Red Hat Bugzilla – Bug 251768
Must choose to install GRUB on /dev/sda to install it on /dev/sdb
Last modified: 2008-08-02 19:40:37 EDT
Description of problem: GRUB installation process is very confusing in certain instances during the installation process, so much so that users can balk at installation of grub because to proceed the installation of GRUB to /dev/sdb, you are forced to select to install it to /dev/sda which contains critical data and the user doesn't want modified. Later options let you reconfigure the selection, but you must first select to install it to a drive that you don't want to install it to. Version-Release number of selected component (if applicable): Original F7 boot DVD 2.6.21-1.3194.fc7 How reproducible: Always Steps to Reproduce: I find this issue when booting the F7 DVD to install F7 to a pre-partitioned and connected USB drive, at which time the drive mapping is: /dev/sda - the internal hard drive /dev/sdb - the usb drive Now in the installation to the USB drive, as most users would be, I want to be sure that I am certainly not writing anything to /dev/sda, which contains critical information. There is an F7 installation screen that starts with "Installation requires partitioning of your hard drive". On there you can choose which drive you would like to boot the installation from. By default it is to sda, but you can change it to sdb. Then if you choose "Create custom layout", the selection of which drive you would like to boot from gets greyed out (this doesn't make sense to me, because you have to install grub somewhere - as an aside, why doesn't this option work in this case?). Then you get to a sscreen which gives you a choice of two options: * The GRUB boot loader will be installed on /dev/sda * No boot loader will be installed You can choose one or the other, and there is no other choice. This is very confusing, because I can't choose the first option because I don't want to risk modifying /dev/sda and I want to install it to /dev/sdb and I can't choose the second option because I do need to install GRUB. At this point, I DO NOT KNOW whether if I press next, whether the installer will proceed to install GRUB on /dev/sda!!! The only option that I know that is safe is to install no boot loader at all!! Now there happens to be a nice little option down the bottom of the screen that says "Configure advanced boot loader options", which just happens to let you configure the GRUB boot loader to be instsalled on /dev/sdb even though you have to choose to install it on /dev/sda and select the option to get it. This is unintuitive and confusing!! Actual results: Confusing menu choices Expected results: Easy to follow choices
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Is this still an issue in Fedora 9?
Fedora 7 changed to end-of-life (EOL) status on June 13, 2008. Fedora 7 is no longer maintained, which means that it will not receive any further security or bug fix updates. As a result we are closing this bug. If you can reproduce this bug against a currently maintained version of Fedora please feel free to reopen this bug against that version. Thank you for reporting this bug and we are sorry it could not be fixed.