Hi ppl!

I am new to Linux and I want to install Red Hat 9 on my laptop. It has XP installed and due to a small hard disk I intending to buy a external one and install the linux OS there.
I think this might be possible.... Can I really do it? if yes what is the best approach?
Do I always have to have a dual boot software? or can I connect my externall drive when I want to run linux (so the pc will boot via usb) and disconnet it when I want XP (it will then look for my C:\ drive).

Thanks a lot!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Cheers

Duarte

Oh my god i am trying to do the EXACT same thing. I have a simpletech 40gb hard drive. I have the 3 install disks for red hat 9. to be sure that i didnt partition my internal drive with windows on it, i actually removed it (quite easy for me) when i booted off the cd. When i get the the partitioning feature it says that it cant find a suitable drive to write the system files to. There are a couple things online that deal with the issue but they are either very confuzing or simply stating how f*ing hard it is to do it! I want to be able to run windows, then plug in the external and run linux, as well as simply unplug it and reboot windows again. I am trying to do the exact same thing... if you find something or fixed this already please tell. I will fill you in if i find something...

Me

if u install linux on a external harddrive or on d actual drivie ur MBR wil b over written.. lik now if u have windows xp's mbr it wil b replaced wit d linux's mbr.. so u can choose where 2 write d mbr it can b either on internal hdd or external hdd... so there r many ways 2 use it in ur laptop

Thank you very much for replying. Ok... well i removed my internal hard drive to install it and im running windows off my internal right now its doing great. I just cant get linux to boot. I installed Red Hat 9 on the external when the internal wasnt even connected... so this mbr or w/e has got to be on the external right? It should all be on the external but idk how to choose it as the root. Im using GRUB and i tried naming different numbers and stuff.

Is there a way you can find out the name of the external drive? Should the root be in the external drive somewhere? thats the only place it installed stuff. When i edit GRUB the one line has "hd (0,0)" and i tried moving numbers around there and it didnt work. Then i tried changing the "root=/LABEL=" to many things, like hd0, hda, hda1, hda2... i simply dont know what to do.

DOES ANYONE KNOW HOW TO MAKE THE ROOT= WORK? IT IS DRIVING ME INSANE!!!... someone said something about mounting something. Someone said they statically compiled something but i dont know how he did it. look:

----------------------------------------
Hi everybody.
I had the same problem.
This happens when you mount root as ext2, ext3 or reiserfs and you compile the support for those file sistem in a modular way.
Then when you boot, the system try to mount root partition, but doesn't find modules to mount it correctly, because the modules are located in other partition.
One solution is to make an INITial Ram Disk, doing mkinitrd -o initrd.img- /lib/modules/
I solved the problem compiling static all the modules about fs (ext3, jbd, ext2, dos, reiserfs, msdos, nfs, smb, etc.)
Also the scsi support must be compiled statically.
At the end: I compiled all needed static, with no modules, with modules support too, in order to let the kernel able to probe modules in future(i.e: when you compile a VMWARE, you need kern-headers, and you can compile modules and probing those while your kern is running).
I tried this method with 2.4.26, and all went fine.
Now i wanna try with 2.6.5.
Maybe it will be succesfull.
Bye
----------------------------------------

Does anyone know how he "did" the mkinitrd -o initrd.img-/lib/modules/ ? and DOES ANYONE KNOW HOW TO COMPILILE THE MODULES STATICALLY LIKE HE DID? he seems to know what is wrong and stuff. thanks you all for the support.

Chao, Me

well well well...i guess ur MBR is not placed properly.. jus boot use rescue mode using installation disk.then try fdisk -p to list all ur drive setup.. then use grub-install command to exactly install ur MBR on required drive..tat wud help u i guess.. then boot again..

also try installing MBR on ur Internal hard drive rather than installing it on external hard drive...

Did you have to install Red Hat 9, rather than a newer distro?

Ok thanks for the suggestions.

