11.10 Alternate Install to 2nd HDD installs Grub on 1st HDD

[Curt Sampson]

Using the alternate install disk for Ubuntu 11.10 (I tested both Ubuntu and Lubuntu), if you install to a second hard drive in your system (putting a /boot and an encrypted LVM containing root and swap on /dev/sdb), the grub install at the end will install grub on /dev/sda, the first hard drive, instead. (The BIOS in this case was set to boot from the second hard drive.) Thus, the second drive won't boot unless it already had boot blocks on it from something else, and the first drive, when booted will give Linux kernel boot options (regular and recovery) only for the second drive.

ProblemType: Bug
DistroRelease: Ubuntu 11.10
Package: debian-installer (not installed)
ProcVersionSignature: Ubuntu 3.0.0-12.20-generic 3.0.4
Uname: Linux 3.0.0-12-generic i686
ApportVersion: 1.23-0ubuntu3
Architecture: i386
Date: Mon Oct 17 15:06:37 2011
InstallationMedia: Lubuntu 11.10 "Oneiric Ocelot" - Release i386 (20111011)
Lsusb:
 Bus 001 Device 001: ID 1d6b:0002 Linux Foundation 2.0 root hub
 Bus 002 Device 001: ID 1d6b:0001 Linux Foundation 1.1 root hub
 Bus 003 Device 001: ID 1d6b:0001 Linux Foundation 1.1 root hub
 Bus 004 Device 001: ID 1d6b:0001 Linux Foundation 1.1 root hub
 Bus 004 Device 002: ID 0483:2016 SGS Thomson Microelectronics Fingerprint Reader
MachineType: IBM 2373KQJ
MemoryUsage:
 total used free shared buffers cached
 Mem: 1025504 704848 320656 0 70884 469624
 -/+ buffers/cache: 164340 861164
 Swap: 2047996 0 2047996
PccardctlIdent:
 Socket 0:
   no product info available
 Socket 1:
   no product info available
PccardctlStatus:
 Socket 0:
   no card
 Socket 1:
   no card
ProcEnviron:
 LANGUAGE=en
 LC_COLLATE=C
 PATH=(custom, user)
 LANG=en_US.UTF-8
 SHELL=/bin/bash
ProcKernelCmdLine: BOOT_IMAGE=/vmlinuz-3.0.0-12-generic root=/dev/mapper/telephonic-root ro quiet splash vt.handoff=7
SourcePackage: debian-installer
UpgradeStatus: No upgrade log present (probably fresh install)
dmi.bios.date: 06/02/2006
dmi.bios.vendor: IBM
dmi.bios.version: 1RETDPWW (3.21 )
dmi.board.name: 2373KQJ
dmi.board.vendor: IBM
dmi.board.version: Not Available
dmi.chassis.asset.tag: No Asset Information
dmi.chassis.type: 10
dmi.chassis.vendor: IBM
dmi.chassis.version: Not Available
dmi.modalias: dmi:bvnIBM:bvr1RETDPWW(3.21):bd06/02/2006:svnIBM:pn2373KQJ:pvrThinkPadT42:rvnIBM:rn2373KQJ:rvrNotAvailable:cvnIBM:ct10:cvrNotAvailable:
dmi.product.name: 2373KQJ
dmi.product.version: ThinkPad T42
dmi.sys.vendor: IBM