Grub not installed (or installed on wrong dev) on system booting from second SATA device
Affects | Status | Importance | Assigned to | Milestone | |
---|---|---|---|---|---|
debian-installer (Ubuntu) |
New
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Undecided
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Unassigned |
Bug Description
Binary package hint: debian-installer
The box has Asus M3N78-EM motherboard, RAID functionality disabled from BIOS. Spindle HDD on SATA1 and SSD on SATA2 port (port labels printed on mobo). BIOS boot order all the time: 1) USB 2) SSD
I did a fresh install of current karmic using netboot image on usb pen drive. I deleted all existing partitions from both HDD and SSD (both had previous Ubuntu installations, were marked bootable and had old grub), configured SSD as root fs and HDD as /home and marked only the root fs on SSD bootable. Reboot after installation hung to "GRUB loading, please wait..." (presumably old grub on SSD). I booted to rescue system and fdisk displayed both disks bootable. I removed bootable flag from HDD using fdisk and reinstalled grub (there was a menuitem for that). Then system booted fine.
I assume these symptoms were due grub failing to install properly during installer phase or (more probably I guess) the installer installing grub to first SATA disk (HDD) instead of the disk the system booted off.
This might have bits in common with #8497 (or might not).
Looks like I'm able to reproduce this with Asus A8V, single SATA drive and karmic amd64 netboot on USB pen drive.
BIOS boot order was SATA hdd first. I used boot device selection menu (hit F8 during POST) to boot from pen drive. I did a fresh install using defaults (hit ret most of the time). Disk was non-partitioned. After partitioning step I noticed that pen drive was /dev/sda and hdd /dev/sdb. Reboot after installation gave black screen with a blinking cursor. Reboot from the pen drive gave "GRUB Geom Error" twice and a blinking cursor.