath: /target/bin/bash
MediaBuild: Ubuntu 9.04 "Jaunty Jackalope" - Release i386 (20090420.1)
Package: grub 0.97-29ubuntu53
ProcAttrCurrent: unconfined
ProcCmdline: /bin/bash /usr/sbin/update-grub -y
ProcEnviron:
 LANGUAGE=en_US.UTF-8
 LC_COLLATE=C
 PATH=(custom, no user)
 LANG=en_US.UTF-8
Signal: 11
SourcePackage: grub
StacktraceTop:
 sh_mktmpfd ()
 ?? ()
 do_redirections ()
 ?? ()
 execute_command_internal ()
Title: update-grub crashed with SIGSEGV in sh_mktmpfd()
Uname: Linux 2.6.28-11-generic i686
UserGroups:

[Apport retracing service (apport)]

StacktraceTop:sh_mktmpfd ()
do_redirections ()
?? ()
execute_command_internal ()
execute_command ()

[Evan (ev)]

Given that this is segfault in bash, I suspect this is a hardware error; however, I'll need to see your syslog file to confirm this. Can you please run the installer again until it crashes, then run `apport-collect 460901`?

Thanks!

[Charlie Kravetz (cjkgeek)]

We'd like to figure out what's causing this bug for you, but we haven't heard back from you in a while. Could you please provide the requested information? Thanks!

[Charlie Kravetz (cjkgeek)]

W are trying to resolve this issue for you. However, we need to see your syslog file to confirm this. Can you please run the installer again until it crashes, then run `apport-collect 460901`?

[Charlie Kravetz (cjkgeek)]

 We are closing this bug report because it lacks the information we need to investigate the problem, as described in the previous comments. Please reopen it if you can give us the missing information, and don't hesitate to submit bug reports in the future. To reopen the bug report you can click on the current status, under the Status column, and change the Status back to "New". Thanks again!

[HARIHARAN (haran-btech006)]

HI,

Here is the report which installer showed me after it crashed.

Traceback (most recent call last):
  File "/usr/lib/ubiquity/bin/ubiquity", line 229, in <module>
    main()
  File "/usr/lib/ubiquity/bin/ubiquity", line 224, in main
    install(args[0])
  File "/usr/lib/ubiquity/bin/ubiquity", line 68, in install
    ret = wizard.run()
  File "/usr/lib/ubiquity/ubiquity/frontend/gtk_ui.py", line 428, in run
    self.progress_loop()
  File "/usr/lib/ubiquity/ubiquity/frontend/gtk_ui.py", line 797, in progress_loop
    (ret, realtb))
RuntimeError: Install failed with exit code 1
Traceback (most recent call last):
  File "/usr/share/ubiquity/install.py", line 1913, in <module>
    install.run()
  File "/usr/share/ubiquity/install.py", line 419, in run
    self.configure_bootloader()
  File "/usr/share/ubiquity/install.py", line 1422, in configure_bootloader
    "GrubInstaller failed with code %d" % ret)
InstallStepError: GrubInstaller failed with code 1

Please help me with this bug. Thank you!

[Charlie Kravetz (cjkgeek)]

If you are experiencing this issue in a release other than Ubuntu 9.04, please file a new bug report. If you are using Ubuntu 9.04 to install, please download a new release, since Ubuntu 9.04 is no longer supported.

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