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I have upgraded our Ubuntu 12.10 remote server to 13.10.

During the upgrade process, I was asked which partition to install Grub2 to. I didn't know which drive was the boot drive, thus I checked all drives.

The GRUB boot loader was previously installed to a disk that is no longer present, or whose unique identifier has changed for some reason. It is important to make sure that the installed GRUB core image stays in sync with GRUB modules and grub.cfg. Please check again to make sure that GRUB is written to the appropriate boot devices.
If you're unsure which drive is designated as boot drive by your BIOS, it is often a good idea to install GRUB to all of them.
Note: it is possible to install GRUB to partition boot records as well, and some appropriate partitions are offered here. However, this forces GRUB to use the blocklist mechanism, which makes it less reliable, and therefore is not recommended.
GRUB install devices:
[*] /dev/sda (3000592 MB; TOSHIBA_DT01ACA300)
[*] /dev/sdb (3000592 MB; TOSHIBA_DT01ACA300)
[] /dev/md1 (536 MB; :1)
[
] /dev/md2 (1099510 MB; :2)

Later, I got this message:

GRUB failed to install to the following devices:
/dev/md2
Do you want to continue anyway? If you do, your computer may not start up properly.
Writing GRUB to boot device failed - continue?

I know that /boot is mounted to /dev/md1. However, since it's a remote server, I should be %100 sure before rebooting it.

$mount
/dev/md2 on / type ext4 (rw)
proc on /proc type proc (rw)
sysfs on /sys type sysfs (rw,noexec,nosuid,nodev)
none on /sys/fs/cgroup type tmpfs (rw)
none on /sys/fs/fuse/connections type fusectl (rw)
none on /sys/kernel/debug type debugfs (rw)
none on /sys/kernel/security type securityfs (rw)
udev on /dev type devtmpfs (rw,mode=0755)
devpts on /dev/pts type devpts (rw,gid=5,mode=620)
tmpfs on /run type tmpfs (rw,noexec,nosuid,size=10%,mode=0755)
none on /run/lock type tmpfs (rw,noexec,nosuid,nodev,size=5242880)
none on /run/shm type tmpfs (rw,nosuid,nodev)
none on /run/user type tmpfs (rw,noexec,nosuid,nodev,size=104857600,mode=0755)
none on /sys/fs/pstore type pstore (rw)
/dev/md1 on /boot type ext3 (rw)
/dev/md3 on /home type ext4 (rw)
systemd on /sys/fs/cgroup/systemd type cgroup (rw,noexec,nosuid,nodev,none,name=systemd)

How can I be sure that Grub was installed correctly?


the output of sudo parted -l is:

$ sudo parted -l

Model: ATA TOSHIBA DT01ACA3 (scsi)
Disk /dev/sda: 3001GB
Sector size (logical/physical): 512B/4096B
Partition Table: gpt

Number  Start   End     Size    File system  Name  Flags
 5      1049kB  2097kB  1049kB                     bios_grub
 1      2097kB  8592MB  8590MB                     raid
 2      8592MB  9129MB  537MB                      raid
 3      9129MB  1109GB  1100GB                     raid
 4      1109GB  3001GB  1892GB                     raid


Model: ATA TOSHIBA DT01ACA3 (scsi)
Disk /dev/sdb: 3001GB
Sector size (logical/physical): 512B/4096B
Partition Table: gpt

Number  Start   End     Size    File system  Name  Flags
 5      1049kB  2097kB  1049kB                     bios_grub
 1      2097kB  8592MB  8590MB                     raid
 2      8592MB  9129MB  537MB                      raid
 3      9129MB  1109GB  1100GB                     raid
 4      1109GB  3001GB  1892GB                     raid


Model: Linux Software RAID Array (md)
Disk /dev/md0: 8589MB
Sector size (logical/physical): 512B/4096B
Partition Table: loop

Number  Start  End     Size    File system     Flags
 1      0.00B  8589MB  8589MB  linux-swap(v1)


Model: Linux Software RAID Array (md)
Disk /dev/md1: 537MB
Sector size (logical/physical): 512B/4096B
Partition Table: loop

Number  Start  End    Size   File system  Flags
 1      0.00B  537MB  537MB  ext3


Model: Linux Software RAID Array (md)
Disk /dev/md2: 1100GB
Sector size (logical/physical): 512B/4096B
Partition Table: loop

Number  Start  End     Size    File system  Flags
 1      0.00B  1100GB  1100GB  ext4


Model: Linux Software RAID Array (md)
Disk /dev/md3: 1892GB
Sector size (logical/physical): 512B/4096B
Partition Table: loop

Number  Start  End     Size    File system  Flags
 1      0.00B  1892GB  1892GB  ext4

1 Answer 1

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Actually, /dev/md1 is mounted to /boot, not the other way around. In any case, you seem to have installed GRUB to sda and sdb, neither of which are mounted on your system. That should not be an issue and since installing to sda will install to the MBR of the 1st hard drive, you should be fine. However, to be on the safe side, you can try installing to your system drive as well:

sudo update-grub
sudo grub-install /dev/md
3
  • are you sure I should install it on /dev/md?
    – mustafa
    Mar 9, 2014 at 20:13
  • @mustafa your / is /dev/md2 so probably, yes. I could give you more details if you show your partitioning scheme. Could you show the output of sudo parted -l?
    – terdon
    Mar 9, 2014 at 20:14
  • can you check my uestion for the output of sudo parted -l?
    – mustafa
    Mar 14, 2014 at 8:55

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