Breezy installer grub configuration causes system damage
| Affects | Status | Importance | Assigned to | Milestone | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Ubuntu |
Invalid
|
Medium
|
Unassigned | ||
Bug Description
I searched bugzilla but could not find an entry for 5.10 that matched the
following. Apologies if I missed any.
The installer scripts for ubuntu 5.10 are set to install the grub bootloader by
"defaulting" to the "first" HDD found by the BIOS. This can easily damage the
target system [and in my case it did!]. The issue with the bug is that "the
devil is in the detail". The solution to this bug is to enable the user to
select the target device for the grub bootloader during the installation
process. I'm pretty sure that Debian Sarge 3.1 allows this [IIRC].
Here is an example configuration of a machine that is vulnerable to the above
problem:
Abit AV8 [AMD64] Motherboard
2 x Seagate 80Gb SATA Drives
1 x Western Digital 120Gb EIDE Drive
1 x Pioneer DVD-105 ATA DVD-ROM Drive
1 x NEC DVD_RW ND-3540A
The WD-120Gb and the two DVD Devices are all connected to the EIDE channels on
the motherboard.
The two Seagate 80Gb SATA Drives are connected to the two SATA slots on the
motherboard.
_However_, both of the 80Gb SATAs are installed in SATA Caddy Drives and can be
removed from the machine. The WD-120 is an "internal" drive that is mounted
inside my PC Case and is not removed. I have other "pairs" of Seagate 80Gb discs
that carry other OS builds, including a machine with WindowsXP [shameful
admission, I know, but it only gets used for gaming!]
The 5.10 installer will very happily allow me to install my ubuntu 5.10 OS
spread evenly across two fresh 80Gb SATA Drives. I get lots of disc space and
phenominal performance thanks to splitting the disc I-O across two volumes.
However, grub will always default to installing it's bootloader on the WD-120
EIDE Drive. When i replace the two "ubuntu" SATA drives with my WinXP SATA
drives and try and reboot, the machine detects grub in the MBR on the WD-120
EIDE Drive and all I get is "grub error 17". No surprise grub is going to b0rk,
since it can't see the two SATA drives containing the rest of the OS. Obviously
the solution is to make sure that grub deploys into the MBR on the first of the
SATA drives instead!
If it helps, ubuntu assigns the following device IDs to the drives in question :-
Seagate 80Gb #1: /dev/sda
Seagate 80Gb #2: /dev/sdb
WD 120Gb: /dev/hdc
Pioneer DVD-ROM: /dev/hda
NEC DVD-RW: /dev/hdb
As a helper for anyone who may commit the same mistake and need to recover, all
that is needed is a Windows98 boot diskette, or similar. Note that this solution
will NOT WORK for anyone using a single physical drive with multiple partitions
to boot into ubuntu and another OS!!! Ensure that only the "corrupted" HD is
visible to the BIOS. [Pull the power leads if you have to]. Boot from the
Windows98 boot diskette. Enter
FDISK /MBR
at the A:> prompt. This will flush and reset the drive's Master Boot Record.
Note that this will completely erase ANY bootloader that you may have had on
your drive. You should now be able to restore power to other drives and safely
reboot the system.
If any of the ubuntu engineers can recommend a fix, or perhaps revise the
installer for Dapper Drake, that would be much appreciated.
Thanks!
C
| ytene (ubuntu-ytene) wrote | #1 |
| Martin Bergner (martin-bergner) wrote | #2 |
| ytene (ubuntu-ytene) wrote | #3 |
| Jonh Wendell (wendell) wrote | #4 |
Addendum to my original post.
I have just completed a successful installation of 5.10 by first removing the
power cable to the EIDE Drive, then installing, then reconnecting power to the
EIDE Drive. I now have a wonderful, stable and working ubuntu 5.10 system. Now
it's time to download an SMP kernel, a few more packages, and have some fun!
Minor footnote... I notice that by default ubuntu mounts NTFS volumes in
read-write mode. Just wonder if that's considered "safe" yet?
;o)