grub failed to install

[sam tygier]

Binary package hint: ubiquity

ubiquity failed to install grub. i get the message:
The 'grub' package failed to install into /target/. Without the GRUB boot loader, the installed system will not boot

earlier in the installation process, when choosing to do manual partitioning, apport popped up and told me that ubiquity had crashed, it failed to submit the crash report (i think because i was offline, though apport did not say why). ubiquity did not seem to have crashed, and carried on fine.

the interesting aspects of my install/system.
my partition table is gpt
i told grub to install on sda4, '/' (i already have fedora's grub on sda)

ProblemType: Bug
Architecture: i386
Date: Sun Jun 21 12:45:52 2009
DistroRelease: Ubuntu 9.10
LiveMediaBuild: Ubuntu 9.10 "Karmic Koala" - Alpha i386 (20090621)
Package: ubiquity 1.13.4
ProcEnviron:
 PATH=(custom, no user)
 LANG=en_US.UTF-8
 SHELL=/bin/bash
ProcVersionSignature: Ubuntu 2.6.30-9.10-generic
SourcePackage: ubiquity
Uname: Linux 2.6.30-9-generic i686

[sam tygier (samtygier)]

it seems to have eaten the grub on /dev/sda anyway, even though it was told to install to /dev/sda4. now at boot i get a blank screen with a blinking cursor.

[pro003 (pro003)]

I HAVE FIXED THIS PROBLEM, SOMEHOW....

I just now installed karmic Koala Alpha 2 on my PC. Previously i had 9.04 with grub loadin both ubuntu 9.04 + Windows Vista Ultimate x64 + Windows XP Proffesional. Well I have made it somehow to fix this problem. Anyhow like you already said at the and of the "perfect" installation of Karmic Koala Alpha 2 (Alternate i386 ISO) it was really fast and smooth installation until grub came up. At the moment Grub has recognized both Windows Vista and Windows XP and like usually I said YES install the dam grub. Then this ERROR came up, I really can't remember exactly what it says but the point was IT FAILED TO INSTALL THE GRUB. I have rebooted with the same install CD and selected Repair broken system, after which I chosen LILO *(cause grub couldn't make it again) and LILO install went smoothly but without booting any windows partitions. What I did next was trying to boot windows partitions with my Super Grub CD (I guess you';re already familiar with it) and made it to boot both windows but couldn't update or install grub. So I rebooted and selected from install CD Repair the broken system and then dropped to root shell *(with mounted root partition) and typed the command
# grub-install /dev/sda
At least that was my case, in yours may be /dev/hda which in any case you can find out with "fdisk -l" command.
I then rebooted my pc and there it was, although blue, grub was showing all OS from Ubuntu Linux through memtest + Windows Vista and Windows XP. However there was a problem still, I could boot into windows but not in Linux, so I rebooted once more and without install cd this time and selected from grub menu "Ubuntu Linux Repair Mode" and then I got *(like you should) list of usual problems to be fixed so I've selected Update GRUB... And there it was I just continued with normal resume and got into fresh installed ubuntu karmic koala alpha 2!
Now am on the way to test it and hopefully report not so many bugs, although there has to be some anyway.

Well that's it.

Hopefully Ubuntu will fix this small bug, cause if you're a n00b it could scare you a lot and make you don't wanna try to install any linux anymore...

[sam tygier (samtygier)]

thanks for the response. i had already repaired grub(1) to boot my existing systems, but have not attempted to get it booting the fail karmic install.

[sam tygier (samtygier)]

i no longer get the fail