On Tue, Feb 7, 2012 at 8:05 AM, Russell L. Harris <rlhar...@broadcaster.org> wrote: > * Tom H <tomh0...@gmail.com> [120207 12:12]: >> On Mon, Feb 6, 2012 at 6:12 AM, Russell L. Harris >> <rlhar...@broadcaster.org> wrote:
>> Some GPT labelled disks need to have the boot flag set on the >> "bios_grub" partition (in violation of the EFI spec) for a box to be >> bootable. And some Lenovo models are affected. > > The latest installation attempt (using the 6.0.4 Netinstall image > burned to DVD) now is hung (5 minutes or longer) at the partition > disks step. The tail end of the log displayed by Alt-F4 consists of > the following messages: > > partman: No matching physical volumes found. > partman: No volume groups found. > partman: Reading all physical volumes. This may take a while... > partman-lvm : No volume groups found. You might want to file a bug report but it may just be that your MBR's a mess and that you just need to create a new label to correct this problem. > So I plan to reboot the GParted-Live flash USB (now upgraded to > 0.11.0) and experiment. >> >> "bios_grub"/"bios_boot" is a type/flag like "boot", "lvm", "raid". In >> fdisk/gdisk, you use "t" to set them and in parted you use "set". > > Using GParted to partition the drive just prior to this installation > attempt, I created a separate /boot partition as the first partition. > I then used the "manage flags" menu of GParted to set the boot flag. > In addition to the "boot" flag, the menu offered also the "bios-grub" > flag. Should I have set both the "boot" and the "bios-grub" flag for > the partition "/boot"? I wouldn't worry about the "boot" flag; I don't have it set on any partition on my netbook and it boots fine. If you do want to use it, set it to "/boot" or to "/" if you don't have a separate "/boot". The "bios_grub" flag shouldn't be applied to "/boot" or any other partition with a filesystem. if you want to install grub to the MBR, create a 1MB partition as the first partition of your GPT disk and flag it as "bios_grub" and then create "/boot', etc. If you want to install grub to a PBR, you don't need a "bios_grub" partition but I'm not sure how well d-i'll handle that (I've never tried it). I haven't installed grub to a partition for two years. At the time, running "grub-install /dev/sdaX" would throw up a "this is a bad thing" message. I can't remember whether it would go through with the installation or not. You have to add "--force" to avoid the message. >> The boot loader code's on "/boot" but the PBR'll have pointers to it. > > The term "PBR" is new to me; what does it mean? It's the partition boot record and it's the first sector of a partition in the same way that the MBR's the first sector of a disk. >> You can use a GPT label with a BIOS box. AFAIK, you need to do so >> above a certain disk size. > > One or two of the articles which I found gave me the impression that > old-style BIOS would not boot a drive with a GPT. My netbook's not an EFI box but its disk has a GPT label... >> I don't use GParted but it must be like parted; you must have to >> create a GPT label and create an initial partition with a bios_grub >> flag manually. > > I naively assumed that the "G" stood for "GNU", but I was mistaken. > The GNU version is "parted", and "Gparted" is the Gnome version. But > at the moment I haven't the foggiest notion of which is the better. AFAIK, Gparted just provides a GUI to parted. (Hopefully someone'll correct me if I'm wrong!) > Thanks for the corrections. You're welcome. -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to debian-user-requ...@lists.debian.org with a subject of "unsubscribe". Trouble? Contact listmas...@lists.debian.org Archive: http://lists.debian.org/CAOdo=syeorf_fgxuoru4szbkyhriukhybn5lciare3fcqaq...@mail.gmail.com
