Installer crashes when attempting to install bootloader

[Mark Duncan]

My system has 2 hard drives in a RAID 0 and a third drive by itself. I am attempting to install to the RAID 0. My motherboard supports both BIOS and UEFI. When booting via BIOS, I get an error that Grub failed to install to /dev/sda. Manually selecting any other disk on my system fails. When booting via UEFI, I do not get the Grub error, but instead a generic error that the installer has crashed (which prompted me to submit this bug report). I have destroyed the RAID 0 and rebuilt it, but the problem remains. I actually can successfully install using the beta2 iso booting via BIOS, but when I update the system after installation, it tries to update Grub which then fails to install.

ProblemType: Bug
DistroRelease: Ubuntu 14.04
Package: ubiquity 2.18.4
ProcVersionSignature: Ubuntu 3.13.0-24.46-generic 3.13.9
Uname: Linux 3.13.0-24-generic x86_64
ApportVersion: 2.14.1-0ubuntu2
Architecture: amd64
CasperVersion: 1.340
Date: Sun Apr 13 11:15:08 2014
InstallCmdLine: BOOT_IMAGE=/casper/vmlinuz.efi file=/cdrom/preseed/ubuntu.seed boot=casper only-ubiquity quiet splash --
LiveMediaBuild: Ubuntu 14.04 LTS "Trusty Tahr" - Daily amd64 (20140412)
ProcEnviron:
 TERM=linux
 PATH=(custom, no user)
 XDG_RUNTIME_DIR=<set>
 LANG=en_US.UTF-8
SourcePackage: ubiquity
UpgradeStatus: No upgrade log present (probably fresh install)

[Phillip Susi (psusi)]

Hey Dimitri, it looks like the dmraid->mdadm transition isn't working here: this isw array is still being activated by dmraid rather than mdadm. Any thoughts?

[Mark Duncan (eattheapple)]

Not sure if it's related, but I absolutely must select the option to use LVM during installation when installing to the RAID 0, otherwise I run in to bug 1254374.

[Ubuntu Foundations Team Bug Bot (crichton)]

Exception during installation:
Apr 13 02:14:48 ubuntu /plugininstall.py: Traceback (most recent call last):
Apr 13 02:14:48 ubuntu /plugininstall.py: File "/usr/share/ubiquity/plugininstall.py", line 1770, in <module>
Apr 13 02:14:48 ubuntu /plugininstall.py: install.run()
Apr 13 02:14:48 ubuntu /plugininstall.py: File "/usr/share/ubiquity/plugininstall.py", line 78, in wrapper
Apr 13 02:14:48 ubuntu /plugininstall.py: func(self)
Apr 13 02:14:48 ubuntu /plugininstall.py: File "/usr/share/ubiquity/plugininstall.py", line 241, in run
Apr 13 02:14:48 ubuntu /plugininstall.py: self.configure_bootloader()
Apr 13 02:14:48 ubuntu /plugininstall.py: File "/usr/share/ubiquity/plugininstall.py", line 1026, in configure_bootloader
Apr 13 02:14:48 ubuntu /plugininstall.py: "GrubInstaller failed with code %d" % ret)
Apr 13 02:14:48 ubuntu /plugininstall.py: ubiquity.install_misc.InstallStepError: GrubInstaller failed with code 1
Apr 13 02:14:48 ubuntu /plugininstall.py:

[Tomtiger (mr-tiger)]

I've a similar problem. I tried to install 14.04 on a raid 1 / raid 5 - LVM combination. I have five 2-GB harddisks (sda - sde) using the following partion strukture:
1. sdx1 = 2GB --> linux-swap
2. sdx2 = 1GB -->raid 1 (md0) - mounted on /boot
3.sdx3 = 1.82TB -->raid 5 (md1) - contains an LVM with 2 LV's:
    1. vg00-System --> 20GB - mounted on /
    2. vg00-Home -->7,2TB - mounted on /home

I tried to install trusty tahr via ubiquity installer in bios mode. (I had to set up raid an LVM manually before) In my case it happened the same: The installer crashed at the end of the intallation while attempting to set up grub.
So tried to log into the new installed system via changeroot and set up grub manually. But it failed too because grub did not find md0.
So I installed 12.04 via alternate installer again. So it seems not to be an error of the installer but of the grub configuration.
Any suggestions?

Greetings

Gabi & Thomas