Installing Fedora 6 prerelease on a USB disk [SOLVED] -> now a GRUB problem !

[Jim Cornette]

Andrea Mastellone wrote:

> However, I have solved the problem... in a strange fashion, but it
> works. External disk box was connected by means of a cable with two usb
> connectors to the computer (I guess that one connector is used only to
> supply electrical power). While both the cables were attached, the
> expert mode did not detect the disk. I then tried randomly to detach one
> connector.. and, magically, the disk has been dtected in the expert mode
> ! Evidently, the power requirement of the external disk is so low that
> only one cable is sufficient (infacts it is a 2.5" notebook drive).

I would not have thought that removing the power cable would let the USB 
disk be detected by the 'linux expert' installer mode. It is great that 
it worked for you. It is great to know that the ability to at least 
install to the USB disks was not removed frim the installer.

> 
> Now, I am coping with other problem. I have obviously created by the
> rescue cd a new initrd image with the usb storage drivers. It is GRUB
> that does not work. When I try to boot from the USB disk, only the word
> GRUB appears on the screen and the systems freezes, albeit I have told
> the Fedora installer to install grub on /dev/sda (and not /dev/hda).

I would think that installing in /dev/sda would work if the USB disk was 
first in boot order in BIOS settings. I did not pursue the issues very 
far with USB booting devices to really know much.

> 
> So, can you suggest me a simple but good manual of grub ? I probably
> have to reconfigure it, but I can do it from a working FC5 on hda... I
> tryed to chroot to the FC6 on usb disk and launched grub-install
> /dev/sda, but this is not the correct way :|

No ideas of where to hunt for information on getting a USB device 
booting properly. I was counting on the developers getting USB installs 
to just work without a lot of fuss. After all, what are we paying them 
for? :-)

Jim

> 
> Thanks in advance,
> 
> Andrea
> 
> 
> 


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