[SOLVED] trouble installing linux mint to 500gb external hard drive due to normal.mod error
Linux - NewbieThis Linux forum is for members that are new to Linux.
Just starting out and have a question?
If it is not in the man pages or the how-to's this is the place!
Notices
Welcome to LinuxQuestions.org, a friendly and active Linux Community.
You are currently viewing LQ as a guest. By joining our community you will have the ability to post topics, receive our newsletter, use the advanced search, subscribe to threads and access many other special features. Registration is quick, simple and absolutely free. Join our community today!
Note that registered members see fewer ads, and ContentLink is completely disabled once you log in.
If you have any problems with the registration process or your account login, please contact us. If you need to reset your password, click here.
Having a problem logging in? Please visit this page to clear all LQ-related cookies.
Get a virtual cloud desktop with the Linux distro that you want in less than five minutes with Shells! With over 10 pre-installed distros to choose from, the worry-free installation life is here! Whether you are a digital nomad or just looking for flexibility, Shells can put your Linux machine on the device that you want to use.
Exclusive for LQ members, get up to 45% off per month. Click here for more info.
My external drive used to be an internal laptop drive that I put in an enlosure. I actually had 2, but dropped 1 of them. Both had os on them originally with all drivers installed, but the 1 I presently use was an upgrade from wheezy to jessie with gnome & a lot of gtk errors so I reinstalled os with xfce but this time while it was in the enclosure & it works fine on anything except mac & uefi machines. In bios it's listed as a hdd (initio)
The main difference with having mine on external is that instead of mounting a system with broken grub is that I can run update-grub & it will be added to my grub allowing me to boot directly into the broken os, unmount & remove usb, install grub.
My external drive used to be an internal laptop drive that I put in an enlosure. I actually had 2, but dropped 1 of them. Both had os on them originally with all drivers installed, but the 1 I presently use was an upgrade from wheezy to jessie with gnome & a lot of gtk errors so I reinstalled os with xfce but this time while it was in the enclosure & it works fine on anything except mac & uefi machines. In bios it's listed as a hdd (initio)
The main difference with having mine on external is that instead of mounting a system with broken grub is that I can run update-grub & it will be added to my grub allowing me to boot directly into the broken os, unmount & remove usb, install grub.
so i mount my external drive and run update grub? and that should allow me to boot into it from the usb somehow?
You have an internal hard drive with windows on it. You have a 500GB external drive with Mint on it (or at least you did originally). You did not have your windows drive attached when you installed Mint. The external drive would ordinarily have been the second drive and referred to as sdb. If you go back to post #17 and your output of grub.cfg you will see that the entry for Mint on the second drive/first partition is set root=(hd0,msdos1) which is the equivalent of sda1, not sda2. In later posts, your Mint shows as being on sda1.
A more accurate way to get information is to leave the windows drive attached, have the Mint external drive attached and then boot from Mint or whicever OS you are now trying to use and run: sudo fdisk -l This will show information on all drives and if they are different sizes it should be easier to determine which shows as sda/sdb, etc. The normal method of installing Grub to the mbr of the second drive on Ubuntu/Mint is: sudo grub-install /dev/sdb
Your normal.mod error is a little odd if you actually have the file in i386-pc directory.
You have an internal hard drive with windows on it. You have a 500GB external drive with Mint on it (or at least you did originally). You did not have your windows drive attached when you installed Mint. The external drive would ordinarily have been the second drive and referred to as sdb. If you go back to post #17 and your output of grub.cfg you will see that the entry for Mint on the second drive/first partition is set root=(hd0,msdos1) which is the equivalent of sda1, not sda2. In later posts, your Mint shows as being on sda1.
