installing linux on USB hard drive

michaelk · 08-17-2006, 06:28 AM

Typically USB external drives are preformated as FAT32. When you installed Fedora did you select auto partitioning?
The full command is:
/usr/bin/chroot < your / directory >

gntx21 · 08-18-2006, 09:18 PM

no i didn't select auto partition but i did partition it with magic. so now i try to chroot its still not working all that well. check it out.

the command:
/usr/sbin/chroot </dev/sda1> but thats not working. what should i do now?

michaelk · 08-18-2006, 09:20 PM

/usr/sbin/chroot /dev/sda1

My fault... Do not include the <>

gntx21 · 09-05-2006, 12:44 PM

its still not working mike. I wanna give up but I really want to get to learn how to use linux, as much help as possible would be appreciated. lol

BittaBrotha · 09-05-2006, 09:58 PM

Did you mount the location first?
(mount /dev/sda /mnt/newroot), I'm not quite sure if this correct but should be done similar to this.

Then try chroot like this.

chroot /mnt/newroot /bin/bash

Thnx.

gntx21 · 09-09-2006, 08:14 PM

ok mike i got the chroot command to work now, what do i do next? i don't know what my initrdname is.

and is this one command?

mkinitrd --preload=ehci-hcd --preload=usb-storage --preload=scsi_mod --preload=sd_mod /boot/[initrdname]-usb.img [kernel-no., as per the kernel you're loading, e.g. 2.6.12-...FC4]

whats my kernel number for fedora 5?

michaelk · 09-09-2006, 09:42 PM

The uname command will output the kernel you are running. i.e. uname -r

The image name is not important because you will update the grub.conf that will reference the new one.

gntx21 · 09-10-2006, 01:11 AM

ok mike, i have everything working except for the edit /boot/grub/grub.conf command. i keep getting this error.

sh: edit: command not found

how do execute this command?

gntx21 · 09-10-2006, 03:07 AM

at the beginniing of the link you gave me, the guy says:

Install FC4 using the 'linux expert' command line boot option, the USB drive appears as /dev/sda, so partition and install to that drive. When asked, make sure that grub is installed to the boot sector of the USB drive. This is very important.

how do i do this? I never even see a prompt asking me about grub.

michaelk · 09-10-2006, 10:51 AM

Edit is not a command. You can use any text editor to modify the grub.conf file but you must be root.
You can install grub in rescue mode( after issuing the chroot command) via the command:
grub-install /dev/sda

gntx21 · 09-10-2006, 02:31 PM

when i grub-install /dev/sda i get:

The file /boot/grub/stage1 now read correctly.

what could be the problem?

gntx21 · 09-20-2006, 08:35 PM

thanks mike!

michaelk · 09-20-2006, 09:00 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by gntx21

thanks mike!

Is it working?

gntx21 · 09-20-2006, 11:59 PM

no but we've tried

michaelk · 09-21-2006, 06:47 AM

try:
grub-install --root-directory=/mnt/where_ever --no-floppy /dev/sda