[Bug 506670] Re: >2TB/GPT: Must warn if BIOS boot partition is missing (unbootable system!)

[John McCabe-Dansted]

I don't think you need to start all over again. You can just create the
partition in gparted and retry. The error messages are not friendly
though.

"Executing 'grub-install /dev/sda' failed.

This is a fatal error."

This should tell you why it failed, and give the actual error message. I
had to discover that I needed to do a "chroot /target" before manually
running grub-install or it would give an unrelated error.

Also, regarding "The debug log file from your installation would help us
a lot but includes the password you used for your user when installing
Ubuntu. " Why doesn't it just remove the password before uploading?

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https://bugs.launchpad.net/bugs/506670

Title:
  >2TB/GPT: Must warn if BIOS boot partition is missing (unbootable
  system!)

Status in “partman-base” package in Ubuntu:
  Triaged
Status in “partman-base” source package in Lucid:
  Triaged

Bug description:
  Binary package hint: partman-base

  (Ubuntu karmic, alternate install CD)

  If you manually partition a large disk (2TB or more), a GUID partition table (GPT) will automatically (and silently) be used.
  This means that you *have to* create a BIOS boot partition ( http://grub.enbug.org/BIOS_Boot_Partition ), or the grub setup will fail and the system will be unbootable.

  There *really* should be a warning about a missing BIOS boot partiton
  (just like there is a warning about the missing swap partition, which
  is far less important).

  This will bite a lot of people as disks > 2TB become standard.

  Screenshot of "Fatal error" when "configuring grub-pc": http://img696.imageshack.us/img696/2181/dsc01923o.jpg
  Screenshot of error messages on VT3: http://img30.imageshack.us/img30/9581/dsc01922yi.jpg , transcript:
  Jul  6 01:34:43 grub-installer: grub-setup: warn: This GPT partition label has no BIOS Boot Partition; embedding won't be possible!
  Jul  6 01:34:43 grub-installer: grub-setup: error: Embedding is not possible, but this is required when the root device is on a RAID array or LVM volume.

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