Multi-booting from internal HD and USB HD issue Salix LILO and Fedora Grub

kayasaman · 01-25-2012, 10:09 PM

Possible but then I couldn't even use ls /boot/ as per toweedm's example.

I compiled the USB modules into the initrd for Salix which is on /dev/sda (internal drive) from above.

The modules were also loaded into grub directly.

I don't get it?

I'd like to be able to boot back into Fedora as with Salix I don't get much H/W support for my notebook.

I may just switch over to another OS as the 'main' or 'internal' system. Currently am considering using FreeBSD 9 or Fedora 16 but either way it still doesn't help my accessing of the USB HD

colorpurple21859 · 01-25-2012, 10:10 PM

in the slackware mirrors in the /extra folder is the grub legacy package. should be able to install it into salix, since it is based on slackware. It has been a while since I have used salix, but I think if you download the grub package and pkgtool or installpkg to install it

kayasaman · 01-25-2012, 10:11 PM

tomwheedm - just to clarify in order to chroot to Fedora from Salix I would mount the USB drive then chroot /mnt/dir right?

towheedm · 01-25-2012, 11:03 PM

Yes...but to install GRUB/GRUB2 you must also bind mount /dev,/proc or both...can't recall at the moment. Then chroot.

Probably something like:

Code:

mount /dev/sdb1 /mnt/dir
mount -t proc proc /mnt/dir/proc
mount --rbind /dev /mnt/dir/dev
chroot /mnt/dir /bin/bash

This should put you into a BASH shell.

kayasaman · 01-26-2012, 04:55 AM

Ok I wrote a howto on this many years ago - actually here on LQ:

Quote:

Probably something like:
Code:

mount /dev/sdb1 /mnt/dir
mount -t proc proc /mnt/dir/proc
mount --rbind /dev /mnt/dir/dev
chroot /mnt/dir /bin/bash

It should be infact:

Code:

mount --bind /sys /mnt_dir/sys
mount --bind /proc /mnt_dir/proc
mount --bind /dev /mnt_dir/dev
chroot /mnt_dir

Sorry for not remembering earlier and being so dopy about it but was riding on no sleep.

Now after 3 hours of Zzz's I tried my disk in the 'family' laptop as internal sda. Worked fine and grub started up and booted into GDM.

Why it doesn't boot as USB drive I do not know....

I was intending to install that as primary drive on my new machine but turns out Lenovo X series use a slimmer drive then the 'standard' 1/8 high 2.5" drive.

Well am gona try dual booting the internal drive with Fedora 16 and FreeBSD9 then hopefully the GRUB of FC16 should be able to boot the USB drive. If not I don't know

Thanks for everyone's help btw.

colorpurple21859 · 01-26-2012, 05:19 AM

If I'm understanding this your taking a regular ide/sata drive and hooking to usb port and trying to boot it. If so the problem is the initramfs-2.6.41.4-1.fc15.x86_64.img doesn't have the modules install to access though the usb port. chroot/boot into fedora and redo the initramfs-2.6.41.4-1.fc15.x86_64.img to include drivers for usb

kayasaman · 01-26-2012, 08:02 AM

Hmm...

I will have a go.

The recovery CD should sort me out or even the NetBoot as I can run that from USB Flash drive.

Thanks for the tip

kayasaman · 01-29-2012, 03:16 AM

Thanks for all the help guys!

I am now trying to create a new initramfs from Fedora 15 directly while booting it as internal machine from the family machine.

Again I'm having the same issues so I opened up another thread in order to gain help on the modules I need as F15 is a bit different then Slackware/Salix.

Still same old issues though, as internal drive it boots - as external drive Grub can't get the C/H/S values.

I have no idea what to do now but in anycase your help has been highly appreciate

kayasaman · 01-29-2012, 09:48 AM

Ok a little update on this!

Got it to work!!!

Turns out I didn't nee Grub at all.... just USB3.0 wasn't booting directly.

Plugged disk into USB2.0 powered port and by chance the system booted directly from disk.

So the issue was hardware not software.... after insmod on Grub from c-mode typing ls didn't give me hd1 just hd0 so from there I could tell what the issue was. - few