Package: grub-installer Severity: wishlist
Irrespective of bugs: http://bugs.debian.org/cgi-bin/bugreport.cgi?bug=292513 http://bugs.debian.org/cgi-bin/bugreport.cgi?bug=497168 http://bugs.debian.org/cgi-bin/bugreport.cgi?bug=557242 The grub-installer should at the very least allow for target (MBR/partition) selection prior to actually doing anything; I tested AMD64 and i386 (Testing) -- both grub-legacy and grub2 and finally ended up with a recovered NTFS boot-able system and 1 savable Ext3 partition ... could have been worse; but I wonder - can the grub-installer be better? -- Please note: the lost of partitions I accept full responsibility for so please understand that point is not an issue. My set up prior to trying the testing distro squeeze - /dev/sda (1TB drive) - layout: /dev/sda1 - 32GB NTFS ( Drive C:\ ) /dev/sda2 - 2GB swap /dev/sda3 - 900GB+ /sneex Ext4 :Disaster Recovery parition /dev/sdb (1TB drive) - layout: /dev/sdb1 - 32GB NTFS ( Drive D:\ ) /dev/sdb2 - 900GB+ / Ext 3 :Root running RHEL v5.5 64 bit (for a project at PGA Tour) Only one OS showed on the Grub menu - RHEL with WinXP blissfully hidden. Everything worked as expected - RHEL correctly asked which drive sda or sdb I wanted the MBR written to; I picked sdb and thus left sda as default, I could easily dual boot (using the BIOS Multi-Boot menu) and WinXP ran by default anyway; so anyway the project ended and since I technically do not have a license to run RHEL beyond the 30 day try before you buy phase (not to mention no updates) I really wanted to run Debian AMD64 Squeeze (but after the install it craps out with an SMP protection fault - but that's another story.) So I tried i386... After too many installation gyrations (mostly because the grub-installer stage will never ask for a MBR/partition target (one other version did but I do not remember whether it was a live, a testing, or a sid release.)) Needless to say I ended up using TestDisk off the Gnome Partition Editor iso (Debian Live DR iso in SF: http://gparted.sourceforge.net/) to at least reclaim both NTFS partitions and the secondary backup of the Ext3 data (the swap and /sneex were lost - but I do have a backup.) I am not saying Debian has to be better than distro so-in-so but I respectfully ask that Debian be technically sane when making decisions - even when I am prolly not. Thank you for your time and efforts -- I truly appreciate them. Bill -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to debian-bugs-dist-requ...@lists.debian.org with a subject of "unsubscribe". Trouble? Contact listmas...@lists.debian.org