A more accurate way to get information is to leave the windows drive attached, have the Mint external drive attached and then boot from Mint or whicever OS you are now trying to use and run: sudo fdisk -l This will show information on all drives and if they are different sizes it should be easier to determine which shows as sda/sdb, etc. The normal method of installing Grub to the mbr of the second drive on Ubuntu/Mint is: sudo grub-install /dev/sdb
Your normal.mod error is a little odd if you actually have the file in i386-pc directory.
Your boot-repair info from your last post now shows Grub installed in the mbr of both your windows drive and the Linux external drive. It shows Mint on sda1 and windows on sdc1. The entry in that grub.cfg now points to Mint on sda1 which is how it is seen. There is no entry for windows so what exactly can you boot now?
You have an internal hard drive with windows on it. You have a 500GB external drive with Mint on it (or at least you did originally). You did not have your windows drive attached when you installed Mint. The external drive would ordinarily have been the second drive and referred to as sdb. If you go back to post #17 and your output of grub.cfg you will see that the entry for Mint on the second drive/first partition is set root=(hd0,msdos1) which is the equivalent of sda1, not sda2. In later posts, your Mint shows as being on sda1.
A more accurate way to get information is to leave the windows drive attached, have the Mint external drive attached and then boot from Mint or whicever OS you are now trying to use and run: sudo fdisk -l This will show information on all drives and if they are different sizes it should be easier to determine which shows as sda/sdb, etc. The normal method of installing Grub to the mbr of the second drive on Ubuntu/Mint is: sudo grub-install /dev/sdb
Your normal.mod error is a little odd if you actually have the file in i386-pc directory.
Your boot-repair info from your last post now shows Grub installed in the mbr of both your windows drive and the Linux external drive. It shows Mint on sda1 and windows on sdc1. The entry in that grub.cfg now points to Mint on sda1 which is how it is seen. There is no entry for windows so what exactly can you boot now?
well like i said i detatched the data cables for my internal drives out of fear of accidentally overwriting them while trying to fix linux, at the moment i can only boot into a usb liveboot of mint 17 that i have plugged in to a usb port in the back of my pc, my bios has the drive order of the usb first and the external usb drive second. whenever i set it to boot from the external drive it gives me the error
Distribution: Mainly Devuan with some Tiny Core, Fatdog, Haiku, & BSD thrown in.
Posts: 5,442
Rep:
Every time you change the drives around you are reordering their designations.
(Likely this is why there is confusion.)
Put your Windows drive back into the machine, that should/will be /dev/sda, put your live pendrive in, that should/will be /dev/sdb, finally attach your usb drive, that should/will be /dev/sdc.
Before doing anything else, check that those are how they are designated. (run 'dmesg | less' in a terminal)
Once the drives designations have been confirmed, 'we' can assist you.
well like i said i detatched the data cables for my internal drives out of fear of accidentally overwriting them while trying to fix linux
That is something that peeple commonly do. Of course in that situation, you will obviously not be able to boot windows on that drive from Grub installed on the other drive as the grub installation would have no way of knowing there was any other operating system installed on a drive that was not attached. You would have to run update-grub after attaching the windows drive. That doesn't do anything to explain why you have the normal.mod error, or at least why you had it when you initially posted.
Do you also get the same error when you set the BIOS to boot from the first/ internal drive?
Every time you change the drives around you are reordering their designations.
(Likely this is why there is confusion.)
Put your Windows drive back into the machine, that should/will be /dev/sda, put your live pendrive in, that should/will be /dev/sdb, finally attach your usb drive, that should/will be /dev/sdc.
Before doing anything else, check that those are how they are designated. (run 'dmesg | less' in a terminal)
Once the drives designations have been confirmed, 'we' can assist you.
Once you get things sorted out, you can use UUID's to make sure you are addressing the right partition on the right disk.
A UUID doesn't change if you connect a disk to a different port or even if you disconnect other disks.
But you must have GRUB installed on the disk you are booting from.
LinuxQuestions.org is looking for people interested in writing
Editorials, Articles, Reviews, and more. If you'd like to contribute
content, let us know.