Grub installation on a USB external disk

[Tim]

On Wed, 2007-09-26 at 15:24 -0500, Mikkel L. Ellertson wrote:
> The splash screen does not have to be on the same partition as the
> kernel, much less the same drive.

Correct, it doens't "have" to, but it usually is.  At least for single
boot systems, GRUB's files are usually in the boot partition.  For
multi-boot systems, you *may* have several boot partitions, and GRUB's
files *may* be in them all.

> But it does have to be on a drive the BIOS can access. (Grub uses the
> BIOS to access the drives.) If I am reading thing right, it also has
> to be on the same file-system type as the kernel images are. (Each 1.5
> stage only understands one file system type.) I do not think that Grub
> hard-codes the splash screen graphics location. Because there isn't a
> NTFS stage 1.5, I don't think you can put the files on a NFTS.

The graphics would come from where the system boots from (in this case,
the system is starting up GRUB), so wherever your /boot is (and GRUB),
you can put a graphic.  From that booted up point you have a menu that
can then start booting from somewhere else.  But the graphic is done
before that stage.

It wouldn't be a case of the image changing if you changed your menu
option to boot from another drive, but more if your BIOS picked another
boot point (you changed the BIOS, or changed removable drives), whatever
it booted provides you with GRUB on that location.  Which would have its
own menus, and own graphics.

I can imagine a system which allows USB booting to normally boot from
the internal drive, making use of /boot and its GRUB files from that
drive.  Then, later, an admin plugs in their removable hard drive with
all their admin/repair goodies, and boots from that, instead.  This
time, the system's using /boot from the plugged in drive, and GRUB on
that drive (with its own special graphics).

Ultimately pointless, but still fun to play with.

-- 
(This box runs FC5, my others run FC4 & FC6, in case that's
 important to the thread.)

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