[Bug 1666806] Re: UEFI: No option to format EFI system partition

[Simon Quigley]

** Changed in: ubiquity (Ubuntu)
       Status: New => Won't Fix

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Title:
  UEFI: No option to format EFI system partition

Status in ubiquity package in Ubuntu:
  Won't Fix

Bug description:
  Installing Ubuntu 16.10-amd64-desktop on a UEFI system.

  Using fdisk, I build a new GPT with the first partition being a 128MB
  EFI System Partition:

  ----------------

  Disk /dev/sda: 465.8 GiB, 500107862016 bytes, 976773168 sectors
  Units: sectors of 1 * 512 = 512 bytes
  Sector size (logical/physical): 512 bytes / 512 bytes
  I/O size (minimum/optimal): 512 bytes / 512 bytes
  Disklabel type: gpt
  Disk identifier: 85CA3211-D280-41FB-81C3-D81053A34B82

  Device        Start       End   Sectors   Size Type
  /dev/sda1      2048    264191    262144   128M EFI System
  /dev/sda2    264192  67373055  67108864    32G Linux root (x86-64)
  /dev/sda3  67373056  75761663   8388608     4G Linux swap
  /dev/sda4  75761664 976773134 901011471 429.7G Linux home

  ----------------

  The EFI partition is not formatted. For the sake of guaranteed
  replication, zero-fill it:

  # dd if=/dev/zero of=/dev/sda1 bs=512

  When the ubiquity GTK installer is launched, I select "something else"
  to manually assign and format the partitions.

  The first partition is correctly detected as the EFI system partition,
  but the checkbox to format it is deselected and disabled.

  After clicking "Install now" an error message appears indicating that
  it failed to mount /dev/sda1 to /boot/efi as vfat. It provides the
  option to "go back" or "continue".

  By specification, the EFI system partition is required to be either
  FAT32, FAT16 or FAT12.

  Here's the problem: If you go back, you cannot rectify the problem as
  there is no option to format the partition. If you continue, the
  installer will hang immediately after formatting the other partitions.
  It does not display an error - it just hangs indefinitely.

  The error message is also a bit cryptic. An expert would realise there
  is a requirement to format the partition as vfat, but I suspect not
  many would know what they did wrong, or that they need to manually run
  "mkfs.vfat" to fix it.

  TL;DR - the installer needs to do a better job of ensuring the EFI
  system partition is formatted as vfat.

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