Hey,

My plan is to run some Linux distro's on an external USB HDD. So far I have been able to instal elementary OS, it thus far boots with the elementary OS logo and hangs for a while when it gives me the following message:


"Gave up waiting for boot device.
- Boot args (cat /proc/cmdline)
- Check root delay (Waiting long enough?)
- Check root (Waiting for the right device?)
- Missing modules (cat /proc/modules; 1s/dev)

ALERT! /dev/disk-uuid/*super long number* does not exist. Dropping to a shell!

BusyBox v1.21.1 (Ubuntu 1:1.21.0-1ubuntu1) build-in shell (ash)

Enter 'help' for a list of build-in commands."


To give you an idea of the external HDD partition:
60 GB: ext4 (elementary OS)
4GB: SWAP
Free Space
80 GB: NTFS (Random files)

The ext4 was given '/' for mounting point to keep it simple for now. The 'boot part' I've set to instal on sdc. Which is the external HDD. (I wasn't sure whether I should have chosen the ext4 partition or not.)

Please let me know if you need any addition information. I hope someone is familiar with the problem or knows a solution.

Thanks in advance.

If you try to boot the device with the USB drive unplugged does it exhibit the same behaviour?

Do you have any other linux's on sda or sdb?

My notebook's SSD is 'sda';
Then it assigned the Live USB as 'sdb';
The external HDD is 'sdc'.

To answer your question, no. These are the only devices I am running. I am wanting to run some Linux distro's on sdc. It does boot into elementary, their logo pops up and you anticipate it to start until after about 10 seconds the screen shows the messages as shown in my first message.

The ALERT message in your original post indicated the bootloader is looking for a partition identified by a UUID "super long number" which doesn't exist. You can run the blkid command from a terminal and compare the output to see if that UUID from the Alert message shows any where.

If you installed the bootloader for to the mbr of sdc and Elementary is on a partition on sdc, it should boot if sdc is set to first boot priority in the BIOS.

Probably the best thing to do is to go to the bootinfoscript site below, download and run it from any Linux Live medium and post the output, a results.txt file, here.

http://sourceforge.net/projects/bootinfoscript/

There is a link in the Description box on that page with instructions.

And did you do the checks suggested ?. My guess would be the USB is taking too long to settle - try setting rootdelay to something like 30.