[Bug 1717978] [NEW] When grub install fails, suggest or perform corrective action

[Paul Schreiber]

Public bug reported:

I recently installed Ubuntu Server 17.04. The install took a few tries
because grub-install failed without giving details (filed as #1717975).

Eventually, I ran grub-install from a shell prompt and got details:
grub-install: warning: Attempting to install GRUB to a disk with multiple partition labels. This is not supported yet..
grub-install: error: embedding is not possible, but this is required for RAID and LVM install.

The workaround was to wipe the beginning of the disk. Something like this:
dd if=/dev/zero of=/dev/sda bs=2047 count=1

It would be very helpful if the installer could fix this sort of problem
automatically. Perhaps when rewriting the partition table, it could wipe
labels. Perhaps it could dd over, as I did. Perhaps there's an even
better solution.

** Affects: debian-installer (Ubuntu)
     Importance: Undecided
         Status: New

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https://bugs.launchpad.net/bugs/1717978

Title:
  When grub install fails, suggest or perform corrective action

Status in debian-installer package in Ubuntu:
  New

Bug description:
  I recently installed Ubuntu Server 17.04. The install took a few tries
  because grub-install failed without giving details (filed as
  #1717975).

  Eventually, I ran grub-install from a shell prompt and got details:
  grub-install: warning: Attempting to install GRUB to a disk with multiple partition labels. This is not supported yet..
  grub-install: error: embedding is not possible, but this is required for RAID and LVM install.

  The workaround was to wipe the beginning of the disk. Something like this:
  dd if=/dev/zero of=/dev/sda bs=2047 count=1

  It would be very helpful if the installer could fix this sort of
  problem automatically. Perhaps when rewriting the partition table, it
  could wipe labels. Perhaps it could dd over, as I did. Perhaps there's
  an even better solution.

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