[Bug 1354005] Re: grub2 fails to install late in 14.04 upgrade process

[Daniele Varrazzo]

** Summary changed:

- grub2 failes to install late in 14.04 upgrade process
+ grub2 fails to install late in 14.04 upgrade process

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Title:
  grub2 fails to install late in 14.04 upgrade process

Status in “grub-installer” package in Ubuntu:
  Confirmed

Bug description:
  Well into a 14.04, upgrade grub-install failed, leaving the system
  potentially unbootable. The error message is:

      grub-install: warning: your core.img is unusually large.  It won't fit in the embedding area.
      grub-install: error: embedding is not possible, but this is required for RAID and LVM install.

  A detail explanation of the problem is here:
  http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=2238233

  In my limited understanding of the problem, the "embedding space" is
  the space on /dev/sda before the fist partition. My partition table at
  upgrade time was:

         Device Boot      Start         End      Blocks   Id  System
      /dev/sda1              63       80324       40131   de  Dell Utility
      /dev/sda2   *       81920    27865087    13891584    7  HPFS/NTFS/exFAT
      /dev/sda3        27865088   125521337    48828125    7  HPFS/NTFS/exFAT
      /dev/sda4       125521918  3907028991  1890753537    5  Extended
      /dev/sda5      3890290688  3907028991     8369152   82  Linux swap / Solaris
      /dev/sda6       125521920  3890290687  1882384384   8e  Linux LVM

  where sda1..3 were pre-formatted images on a Dell desktop (the
  previous Ubuntu version was installed after resizing sda3). I fixed
  the problem by removing the unused sda1 partition and repeating grub-
  install.

  I am opening this bug because I think the possibility that grub2 fails
  install should be checked early in the upgrade process; upgrade
  shouldn't start if there are the conditions to leave the machine
  unbootable. Googling around lets me think this mode of failure is not
  so uncommon (e.g. see
  https://bbs.archlinux.org/viewtopic.php?pid=1179691) and should be
  addressed.

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