[Bug 1012629] Re: grub-installer ignores "bootdev" setting in preseed file

[Dave Chiluk]

So I've been doing a lot of work in this area recently.  After looking
closely through partman-partitioning, and create_new_label forces a gpt
partition table if the volume is above 2TB.  This makes sense, since
disks >2TB tend to have issue with msdos partition tables.
Unfortunately my slightly older, bios-booting/legacy-booting system just
does not want to boot off of gpt disks.  As a result it will not boot
after install, even though grub-installer successfully installs.

So for me the solution is to either use smaller disks or boot using efi.

Hopefully this doesn't muddy the waters any more than it already is.
Additionally if people are still having issues it would be beneficial to
start over in a new case and start the problem definition from scratch.

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https://bugs.launchpad.net/bugs/1012629

Title:
  grub-installer ignores "bootdev" setting in preseed file

Status in grub-installer package in Ubuntu:
  Fix Released
Status in grub-installer source package in Precise:
  Confirmed
Status in grub-installer source package in Trusty:
  Fix Released
Status in grub-installer package in Debian:
  Fix Released

Bug description:
  I am installing an Ubuntu system with two disks attached; I want the
  OS to be installed on the second disk /dev/sdb; the first disk
  /dev/sda is currently completely empty (not even partitioned).  The
  install process works fine, but then GRUB ignores the line:

          d-i grub-installer/bootdev string /dev/sdb

  and complains that it cannot write to /dev/sda (because it does not
  even have a partition table).

  Same happens if I use GRUB's own notation "(hd1)" instead of /dev/sdb
  in the preseed file.

  If I omit the "grub-installer/bootdev" line in the preseed, then D-I
  stops to ask me if I want to install GRUB on sda or sdb.

  The issue can be replicated with virtual machines: add two disks (one
  of the empty / zeroed out), and instruct the preseed to install on the
  second one.

  I think this is the same as Debian bug #666974, but I'm filing it
  separately as I'm not sure what/how much is changed in Ubuntu's
  version of D-I. See: http://bugs.debian.org/cgi-bin/bugreport.cgi?bug=666974

  
  Preseed options used for partitioning / target selection:

      ### Partitioning
      d-i partman-auto/method string lvm
      d-i partman-auto/choose_recipe select atomic

      # do not ask for confirmation, ever
      d-i partman-basicfilesystem/no_swap               boolean  false
      d-i partman-lvm/confirm                           boolean  true
      d-i partman-lvm/confirm_nooverwrite               boolean  true
      d-i partman-lvm/device_remove_lvm                 boolean  true
      d-i partman-md/confirm                            boolean  true
      d-i partman-md/device_remove_md                   boolean  true
      d-i partman-partitioning/confirm_write_new_label  boolean  true
      d-i partman/choose_partition                      select   finish
      d-i partman/confirm                               boolean  true
      d-i partman/confirm_nooverwrite                   boolean  true
      d-i partman/exception_handler                     select   Retry

  
  GRUB-related preseed options:

      ### Boot loader installation
      d-i grub-installer/only_debian boolean true
      d-i grub-installer/with_other_os boolean true
      d-i grub-installer/bootdev string /dev/sdb

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