Installer crash leaves grub broken + Q about bad media?

[Smiff2]

first great job on Mint14 Cinnamon it runs way better on this old system than 13. not sure if credit goes to Radeon driver or what but hey, nice.

Installer crashes during file copy with error (sorry didn't get exact wording) about bad source OR bad destination. bit vague there. i've tried a couple of times, error occurs in diff. places, but always same error. source DVD passes integrity check option at boot menu.
so i think i may actually have a bad SSD. any ideas how to check this please?
it's not an issue with Mint14 as Mint13 does same thing (obviously, it works a few months ago when i installed Mint13, so something must have changed on my system since then).

The bad part though and main reason i'm posting is it never cleans up grub, so after crashing it renders other linux/windows partitions unbootable. scary as i couldn't remember how to reinstall grub, found a guide, sorted now with nothing lost.
someone needs to fix the installer please so after it fails (there's a dialogue saying it crashed, can be hooked in here?), grub is put back to how it was or grub reinstalled.
this seems critical to me?

not sure why you are touching grub at all before completing the file copy?

(don't know if this issue has regressed since Mint13 since i didn't try rebooting after the crash with Mint13 installer, i just used Mint13 liveCD to reinstall grub)

[Smiff2]

should i file a bug report for the installer breaking grub?

also at some point i'd like to get Mint14 installed. might try on another system and just confirm it's something particular to the partitions/SSD on the first one.