How Do I Get GRUB to See the External USB Drive?

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5 total messages Started by Scarletdown Sun, 14 Jun 2009 23:39

#307933

Author: Scarletdown
Date: Sun, 14 Jun 2009 23:39

34 lines
1312 bytes

I just purchased an external USB drive in hopes that I could toss an XP
build on it real quick without messing with everything on the internal
drives (friends wanting me to try Lord of the Rings Online which doesn't
work with Cedega is one of the reasons...)

Anyway, I got what I think is a working XP install on the drive.
However, GRUB does not recognize that the drive is there until after I
am fully booted into Linux.

When I go to a GRUB command prompt by hitting c when the menu comes up,
I enter the command root (hd TAB.

This shows available drives as hd0 (the EIDE drive that the system boots
from), hd1 (a 9GB internal SCSI drive), and hd2 (a 500GB internal SATA
drive).

When I get fully booted up and fire up konsole, I enter the grub command
and again do root (hd TAB.

This time I get hd0, hd1, hd2, hd3

And further, root (hd1, TAB shows:

 Possible partitions are:
   Partition num: 0,  Filesystem type is ext2fs, partition type 0x83
   Partition num: 1,  Filesystem type unknown, partition type 0x7
   Partition num: 2,  Filesystem type unknown, partition type 0x7

(That second one is where the XP install is at)

So it's obvious that GRUB can see external USB drives.  However, it is
not visible to GRUB there at boot time.  Is there any way to force GRUB
to actually see external drives?

Re: How Do I Get GRUB to See the External USB Drive?

#307964

Author: Scarletdown
Date: Mon, 15 Jun 2009 11:21

37 lines
1423 bytes

On Mon, 2009-06-15 at 16:53 +0200, Sjoerd Hardeman wrote:
> Can you check the contents of /boot/grub/device.map? I think you need to
> make sure your usb device is mentioned there for it to work at boot
> time. If it is not there, redo update-grub and check if the usb drive is
> added to device.map. If so, do a grub-install and then things should work.

cat /boot/grub/device.map
(hd0)   /dev/hda
(hd1)   /dev/hdb

That is both before and after update-grub.  As previously mentioned, hd1
is the external drive, but only after the system has been fully booted
up and running.  At the GRUB menu when first powered up, hd1 is still
the internal SCSI drive (whereas it becomes hd3 after booting).

sudo update-grub
Password:
Searching for GRUB installation directory ... found: /boot/grub
Searching for default file ... found: /boot/grub/default
Testing for an existing GRUB menu.lst file ...
found: /boot/grub/menu.lst
Searching for splash image ... none found, skipping ...
Found kernel: /boot/vmlinuz-2.6.22-2-k7
Found kernel: /boot/vmlinuz-2.6.18-3-k7
Found kernel: /boot/vmlinuz-2.6.18-1-k7
Updating /boot/grub/menu.lst ... done

I really do want to resolve this really soon.  However, I am now leaning
toward just installing on that 9GB SCSI drive after all (all the rest of
the stuff (LOTRO and other things on the Windwoes side can still go on
the external).  Need to do this before the trial time expires.  :)

Re: How Do I Get GRUB to See the External USB Drive?

#307957

Author: Bhasker C V
Date: Mon, 15 Jun 2009 15:58

39 lines
1406 bytes

Looks interesting.
I had long before tried to setup XP on the external USB disk and left
the option. The best option would be to install XP on your system drive
and use USB disk to boot linux. This is very easy and you do not need
grub on the internal machine and all you have to do is to
boot from the USB drive choice from BIOS. Linux on USB disk worked fine
for me.

If you are able to install XP on the external disk please do ping me
and give me some info/tips.

thanks

On Mon, 15 Jun 2009, Sjoerd Hardeman wrote:

> Now to the list instead of the poster
>
> Scarletdown schreef:
>> I just purchased an external USB drive in hopes that I could toss an XP
>> build on it real quick without messing with everything on the internal
>> drives (friends wanting me to try Lord of the Rings Online which doesn't
>> work with Cedega is one of the reasons...)
>> ...
>> So it's obvious that GRUB can see external USB drives.  However, it is
>> not visible to GRUB there at boot time.  Is there any way to force GRUB
>> to actually see external drives?
> Can you check the contents of /boot/grub/device.map? I think you need to
> make sure your usb device is mentioned there for it to work at boot
> time. If it is not there, redo update-grub and check if the usb drive is
> added to device.map. If so, do a grub-install and then things should work.
>
> Sjoerd
>
>

Bhasker C V
Registered linux user #306349

Re: How Do I Get GRUB to See the External USB Drive?

#307956

Author: Sjoerd Hardeman
Date: Mon, 15 Jun 2009 16:53

44 lines
1530 bytes

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Now to the list instead of the poster

Scarletdown schreef:
> I just purchased an external USB drive in hopes that I could toss an XP
> build on it real quick without messing with everything on the internal
> drives (friends wanting me to try Lord of the Rings Online which doesn't
> work with Cedega is one of the reasons...)
> ...
> So it's obvious that GRUB can see external USB drives.  However, it is
> not visible to GRUB there at boot time.  Is there any way to force GRUB
> to actually see external drives?
Can you check the contents of /boot/grub/device.map? I think you need to
make sure your usb device is mentioned there for it to work at boot
time. If it is not there, redo update-grub and check if the usb drive is
added to device.map. If so, do a grub-install and then things should work.

Sjoerd


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Re: How Do I Get GRUB to See the External USB Drive?

#307968

Author: Sjoerd Hardeman
Date: Mon, 15 Jun 2009 21:42

71 lines
2324 bytes

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Scarletdown schreef:
> On Mon, 2009-06-15 at 16:53 +0200, Sjoerd Hardeman wrote:
>> Can you check the contents of /boot/grub/device.map? I think you need to
>> make sure your usb device is mentioned there for it to work at boot
>> time. If it is not there, redo update-grub and check if the usb drive is
>> added to device.map. If so, do a grub-install and then things should work.
> 
> cat /boot/grub/device.map
> (hd0)   /dev/hda
> (hd1)   /dev/hdb
Try adding
(hd2)	/dev/hd? (your usb disk)
and then do a grub-install
> 
> That is both before and after update-grub.  As previously mentioned, hd1
> is the external drive, but only after the system has been fully booted
> up and running.  At the GRUB menu when first powered up, hd1 is still
> the internal SCSI drive (whereas it becomes hd3 after booting).
> 
> sudo update-grub
> Password:
> Searching for GRUB installation directory ... found: /boot/grub
> Searching for default file ... found: /boot/grub/default
> Testing for an existing GRUB menu.lst file ...
> found: /boot/grub/menu.lst
> Searching for splash image ... none found, skipping ...
> Found kernel: /boot/vmlinuz-2.6.22-2-k7
> Found kernel: /boot/vmlinuz-2.6.18-3-k7
> Found kernel: /boot/vmlinuz-2.6.18-1-k7
> Updating /boot/grub/menu.lst ... done
> 
> 
> I really do want to resolve this really soon.  However, I am now leaning
> toward just installing on that 9GB SCSI drive after all (all the rest of
> the stuff (LOTRO and other things on the Windwoes side can still go on
> the external).  Need to do this before the trial time expires.  :)
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 



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