Bug 15239

Summary:	boot loader fails to install to proper drive
Product:	Mageia	Reporter:	brian peterson <brianpeterson2>
Component:	Installer	Assignee:	Mageia Bug Squad <bugsquad>
Status:	RESOLVED DUPLICATE	QA Contact:
Severity:	normal
Priority:	Normal	CC:	thierry.vignaud
Version:	4
Target Milestone:	---
Hardware:	i586
OS:	Linux
Whiteboard:
Source RPM:		CVE:
Status comment:

Description brian peterson 2015-02-09 01:36:53 CET

I've done a test or two to verify why initially the boot-loader failed to install (not Virtualbox) on a real system where SATA has been disabled in the bios and only-USB was used.

Two USB sticks were used, one for the installer which was plugged in the first usb port, and another USB which was empty meant to be used for the installation.

Apparently without warning or prompts, the installer automatically writes the boot-loader to what it perceives as "/dev/sda", which is installer usb.  Later rebooting the installer no longer worked but the "boot loader" running from it can start up the new system.

An easy solution to prevent this, is of course to always assume the install drive to be "/dev/sda"...but for the majority of distro installers out in the wild are able to prompt or give an option to view/change the bootloader during its installation.

The big problem I'm seeing with this, is the installer is not checking where "/" is being applied nor is it aware of its own install media, .. if the bootloader by default is set to the drive where "/" is getting mapped I believe it could remedy it.

thanks


Reproducible: 

Steps to Reproduce:

Comment 1 Thierry Vignaud 2015-02-09 09:01:32 CET

You can already review the bootloader settings when the summary is prompted after installation...

CC: (none) => thierry.vignaud

Comment 2 brian peterson 2015-02-15 08:47:46 CET

thanks, but the installer should prevent from setting grub to its own media as a default suggestion. there's also another issue if the auto-partitioning is used, a swap partition is automatically attempted upon the install media as well.. I filed this other related bug separately.. the installer here again tries to write back to its media..

Comment 3 Thierry Vignaud 2015-02-18 10:29:52 CET

Actually I think it's a side effect of bug #14435 which broke detecting USB devices

*** This bug has been marked as a duplicate of bug 14435 ***

Status: NEW => RESOLVED
Resolution: (none) => DUPLICATE