We have a joint install/hack fest at UAT next Saturday the 11th also? On Mon, Dec 6, 2010 at 9:33 AM, Steve Holmes wrote: > OK, Thanks for the advice. Alas, that still didn't work. What is > still happening is the RAMFS boots fine and the final messages shown > before it barfs indicate that it found my internal haard drive and its > 4 windows partitions. But then it shows /dev/sdb to be a mass storage > device but it never shows the 2 partitions (sdb1 and sdb2) as I would > expect. I'm beginning to wonder if and how people are getting a > system to boot strait from a USB device like this. The pre-built ISOs > work and the system is running under the live image but For whatever > reason, the UDEV stuff isn't discovering the existing partitions on > the USB drive when it is the same device being used to boot in the > first place. I may need to bring my laptop in to either Thursday's > east side meeting or this Saturday's install fest to show the errors > to someone who might know more. It seems like what should have been > an easy solution but I think the USB stuff is getting in the way some > how. > > Another thread on the list here shows a guy doing exactly what I'm > trying to do; have my machine remain native windows for now and boot > with a full distro on a portable hard disk. I wonder what else I > might be missing here. > > On Sat, Dec 04, 2010 at 06:35:40PM -0700, Joseph Sinclair wrote: > > Steve, > > I would start over with ext3, and this time I would recommend using > UUID as the drive identification method, as that method is resistant to the > reordering/remapping that you're experiencing (UUID was introduced exactly > because modern controllers may reorder drives on boot). > > > > ==Joseph++ > > > > Steve Holmes wrote: > > > Well, I have some more progress or updates on this problem. I still > > > can't get the thing to but from the USB external drive but here is > > > what I have so far. Sorry for the lengthy details. > > > > > > 1. I found out that when I start the HP laptop and use the boot menu > > > to choose the USB drive, grub picks up the devices in the opposite > > > order than what I knew them to be while running from a live CD. > > > > > > 2. So I reconfigured the menu.lst file in grub to use (hd0,0) instead > > > of the former (hd1,0). > > > > > > 3. When I boot now, grub starts up and when I pick the menu item, the > > > RAM FS begins to load. But then I get a message saying that it is > > > waiting for a device and after 10 seconds, it dumps me to an emergency > > > shell - probably inside the RAMFS. > > > > > > At this point, I could determine that the kernel was scanning devices > > > and was now mapping the internal hard drive to /dev/sda and it showed > > > the 4 windows partitions. But for /dev/sdb, no file systems! It > > > looked like UDEV was seeing the device but not able to recognize the > > > file systems. Yet, this very drive is what I installed the stuff on > > > to and when I run from the Arch install CD, this USB drive shows up > > > just fine. I thought I would try ext4 as the file systems on this > > > drive; I'm beginning to wonder if I should scrap the whole thing and > > > do it over with ext3 instead. I thought if Arch installer supports > > > ext4 when building that it should be able to boot with it. Is there > > > any chance the kernel wasn't built to support ext4 or something? > > > > > > Should I look for anything else? > > > > > > > > > > > > --------------------------------------------------- > > 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 > > --------------------------------------------------- > 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 > -- (503) 754-4452 (623) 688-3392 http://www.it-clowns.com | http://www.obnosis.com