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

[Michael Sparmann]

Unbelievable that this bug is still present in 11.10.
I had to redo the whole installation because of this, as attempting to go back to the partitioning step to add the missing partition makes all later steps fail irrecoverably because of the installer forgetting that partitioning was already performed.

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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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