Ok, i know how to boot in rescue: "linux rescue" But then you said to "fdisk -p" where do i do that? is there a place as soon as i start rescue mode? And how do i use the grub-install command? My kernel verson is vmlinuz-2.4.20-8. So you want me to install mbr on both hard drives or just try both seperately? When I run knoppix live cd 5.0.1, i look at the usb hard drive and i see 2 icons on the desktop: "sda1" and "sda2" but when i go to the root= command and type "root (<TAB>"
to show the possible disks it shows "fd0" and "hd0" but now sda1 or sda2. Also, it doesnt seen to show sda0... which i suppose is for grub right? im not really sure but it doesnt show it. People said to edit grub.conf or menu.lst, but when i log on knoppix and try to alter the content im not allowed to save the changes because im not logged on as "root"

And about using Red Hat 9, there are a couple programs i want to use that were created by programmers who said they tested them on RH9... kernel 2.4.xx so i decided to use it.

Of course, I would consider Fedora Core or something. Do you think that anything that runs on Rh9 would run on Fedora? And what verson of Fedora should i use. No matter what i use, this is my GOAL:

Run Windows on my laptop. Be able to shut it down, simply plug in the usb hard drive, and reboot. It should reboot linux off the external usb hard drive. Then i could shutdown and simply unplug it and reboot, causing windows to boot. I dont want a live cd because you cant alter program files, and i have a lot of configuring to do for some of the programs and would have to repeat it each time. Partitioning my internal hard drive is out of the picture. I am sure my bios supports usb boot.

If anyone has the answer i would be very appreciative, thanks

look at this... www.simonf.com/usb ... he says he enteres this info and script and stuff but i dont know where he is doing this nor how to get there. help please? im using red hat 9.

Ok i used www.simonf.com/usb and used the part under FC3 and older distributions becuase i am using redhat9. At the end it says use "grub-install"... but when i type that in it tells me that there needs to be a devices to install it to and then shows options also. Where do i install this to? my /boot is sda1, my / is sda2, swap is sda3, and a vfat partition under sda5. should i use "grub-install /dev/sda1" ? because thats where /boot is. I heard stuff about an MBR and stuff... what is all this? is the MBR in sda1? so is taht where i write it?

Any help is appreciated, and when i get this done i will write a guide for otehr people that is more understandable.

thanks, the newbie

I'm not too sure how the MBR actually works, but given that it's at the beginning of the disk, yeah, you'll need to use /dev/sda1.

Its not that complicated and definantly worth reading about. These two links helped me out:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mbr
http://www.mistered.us/wwwboard/messages/13535.shtml

~Justin

Are you sure its /dev/sda1? somewhere i read that in linux partition numbers start on 0. Also, this is my partition setup (from what the manual partitioner said): sda1 is "/boot", sda2 is "/" (root?), sda3 is swap, sda4 is the extended partition, and sda5 is a vfat partition (for using files on windows and linux). I followed instructions found at the www.simonf.com/usb site exactly except i mounted sda2 instead of sda3 (he had apparently had sda2 for windows). I tried rerunning the whole process and it seems to load the drivers at boot now, but it cant mount fs on 08:00 or 00:00 (the first pair changes as i put the hard drive in differnt usb slots) Also, it says that usb uhci found a device without sometype of number or tag or something, and says check bios. I keep getting kernel panics for not being able to mount stuff and sometimes (depending on what i change) i get a no init= error. Is there anywhere other than the above link that there is a complete walkthrough to installing redhat9 on a usb drive?

Partitions only start counting from 0 in GRUB's shell.

ok i keep trying different numbers and stuff and followed a waklthrough thingy and still got a hang. Can anyone either 1. Show me a really good walkthrough on how to do this... exact step by step instructions, or can anyone make one in a comment here if you really know what youre doing. i have windows xp on the internal and want red hat 9 on the external, but i guess any linux will do at this point

thanks