GRUB installer crashes during installation

[mediax]

Trying to install 18.10 to a SSD, grub installer crashes with a fatal error

ProblemType: Bug
DistroRelease: Ubuntu 18.10
Package: ubiquity 18.10.12
ProcVersionSignature: Ubuntu 4.18.0-10.11-generic 4.18.12
Uname: Linux 4.18.0-10-generic x86_64
ApportVersion: 2.20.10-0ubuntu13
Architecture: amd64
CasperVersion: 1.399
Date: Sat Oct 20 19:38:55 2018
InstallCmdLine: file=/cdrom/preseed/ubuntu.seed boot=casper initrd=/casper/initrd quiet splash --- maybe-ubiquity
LiveMediaBuild: Ubuntu 18.10 "Cosmic Cuttlefish" - Release amd64 (20181017.3)
SourcePackage: grub-installer
UpgradeStatus: No upgrade log present (probably fresh install)

[Mathieu Trudel-Lapierre (cyphermox)]

Thank you for taking the time to report this bug and helping to make Ubuntu better. Please answer these questions:
* Is this an installation alongside Windows?
* If so, how are you partitioning the disk?
* What do you see when you boot the Live CD? A purple background with the Ubuntu logo, or just a text menu?

This will help us to find and resolve the problem.

It looks like this disk is formatted in GPT format, which will require an additional BIOS BOOT partition to work correctly when booting in legacy mode (as appears to be the case for the installer).

Thanks.

Oct 20 18:37:25 ubuntu grub-installer: info: Installing grub on '/dev/sda'
Oct 20 18:37:25 ubuntu grub-installer: info: grub-install does not support --no-floppy
Oct 20 18:37:25 ubuntu grub-installer: info: Running chroot /target grub-install --force "/dev/sda"
Oct 20 18:37:26 ubuntu grub-installer: Installing for i386-pc platform.
Oct 20 18:37:26 ubuntu grub-installer: grub-install: warning: this GPT partition label contains no BIOS Boot Partition; embedding won't be possible.
Oct 20 18:37:26 ubuntu grub-installer: grub-install: error: embedding is not possible, but this is required for cross-disk install.
Oct 20 18:37:26 ubuntu grub-installer: error: Running 'grub-install --force "/dev/sda"' failed.

[mediax (mediax)]

This is a Linux-only machine - no dual boot of any kind.

The live 18.10 CD ran perfectly from a USB stick.

I have not (yet) tried installing 18.10 with a BIOS BOOT partition set
up, but doing this with 18.04 was unsuccessful.

A bit of background, which may help (or not).

This machine was running 18.04 (with the SSD as / and the HDD as /home)
until a recent upgrade, which left me booting to a blank screen.
Although the 18.04 live CD ran perfectly, I was unable to reinstall a
working system in any configuration (split between the 2 drives, to the
SSD alone - with a BIOS BOOT partition set up, or to the HDD alone).
This led me to install 18.10, with the result you see. I have now
managed to get my system working by installing 18.10 to my HDD alone,
but obviously this solution is less than satisfactory.

Hope this helps,

Ian

Thanks for you

On 23/10/2018 16:10, Mathieu Trudel-Lapierre wrote:
> Thank you for taking the time to report this bug and helping to make Ubuntu better. Please answer these questions:
> * Is this an installation alongside Windows?
> * If so, how are you partitioning the disk?
> * What do you see when you boot the Live CD? A purple background with the Ubuntu logo, or just a text menu?
>
> This will help us to find and resolve the problem.
>
> It looks like this disk is formatted in GPT format, which will require
> an additional BIOS BOOT partition to work correctly when booting in
> legacy mode (as appears to be the case for the installer).
>
> Thanks.
>
>
> Oct 20 18:37:25 ubuntu grub-installer: info: Installing grub on '/dev/sda'
> Oct 20 18:37:25 ubuntu grub-installer: info: grub-install does not support --no-floppy
> Oct 20 18:37:25 ubuntu grub-installer: info: Running chroot /target grub-install --force "/dev/sda"
> Oct 20 18:37:26 ubuntu grub-installer: Installing for i386-pc platform.
> Oct 20 18:37:26 ubuntu grub-installer: grub-install: warning: this GPT partition label contains no BIOS Boot Partition; embedding won't be possible.
> Oct 20 18:37:26 ubuntu grub-installer: grub-install: error: embedding is not possible, but this is required for cross-disk install.
> Oct 20 18:37:26 ubuntu grub-installer: error: Running 'grub-install --force "/dev/sda"' failed.
>
> ** Changed in: grub-installer (Ubuntu)
> Status: New => Incomplete
>

[Mathieu Trudel-Lapierre (cyphermox)]

Thank you for taking the time to report this bug and helping to make Ubuntu better. Please answer these questions:

* How are you partitioning the disk?
* What do you see when you boot the Live CD? A purple background with the Ubuntu logo, or just a text menu?

This will help us to find and resolve the problem.

A BIOS Boot partition is not optional if the disk is formatted in MBR format -- if you want to avoid that, and only ever boot the disk in UEFI mode, then you can write a new partition table to it in GPT format using the installer's custom partitioning screen, then going back to pick "Entire disk" and let it partition the disk automatically.

[Launchpad Janitor (janitor)]

[Expired for grub-installer (Ubuntu) because there has been no activity for 60 days.]