SaddleTramp wrote:drama wrote:Fixed my usb boot grub issue too. Had me about to pull my hair out because it would give me "error2". It would boot fine as long as i had the supergrub cd in the drive and used that to boot. But i would have to use it everytime i booted. If i rebooted and took it out i would get error2 again. Used an ultimate edition live dvd and used "boot from first hard disk" and it boot into my debian install just fine. Messed around for liek 3 more hours with different settings in the menu.lst. No luck. Finally i hit "esc" at boot one time. Thats how i get to my bios boot menu (lists all my boot devices) selected my usb drive and bam it booted it just fine. Not sure why i have to do it that way but it boots everytime as long as i select my usb drive from the boot menu.
...this is gonna sound dumb but I'm gonna ask anyway, IF you had XP/Vista only and had it installed on the USB drive, would that boot up (no bootable internal hdd's, just the XP/Vista USB drive) ?? ..
Honestly im not sure if it would boot if i installed xp or vista to it. I have always just used it for extra storage (moving files from one pc to another) up until now. Not really wanting to mess with my windows drive and my "media/backup" drive i decided i would try to install to the usb.
SaddleTramp wrote:and are you running IDE/SATA/PATA drives ?? My BIOS shows the 2 IDE DVD opticals as 1st & 2nd primary and the 3 SATA hdd's shows as 3rd, 4th, & 5th.
Actually i do have a few other drives "connected". Well sorta.
I have a 160gb ide (on the primary channel formatted as one large ntfs partition.) This is my windows drive.
I have a dvd r/w optical on the secondary ide channel.
I couldve put them both on the same ide channel since each supports 2 devices but i chose not to.
I have a 1tb sata on sata port1 formatted as 2 seperate ntfs partitions. 500gb for my music/video/torrents and the remaining is used for weekly imaging of the windows drive.
However i didnt want to take any chances of these two drives being touched at all so i went into my bios and disabled the sata adaptor and set ide to secondary only (my dvd r/w). This way it doesnt even know that my 2 internal hdd's are there.
I have usb legacy set to enabled. The bios only see the dvd r/w except for in 2 places. The usb shows up in the boot device priority menu of my bios (boot order) and the boot menu (esc). Otherewise it shows no hard drives.
Here is a series of screens from my bios (rather feature less)
Shows on boot:
Main:
Advanced:
Advanced--->Hardware Monitor:
Power:
Boot:
Boot--->Boot Device Priority
Boot--->Boot Device Priority--->HDD Group Boot Priority (kinda blurry. it says USB-HDD0 WD 6L100M External 1.65)
My external is a maxtor 100gb sata internal in a WD MYBOOK external case. Its externally powered (not through usb) it is usb 2.0 capable. It is connected to the front panel usb ports on my computer (a plug runs from my front panel to a pin socket on the motherboard (its not one of the ports that are sodered directly to the board).
If i let it boot normally this is what i get
However if i hit "esc" before the bios is done fully loading i get a screen like this
It will then load grub. Let me choose the kernal to load or auto load the first one after 5 seconds
Then i get the following
And it totally loads up just fine.
The partition scheme looks like this
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drama@debian:~$ sudo fdisk -l
[sudo] password for drama:
Disk /dev/sda: 100.0 GB, 100030242816 bytes
255 heads, 63 sectors/track, 12161 cylinders
Units = cylinders of 16065 * 512 = 8225280 bytes
Disk identifier: 0x4b384b38
Device Boot Start End Blocks Id System
/dev/sda1 * 1 30 240943+ 83 Linux
/dev/sda2 31 2462 19535040 83 Linux
/dev/sda3 2463 2584 979965 5 Extended
/dev/sda5 2463 2584 979933+ 82 Linux swap / Solaris
drama@debian:~$
/dev/sda1 is my /boot partition has the bootable flag turned on. Is primary. Is ext3. Size is approx 250mb. I had to do this to get rid of the "error18". Had something to do with a bios limitation. I guess that just because i can boot from a large partition on an internal hdd that doesnt mean i can do the same with a usb. Grub is installed to the mbr.
Listing of files under /boot
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drama@debian:~$ ls /boot
config-2.6.26-1-686 initrd.img-2.6.26-1-686.bak vmlinuz-2.6.26-1-686
grub lost+found
initrd.img-2.6.26-1-686 System.map-2.6.26-1-686
drama@debian:~$
Listing of /boot/grub
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drama@debian:~$ ls /boot/grub
