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    #1

    External HDD

    Hi,

    I have a question, but don't know if there is an answer for it though.
    Anyway, on my laptop I have Windooz and Kubuntu 7.04 on one HD.
    I bought myself a 320 Gig external (usb) HD, and put Kubuntu 7.10 on that one, or on part of it anyway.
    I have my laptop starting with Grub, and in that menu also of course the Kubuntu 7.10 on the external. As soon as it works, it starts up Lilo which is on the External.
    The problem I'm having is that I have to time switching on the HD very precise in order for Grub to find my external HD. Is there a way to say start up the USB harddrive earlier so Grub can find it? I have to restart my external sometimes a few times extra because otherwise it isn't found.
    So is there an answer for this question?

    Hope so.
    Thanks, Will.

    Go through life one sheep at a time.
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    #2
    Re: External HDD

    Your question is a good one.
    I suspect you've thought & figured it out about as well as it can be figured out.

    Without eSATA, your external HDD is not hot-pluggable. Most of us are in the same boat that way.
    You can read my antics here:
    How To Make GRUB Thumb Drive
    http://kubuntuforums.net/forums/inde...opic=3081748.0
    How to install K/Ubuntu 7.04 to an external USB hard disk drive (HDD), Reply #1

    In practice, I usually end up entering BIOS setup to configure at boot-time the boot disk to boot from, until my BIOS is sufficiently trained to do what it should do automatically.

    The GRUB programmers may be able to write some patched code to allow a boot-time command to have BIOS detect the external HDD, in some way or manner or fashion, but I haven't pursued asking them. A donation to adrian15 (Super Grub Disk project owner—see the SGD mailing list and site) might produce some results that way.

    Maybe someone else will surprise us here with a better response.

    Happy booting.
    An intellectual says a simple thing in a hard way. An artist says a hard thing in a simple way. Charles Bukowski
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      #3
      Re: External HDD

      Hi Qqmike,

      thanks for your reply.
      What I understand from you now is that everytime you want to startup the external HDD you change your BIOS first, just before post is started?
      My BIOS is able to startup a USB drive, so I could in theory do this. But then I guess I have to change something in Lilo on the External in order to startup.
      What lines do I change, or should I just put an extra menu there with Grub? But where then? on the MBR of the external HDD? Or doesn't that matter?

      Thanks, Will.
      Go through life one sheep at a time.
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        #4
        Re: External HDD

        There are many ways to do it, as outlined in that How-To (somewhere there!).
        However, lately, I've been doing it in a simple, straightforward way:
        GRUB is installed to the MBR of the external drive, and the external Kubuntu partition is marked as a “boot” partition (using GParted).
        Then, BIOS is set to boot from USB.
        Then, when the PC is turned off, I connect the USB and turn it on, then turn on the PC, then BIOS usually will boot from the external drive. If not, I re-boot, then enter BIOS, and manually set the USB to be the first bootable drive in the list of hard drives.

        All this depends so much on your BIOS and how buggy/not-buggy it is (how cooperative it is).

        Not a perfect or even desirable solution. I've even seen people boot their PCs from Super Grub Disk CD, each time selecting what disk to boot to. I did that for awhile using SGD on flash drive, but it's kind of a pain to have to keep one flash drive plugged in for that.

        I don't have any experience with LILO except to have booted LILO in a boot sector partition by chainloading from GRUB in another partition.

        Because yours is working, I'd be hesitant to mess with it myself.
        Here's another how-to on installing GRUB; it's easy but can be tricky getting your devices correct. (It's much easier to do than it is to explain ).

        EDIT, added:
        How To GRUB Methods - Toolkit
        http://kubuntuforums.net/forums/inde...opic=3081671.0
        An intellectual says a simple thing in a hard way. An artist says a hard thing in a simple way. Charles Bukowski
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