[FSUG-Bangalore] Debian Boot from external USB Hard Disk

[Shyam S]

On 11/2/07, harsha reddy <harsha at linuxmail.org> wrote:
>
> I have following questions to you:
>
> To which partition did you install the grub?


/dev/sda9

Did you make sure that the partition(s) names picked up when booting are
> same as the partition names when you installed debian?


well, while booting after installtion. It is not recognising my /dev/sda
device. even though my BIOS is dectecting and  grub installed from the  MBR
of my external  hard disk(/dev/sda) is showing files inside the /dev/sda9
partition. I think this is the root problem.

Do you have same version of Debian installed on the internal Hard disk as
> well as external hard disk?


I dont have any ext2/3 partition in my internal hard disk.

some thing like the hard disk is detected as hda when connected as primary
> master.
> and when connected to secondary master the same harddisk is detected as
> hdc. (this is the most general case).


That is the interesting part while kernel is loading it is only detecting
hda: IC25N030ATMR04-0, ATA Disk drive
hdc: HL-DT-STDVD-ROM GCR8083N,ATAPI CD/DVD-ROM drive

which are my internal hard disk and dvd rom.


 I had install Debain on /dev/sda9, external usb harddisk. My internal
harddisk does not contain any info about Debain or Grub. I installed grub on
my external hard disk's MBR. so when I boot from external usb. it prompts.

This is my configuration of grub which is installed in external hard disk

kernel          (hd0,8)/boot/bzImage root=/dev/sda9 nomce quit splash=initrd
rootdelay=15

it is (hd0,8) since grub is identifying my external hard disk as so. But I
am giving root=/dev/sda9 since it is an external hard disk.When I try to
identify the device from knoppix that partition is recognised as /dev/sda9 (
also it was same while the time of installation)

but for the above configuration I was getting the following error message.

VFS: Cannot open root device "sda9" or 08"09
Please append a correct "root=" boot option
kernel Panic:VFS: Unable to mount root fs on 08:09

but if I give the grub argument as

kernel          (hd0,8)/boot/bzImage root=/dev/hda9 nomce quit splash=initrd
rootdelay=15

(which is wrong) But I give as a try.

hda9: bad access: block=2,count=2
end_request: I/O error,dev 03:09(hda),sector 64
isofs_read_super: bread failed,dev=03:09,iso_blknum=16,block=32
Kernel panic:VFS:Unable to mount root fs on 03:09

Also I noted one thing, while boot  is proceeding, the kernel is not
dectecting the sda interface, even though i recompiled the kernel with most
usb modules as kernel inbuilt.

hope I am clear.

I try to boot the /dev/sda9 device with puppy linux making another option in
grub by coping  kernel and initrd  to the same partition(into a /puppy
directory), I could boot in to puppy from the ext usb hdd.


> ----- Original Message -----
> > From: "Shyam S" <shmkmrs at gmail.com>
> > To: fsug-bangalore at mm.gnu.org.in
> > Subject: [FSUG-Bangalore] Debian Boot from external USB Hard Disk
> > Date: Fri, 2 Nov 2007 10:51:52 +0530
> >
> >
> > Hi,
> >
> > I am recently a problem in installing Debain GNU/Linux on my external
> > hdd for my laptop. The laptop had boot from external HDD option. I
> > install the Debain base system on the external hdd and grub was
> > successfully installed but when I try to boot from the external hdd
> > device  the booting halted showing the following error message.
> >
> > Warning: unable to open an initial console.
> > Kernel panic - not syncing: no init found. try passing init= option to
> kernel
> >
> > Thanks for any input/suggestion you may have
> >
> > Regards
> > Shyam
> >
> > _______________________________________________
> > FSUG-Bangalore mailing list
> > FSUG-Bangalore at mm.gnu.org.in
> > http://mm.gnu.org.in/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/fsug-bangalore
>
> >
>
>
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