[Bug 704763] Re: boot loader not installed to target disk

[dgatwood]

Same problem, 20.04 on 2019 Mac Pro.  And in this case, I *can't*
install GRUB on the internal drive at all, because the built-in NVME
disk is non-writable in Linux.  So I had to go through a lengthy process
of mounting things and running grub manually with about a hundred-
character-long command.

Worse, every time I install any kind of update that upgrades the kernel,
it looks like I have to repeat that whole lengthy process, or else the
system won't be bootable.

How is something so critical still so badly broken after this many
years?  Installing the bootloader on the same disk as the OS should be
the DEFAULT.  Installing it on some random disk shouldn't even be
POSSIBLE, much less the only supported behavior.

If the internal disk ever becomes writable in a future kernel update,
this bug could be *seriously* bad.

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https://bugs.launchpad.net/bugs/704763

Title:
  boot loader not installed to target disk

Status in ubiquity package in Ubuntu:
  Confirmed

Bug description:
  Binary package hint: casper

  Advised by "ubuntu brainstorm" moderator "cheesehead" (please see
  http://brainstorm.ubuntu.com/idea/26998/) to file this as a "bug
  report" against the "casper" package of ubuntu release 10.x  While I
  can see similarities between what follows and bug #223428, I am not
  sure they are the same.  At any rate, here goes...

  Like many people, I suspect, I wanted to install unbuntu on a physical
  drive completely separate from the one containing my legacy OS
  (Windows Vista); in my case, an external hard-drive connected to my
  computer by USB. After some trial-and-error, I realized that the
  installation option I should use was the "Erase and use entire disk"
  option (though this was scary, because at first I didn't know that I
  would later be presented with a choice of WHICH disk to erase and
  use). The trouble was, though, that even when I realized I could
  specify the external disk as the one to which ubuntu should be
  installed, and did so, the installer STILL overwrote the boot loader
  of my computer's INTERNAL hard-drive (the one containing Windows
  Vista) with GRUB. Because of this, I could not boot the computer at
  all unless my external hard-drive was connected. I finally got around
  this by going with the "specify partitions manually" installation
  option, which also gave me the option to specify the location of the
  boot loader, but not before I had made my computer unbootable (by
  futzing around with the computer's boot sector) and had to hunt down
  and create a Windows Vista restore disk just for the purpose of
  restoring the boot loader stored on the computer's internal hard-
  drive.

  Suggested solutions:
  1. Somehow indicate, early on, that the installer (person) will be presented with a CHOICE of which disk will be erased and used entirely (please see the description in the above "idea rationale" section). 
  2. Write the boot loader (GRUB) to the disk targeted for the ubuntu installation when the "erase and use entire disk" installation option is chosen.

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