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I have two drives, sda and sdb.

I boot into the first drive sda, via its EFI partition sda1, and its Ubuntu installation on sda2 and sda3. But this drive has developed bad sectors, I don't know if anything has been corrupted besides the bad sectors marked by smartmontools.

So I want to build a fresh setup on sdb which has no dependency at all on the failing drive sda.

I presume that means I need to install a separate and independent EFI on sdb, yes? I am not sure how to control which drives the motherboard's UEFI software sees, as opposed to what grub sees.

algal
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    In this scenario you definitely want to have a new EFI partition on the second drive. However to boot from that drive you will have to learn how to enter the BIOS/UEFI and change some settings. I recommend you find the manual for your motherboard online and look up exactly how to do this. However you usually get into the BIOS/UEFI by pressing a key at the very beginning of the boot process. That key is typically F2, F11, F12 or delete – PonJar Nov 03 '22 at 09:28
  • Thanks @PonJar! I am able to enter the motherboard’s UEFI interface (its “boot manager”). When I do, it sees both drives but shows only sda as a possible boot drive. So adding the EFI partition to sdb should cause the motherboard to see it as a boot drive, yes? sdb1 is already an empty FAT32. What do I put there exactly to make it a valid EFI partition the motherboard will see? – algal Nov 03 '22 at 13:43
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    Ubuntu's Ubiquity installer has a bug/feature where it only installs grub to first drive's ESP. See this with many work arounds: https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/ubiquity/+bug/1396379 You do need to manually partition in advance & have ESP on second drive or disconnect first drive. May be easiest of various work arounds: Remove esp flag from Windows before install to second or external drive - Tim Richardson https://askubuntu.com/questions/16988/how-do-i-install-ubuntu-to-a-usb-key-without-using-startup-disk-creator – oldfred Nov 03 '22 at 19:17
  • Thanks for pointing this out. Never imagined such a fundamental bug could exist and exist for so long in the installer. – algal Nov 04 '22 at 03:27

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