Booting from a USB Drive

Mon Dec 6 19:26:33 MST 2010

On Mon, Dec 6, 2010 at 3:55 PM, Steve Holmes <steve at holmesgrown.com> wrote:

> I'm pretty much doing all that though it is with Arch Linux.  What
> seems to be at the core of the matter is When I use the installation
> media from CDROM, The internal hard disk, containing original windows
> partitions, is /dev/sda and the attached USB drive is /dev/sdb; so far
> so good.
>
> The instalation sequence proceeds along just fine with that
> construct.  When it comes to grub, grub sees the internal disk as
> (hd0) and the attached drive as (hd1); note this is while I'm still in
> the live CD environment and when I chroot to the USB drive for
> configuration.  Before chrooting, I mount --bind /dev /mnt/dev so my
> devices can be found when I do the grub setup in my chroot
> environment.  Hope I didn't lose anybody yet.
>
> Now when I boot the machine and choose USB from the BIOS boot menu,
> grub starts up but now the USB drive is (hd0) and the internal disk is
> (hd1); no, I did not transpose anything yet in this message.  Now at
> this point, I get the boot menu with the two Arch linux entries and
> after choosing the first one, the initial RAMFS loads so at this
> point, my USB drive is accessed fine.  But along here, my internal
> hard disk is being discovered to be /dev/sda and shown accordingly.
> This list time, /dev/sdb wasn't even mentioned.  After getting dumped
> out into the emergency shell, I decided to try looking for /dev/disk
> and then went into the by-label directory and saw entries for sda1,
> sda3 and sda4.  No mention of my linux partition.
>
> Again, the bottom line here is for some reason, it can't find my USB
> drive during the boot sequence even though it just loaded the RAMFS
> from that same device just a few moments before.  Does this make any
> sense?
>

Sure, that is why someone told you above to use the UUID to identify the
drive instead of the changeagble /dev/?da type references. Here is a
reference:
   https://help.ubuntu.com/community/UsingUUID

> On Mon, Dec 06, 2010 at 01:23:35PM -0700, Dazed_75 wrote:
> > Lisa, the 11th IS the "this Saturday" he mentioned.
> >
> > Steve, I cannot speak to your several attempts with Arch and other
> distros.
> > I can say that if you INSTALL ubuntu to a USB drive (not use a loader
> with
> > the .iso), then when you get to the end of the partitioning phase there
> is
> > an advanced button on the lower right portion of the dialog box.  If you
> > click that, you can tell the installer to put GRUB on the USB drive
> rather
> > than your hard disk (you may need to have specified manual partitioning
> for
> > the USB drive) and after doing that you should be able to use the BIOS
> boot
> > menu to select booting from the USB drive.
> >
> > Larry
> >
> > On Mon, Dec 6, 2010 at 12:40 PM, Lisa Kachold <lisakachold at obnosis.com
> >wrote:
> >
> > > 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 <steve at holmesgrown.com
> >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?
> > >> > >
> > >> >
> > >> >
> > >>
> > >>
> > >>
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> > --
> > Dazed_75 a.k.a. Larry
> >
> > The spirit of resistance to government is so valuable on certain
> occasions,
> > that I wish it always to be kept alive.
> >   - Thomas Jefferson
>
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-- 
Dazed_75 a.k.a. Larry

The spirit of resistance to government is so valuable on certain occasions,
that I wish it always to be kept alive.
  - Thomas Jefferson
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