Ubuntu 7.10 installer install grub to (hd0) regardless of chosen disk for OS installation

[Matt Sicker]

When I was installing Ubuntu 7.10 about an hour ago, I just realised now that the installer had screwed up one of my disks (which I need to figure out how to recover that partition properly without any data loss) due to attempting to install grub to /dev/sda instead of /dev/sdb like I had specified when it asked which disk to install Ubuntu to. I found the advanced option to choose a different disk for grub (which should have been (hd1) instead of (hd0) for /dev/sdb), but that doesn't help my fscked file system on /dev/sda. So, this bug report is here to suggest the installer either prompt the user if she wants to install the boot loader to the same harddrive as Ubuntu is being installed, the first hard drive, or other, or it should pick a better default.

[jtholmes (jtholmes)]

thank you for your report

You said you found the advanced option to install grub on something other than sda1

Did you select that option and it didnt work, or you discovered it after grub had written to sda1?

[Haglund (mathias-haglund)]

Thank you for taking the time to report this bug and helping to make Ubuntu better. You reported this bug a while ago and there hasn't been any activity in it recently. We were wondering if this is still an issue for you. Can you try with the latest Ubuntu release? Thanks in advance.

[steventree (steventrees)]

I am afraid I meet the same problem in Ubuntu 8.04 LTS AMD64 version,
The following is what I found:
1. I have install the Ubuntu 9.04 i386 in my disk(hd0). Unfortunately, the default installation is used EXT4 file system, not EXT3.
2. After that, I try to install Ubuntu 8.04 LTS AMD64 into my another disk(hd1).
3. Ubuntu 8.04 can not correctly detect the 9.04 in the dish (hd0), then ,it install the Grub in the disk (Hd1)(I think this is correct), but rewrite the MBR in the (hd0), make the MBR point to (hd1).
4. after reboot, I found I can not enter ubuntu 9.04 again. I used 9.04 install CD boot and reinstall grub can fix this problem.
It is look like very close this problem.

[rusivi2 (rusivi2-deactivatedaccount)]

Thank you for taking the time to report this bug and helping to make Ubuntu better. We are sorry that we do not always have the capacity to look at all reported bugs in a timely manner.
There have been many changes in Ubuntu since that time you reported the bug and your problem may have been fixed with some of the updates. It would help us a lot if you could test the current Ubuntu development version (10.10). If you can test it, and it is still an issue, we would appreciate if you could upload updated logs by running apport-collect <bug #>, and any other logs that are relevant for this particular issue.

[Launchpad Janitor (janitor)]

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