ubiquity crashed with InstallStepError in configure_ma()

[komputes]

Binary package hint: ubiquity

Attempting to install Ubuntu 9.04 from one key (created with usb-creator) to another key (blank 4GB key) Using a Dell Mini 9 as the hardware for installation. Ubiquity gets to past 75% and then quits. This is constantly reproducable on this machine and makes it quite difficult to make a bootable USB stick.

ProblemType: Crash
Architecture: i386
DistroRelease: Ubuntu 9.04
ExecutablePath: /usr/lib/ubiquity/bin/ubiquity
InterpreterPath: /usr/bin/python2.6
MediaBuild: Ubuntu 9.04 "Jaunty Jackalope" - Release i386 (20090420.1)
Package: ubiquity 1.12.12
ProcAttrCurrent: unconfined
ProcCmdline: /usr/bin/python /usr/lib/ubiquity/bin/ubiquity gtk_ui
ProcEnviron: Error: [Errno 13] Permission denied: '/proc/6942/environ'
PythonArgs: ['/usr/lib/ubiquity/bin/ubiquity', 'gtk_ui']
SourcePackage: ubiquity
Title: ubiquity crashed with InstallStepError in configure_ma()
Uname: Linux 2.6.28-11-generic i686
UserGroups:

[komputes (komputes)]

Seeing as how the bootloader install is what kills ubiquity, I attempted running the following to reinstall GRUB. Check out the "[: 494: =: unexpected operator" error.

ubuntu@ubuntu:~$ sudo mount /dev/sdc1 /mnt
ubuntu@ubuntu:~$ sudo grub-install --root-directory=/mnt /dev/sdc
Probing devices to guess BIOS drives. This may take a long time.
grub-probe: error: Cannot open `/boot/grub/device.map'
[: 494: =: unexpected operator
Installing GRUB to /dev/sdc as (hd2)...
Installation finished. No error reported.
This is the contents of the device map /mnt/boot/grub/device.map.
Check if this is correct or not. If any of the lines is incorrect,
fix it and re-run the script `grub-install'.

(fd0) /dev/fd0
(hd0) /dev/sda
(hd1) /dev/sdb
(hd2) /dev/sdc