installer icon indicating copy to clipboard operation
installer copied to clipboard
verified publisher icon elementary

Doesn't warn when trying to install to msdos disk in EFI mode

Open aggalex opened this issue 4 years ago • 1 comments

Describe the bug When I tried to install elementary OS on a separate hard disk I used custom partitioning on an external hard drive that has an msdos partition table. I selected my root and my boot partition, and proceeded to install elementary OS. The bar was stuck at 0% for quite a while, so I opened the terminal view to see what's happening. Apparently, some component of the installer refused to install the OS on UEFI mode because the disk didn't have a gpt partition table. At that point though, there was no way to close the installer, since it didn't detect the error itself, and there was also no cancel button. I had to go to gparted and redo everything after I changed the partition table.

To Reproduce Steps to reproduce the behavior:

  1. Open the installer, choose language/locale/etc.
  2. Choose custom install
  3. Choose the boot and root partitions in a disk with msdos partition table
  4. Start the installation
  5. Installer stuck at 0%
  6. Open the terminal view
  7. see the error messages

Expected behavior I believe the most proper way to prevent this would be to make it a requirement in the custom installation page. Show that the device is connected, but gray it out to show that it's an unavailable installation destination because of its partition table. A UEFI installation requires GPT after all.

It's also very important to catch errors during installation and show them to the user when they happen.

Desktop (please complete the following information):

  • OS: elementary OS 6 beta (on external hard drive) & Debian Bullseye
  • Browser: Firefox & Firefox ESR

Smartphone (please complete the following information):

  • Device: Xiaomi Redmi Note 5 Pro
  • OS: MIUI Global 12.0.2, based on Android version 9
  • Browser: Vivaldi

aggalex avatar May 02 '21 11:05 aggalex

Thanks for the report, I can definitely reproduce that. I've just opened #518 which I've confirmed at least allows that error to be caught and throws you to an error screen where you can view the details and try again or reboot etc.

I'll leave this issue open though as I agree you shouldn't be able to get that far with an invalid partition layout.

davidmhewitt avatar May 02 '21 20:05 davidmhewitt