GOOD NEWS!!! I got it working. I can now boot on this external drive without having to jump start from a live cd and chroot or any of that. It seems that my mkinitcpio.conf did not include 'usb' as one of the hooks for building the initial RAMFS image. I figured the RAMFS was failing some how since the usb drive hadn't been formerly listed in the startup sequence. So I added usb to the list of hooks and she's working now. I don't know a whole lot about the insides of mkinitcpio or if this configuration is common accross most distros but I got mine working and I guess that's what really matters. Thanks to all of you for your helpful answers and ideas. Now off to fix my wireless challenge . --------------------------------------------------- PLUG-discuss mailing list - PLUG-discuss@lists.plug.phoenix.az.us To subscribe, unsubscribe, or to change your mail settings: http://lists.PLUG.phoenix.az.us/mailman/listinfo/plug-discuss