[Bug 1418706] Re: UEFI: blank drive incorrectly detected as existing BIOS-mode install

[Martin Spacek]

This is an infuriating bug, but I've found a workaround, more or less
described in a comment in a duplicate bug here:

https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/ubiquity/+bug/1547286/comments/11

I'm installing Xubuntu 16.04 amd64 on a completely blank SSD on a brand
new UEFI-enabled HP system. If I immediately create an EFI partition
(say 200 MB) before the main partition, that doesn't fix the bug. I
still get the broken "Force UEFI installation" dialog in the next step.

This is because, for some strange reason, the installer decides to set
the EFI partition to ext4 instead of FAT32. You can see this in the
space allocation graphic at the top of the manual partitioning dialog.
So, instead of directly creating an EFI partition (during which you
can't specify the file system type), I created a 200 MB FAT32 partition,
then changed it to EFI with the "change..." button, and voila, I now
have a FAT32 EFI partition. After allocating my root partition and
hitting next, I no longer get the broken "Force UEFI installation"
dialog, and installation proceeds smoothly.

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https://bugs.launchpad.net/bugs/1418706

Title:
  UEFI: blank drive incorrectly detected as existing BIOS-mode install

Status in partman-auto package in Ubuntu:
  Confirmed
Status in partman-efi package in Ubuntu:
  Invalid
Status in ubiquity package in Ubuntu:
  Confirmed

Bug description:
  When doing a UEFI-mode install using the latest daily Vivid ISO (Thu
  Feb 5), Ubiquity incorrectly concludes that a blank drive contains an
  existing BIOS-mode install (see error in attached screenshot).

  The resulting error dialog is also broken: none of the buttons do any
  thing when clicked: X (close button), "Go Back", "Continue".

  You can seemingly move the install forward by clicking "Continue" in
  the main installer window, but things are still broken somewhere as
  grub isn't getting correctly installed (system is unbootable after the
  install completes).

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