Debian Bug report logs - #625974
grub installer should remind which partition Debian's / was installed on

Reply or subscribe to this bug.

Display info messages

Message #5 received at [email protected] (full text, mbox, reply):

From: Samuel Thibault <[email protected]>

To: [email protected]

Subject: grub installer should remind which partition Debian's / was installed on

Date: Sat, 7 May 2011 15:30:46 +0200

Package: installation-report
Severity: wishlist

From #debian-boot. A user had windows already installed on the 1st
hdd, and used d-i to install Debian on the 2nd hdd. When the question
about where grub should be installed, he took the default "sda" while
he actually wanted to install it on the 2nd hdd (and tweak the bios to
choose booting either from 1st or 2nd). What happened is that he assumed
that debian would install grub on the same hdd as where it installed the
filesystem, and he didn't realize that "sda" was actually the 1st hdd.

Reminding what partition Debian's / is on would have helped him realize
that sda is not the same disk as sdb1.

I don't remember which package provides the debconf question and didn't
find with a quick search, thus submitting to installation-report for
triaging.

Samuel

Message #10 received at [email protected] (full text, mbox, reply):

From: Samuel Thibault <[email protected]>

To: Miguel Figueiredo <[email protected]>, [email protected], [email protected], [email protected]

Subject: Re: Bug#625974: grub installer should remind which partition Debian's / was installed on

Date: Mon, 9 May 2011 22:28:21 +0200

reassign 625974 grub-installer
thanks

Miguel Figueiredo, le Mon 09 May 2011 21:15:42 +0100, a écrit :
> On Saturday 07 May 2011 14:30:46 Samuel Thibault wrote:
> > When the question
> > about where grub should be installed, he took the default "sda" while
> > he actually wanted to install it on the 2nd hdd
>[...]
> > I don't remember which package provides the debconf question and didn't
> > find with a quick search, thus submitting to installation-report for
> > triaging.
> 
> IIUC it's this one:
> 
>   70 Template: grub-installer/bootdev

Indeed.

>   71 Type: string
>   72 # :sl2:
>   73 _Description: Device for boot loader installation:
>   74  You need to make the newly installed system bootable, by installing
>   75  the GRUB boot loader on a bootable device. The usual way to do this is to
>   76  install GRUB on the master boot record of your first hard drive. If you
>   77  prefer, you can install GRUB elsewhere on the drive, or to another drive,
>   78  or even to a floppy.
>   79  .
>   80  The device can be specified using GRUB's "(hdn,m)" notation, or as a device
>   81  in /dev. Below are some examples:
>   82   - "(hd0)" or "/dev/hda" will install GRUB to the master boot record
>   83     of your first hard drive (IDE);

Mmm, actually that may be a bit misleading, because in SATA cases, the
first hard drive is actually /dev/sda.  Depending on the machine, you
may even have both /dev/hda and /dev/sda...

>   84   - "(hd0,2)" or "/dev/hda2" will use the second partition of your
>   85     first IDE drive;
>   86   - "(hd2,5)" or "/dev/sdc5" will use the first extended partition of
>   87     your third drive (SCSI here);
>   88   - "(fd0)" or "/dev/fd0" will install GRUB to a floppy.

Thanks,
Samuel

Send a report that this bug log contains spam.