default jfs_stage1_5 minix_stage1_5 xfs_stage1_5
device.map menu.lst reiserfs_stage1_5
e2fs_stage1_5 menu.lst~ stage1
fat_stage1_5 menu.lst.install.original stage2
drama@debian:~$
menu.lst
# menu.lst - See: grub(8), info grub, update-grub(8)
# grub-install(8), grub-floppy(8),
# grub-md5-crypt, /usr/share/doc/grub
# and /usr/share/doc/grub-legacy-doc/.
## default num
# Set the default entry to the entry number NUM. Numbering starts from 0, and
# the entry number 0 is the default if the command is not used.
#
# You can specify 'saved' instead of a number. In this case, the default entry
# is the entry saved with the command 'savedefault'.
# WARNING: If you are using dmraid do not change this entry to 'saved' or your
# array will desync and will not let you boot your system.
default 0
## timeout sec
# Set a timeout, in SEC seconds, before automatically booting the default entry
# (normally the first entry defined).
timeout 5
# Pretty colours
color cyan/blue white/blue
## password ['--md5'] passwd
# If used in the first section of a menu file, disable all interactive editing
# control (menu entry editor and command-line) and entries protected by the
# command 'lock'
# e.g. password topsecret
# password --md5 $1$gLhU0/$aW78kHK1QfV3P2b2znUoe/
# password topsecret
#
# examples
#
# title Windows 95/98/NT/2000
# root (hd0,0)
# makeactive
# chainloader +1
#
# title Linux
# root (hd0,1)
# kernel /vmlinuz root=/dev/hda2 ro
#
#
# Put static boot stanzas before and/or after AUTOMAGIC KERNEL LIST
### BEGIN AUTOMAGIC KERNELS LIST
## lines between the AUTOMAGIC KERNELS LIST markers will be modified
## by the debian update-grub script except for the default options below
## DO NOT UNCOMMENT THEM, Just edit them to your needs
## ## Start Default Options ##
## default kernel options
## default kernel options for automagic boot options
## If you want special options for specific kernels use kopt_x_y_z
## where x.y.z is kernel version. Minor versions can be omitted.
## e.g. kopt=root=/dev/hda1 ro
## kopt_2_6_8=root=/dev/hdc1 ro
## kopt_2_6_8_2_686=root=/dev/hdc2 ro
# kopt=root=/dev/sda2 ro
## default grub root device
## e.g. groot=(hd0,0)
# groot=(hd0,0)
## should update-grub create alternative automagic boot options
## e.g. alternative=true
## alternative=false
# alternative=true
## should update-grub lock alternative automagic boot options
## e.g. lockalternative=true
## lockalternative=false
# lockalternative=false
## additional options to use with the default boot option, but not with the
## alternatives
## e.g. defoptions=vga=791 resume=/dev/hda5
# defoptions=quiet
## should update-grub lock old automagic boot options
## e.g. lockold=false
## lockold=true
# lockold=false
## Xen hypervisor options to use with the default Xen boot option
# xenhopt=
## Xen Linux kernel options to use with the default Xen boot option
# xenkopt=console=tty0
## altoption boot targets option
## multiple altoptions lines are allowed
## e.g. altoptions=(extra menu suffix) extra boot options
## altoptions=(single-user) single
# altoptions=(single-user mode) single
## controls how many kernels should be put into the menu.lst
## only counts the first occurence of a kernel, not the
## alternative kernel options
## e.g. howmany=all
## howmany=7
# howmany=all
## should update-grub create memtest86 boot option
## e.g. memtest86=true
## memtest86=false
# memtest86=true
## should update-grub adjust the value of the default booted system
## can be true or false
# updatedefaultentry=false
## should update-grub add savedefault to the default options
## can be true or false
# savedefault=false
## ## End Default Options ##
title Debian GNU/Linux, kernel 2.6.26-1-686
root (hd0,0)
kernel /vmlinuz-2.6.26-1-686 root=/dev/sda2 ro quiet
initrd /initrd.img-2.6.26-1-686
title Debian GNU/Linux, kernel 2.6.26-1-686 (single-user mode)
root (hd0,0)
kernel /vmlinuz-2.6.26-1-686 root=/dev/sda2 ro single
initrd /initrd.img-2.6.26-1-686
### END DEBIAN AUTOMAGIC KERNELS LIST
The remainder of the system is installed in /dev/sda2 mounted at / it is ext3 and is primary. Approx 20gb in size.
/dev/sda5 is my swap partition and it is logical
SaddleTramp wrote:Does the device.map (in /boot/grub directory) match up to how your BIOS reads your drives as to how Grub reads the drives...
(hd0) /dev/sda
(hd1) /dev/sdb
(hd2) /dev/sdc
Here is my /boot/grub/device.map
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(hd0) /dev/sda
The usb is the only hdd that is connected. The 2 internals are disabled via the bios.
SaddleTramp wrote:what part of SuperGrub were you using to boot into the Debian partition?? ...it's sounds like (IMO) Debian Grub isn't what is being called at bootup...
Well first i used Advanced--->grub--->restore grub in hdd (mbr)--->auto---> selected my boot partition.
That didnt work i still got error2.
Then i used boot and tools--->boot mbr--->boot mbr--->selected the disk.
It then booted right into grub. I selected the first kernel and it it booted right up. I then shutdown and removed the disc. Then i got error2 again. So i booted with the disc again and used teh same exact thing boot and tools--->boot mbr--->boot mbr--->selected the disk.
It then booted right in once again.
Since i can boot fine with boot the supergrub disc and with a live cd/dvd (choosing boot from first hard disk). And also can hit "esc" while the bios is loading and select the usb drive as shown here
Im beginning to think maybe i just have a buggy bios. I read somewhere that changing the "ahci" setting can help with issues like this but i dont have that option anywhere in my bios. Compaq/hp must have either not added it or they set it to "hidden".
But the even weirder thing is if i let debian partition the whole disk and let it setup lvm it boots fine. So it may or may not be a bios issue. This alone has me puzzled.
I mean i can boot just fine by hitting "esc" and selecting my usb drive. No boot cd or anything like that needed. So im glad for that. Still curious as to why it wont boot up on its own though without me manually selecting which disc to boot everytime.