Ubuntu
ubuntu-meta package

Installer fails to write grub to mbr?

Bug #16038 reported by Bill Chivers on 2005-04-15

Affects		Status	Importance	Assigned to	Milestone
	ubuntu-meta (Ubuntu)	Fix Released	Critical	Bill Chivers

Bug Description

Please ignore bug 16037 and look at this one instead...

At the end of the first stage of installation of Ubuntu 5.04 (downloaded 15
April 2005) I select mbr for the location of the boot loader. The machine
re-boots, and displays a message "Press "H" for hard disk or any key for floppy"
or words to that effect. Pressing "H" simply causes the message to be re-displayed.

The machine is a Toshiba Tecra laptop, and it also has Win XP Pro on it.

Revision history for this message

Bill Chivers (billchivers) wrote on 2005-04-15:

*** Bug 16037 has been marked as a duplicate of this bug. ***

Revision history for this message

Bill Chivers (billchivers) wrote on 2005-04-15:

I have managed to find a solution. Earlier in the installation, when configuring
the partition table, I marked the Windows partition (hda1) as bootable, THEN
marked the Ubuntu root partition (hda5) as bootable. I did not realise that this
second action REMOVED the bootable flag from hda1. Ubuntu only wants ONE of the
partitions as bootable - the one with the MBR. Then when I put grub on the MBR
(on hda1) the boot process failed.

Solution: make the partition which includes the MBR the only bootable partition.