mactel-support team mailing list archive

[Ricky Campbell <cyberdork33@xxxxxxxxx>]

It looks like this is fixed (or at least mostly fixed) in Jaunty. They
haven't been complaints, and people that think the problem still exists
have noted that the partition table was correct and didn't need fixed.

There may still be an issue when using the alternate installer rather
than the normal desktop installer. We are going to have to get some more
input on that.

** Changed in: mactel-support
       Status: Fix Committed => Fix Released

-- 
Partition Table is cleared during install on Intel Macs
https://bugs.launchpad.net/bugs/222126
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Status in grub-installer: Invalid
Status in Mactel Support: Fix Released
Status in “parted” source package in Ubuntu: Fix Released
Status in “ubiquity” source package in Ubuntu: Invalid
Status in parted in Ubuntu Hardy: Triaged
Status in ubiquity in Ubuntu Hardy: Invalid
Status in parted in Ubuntu Intrepid: Triaged
Status in ubiquity in Ubuntu Intrepid: Invalid
Status in parted in Ubuntu Jaunty: Fix Released
Status in ubiquity in Ubuntu Jaunty: Invalid

Bug description:
Binary package hint: ubiquity

Ubuntu 8.04 Final

Intel Macs have an EFI system and a GPT. The installer seems to handle the GPT correctly (as it has in the past), but it has recently come up that the installer is completely emptying the contents of the MBR partition table which is still required to boot Windows and Ubuntu (GRUB relies on the MBR partition table). The two tables are not synced automatically.

When users install Hardy, they are suprised to find that the system is unbootable (the EFI loader cannot "see" the partition as bootable). a tool such as rEFIt or gptsync can copy the information in the GPT into the MBR table thus fixing the issue (for most). 

This is even more serious for users with other working OS installs in addition to Ubuntu (such as other linux distros and Windows) since it completely dumps the information needed to boot these installs as well.

The expected procedure (and how the previous Ubuntu install seems to have handled it) is to 'update' both the GPT and the MBR table with changes instead of completely losing the information stored there.

gparted / parted seemed to update both tables properly previously as well.

I will be doing a full install on my iMac later and will be able to add additional information.


This bug was fixed in parted 1.8.8.git.2008.03.24-11.1ubuntu6 by adding "Apple Inc." as an additional system-manufacturer tag for which we do the special Apple GPT->MBR handling.

TEST CASE: You'll need a reasonably new Intel-based Mac system for which 'sudo dmidecode -s system-manufacturer' returns "Apple Inc." (not "Apple Computer, Inc."). Check that installations work, and that 'sudo fdisk -l' shows a reasonable MBR representation of the first four partitions on your disk (compare against 'sudo parted -s /dev/sda print').

REGRESSION POTENTIAL: The only other systems that really care about this kind of thing are ones for which 'sudo dmidecode -s system-manufacturer' returns "Apple Computer, Inc."; installations on those systems should keep working. Other than that I think we're basically taking a completely broken case and rendering it at least vaguely functional ...