On 13/6/20 10:58 am, Matthew Campbell wrote:
I hope I don't create a fight with this.
I booted the Debian netinst disc and installed Linux on /dev/sdb1 as
the root partition. My computer is old. The system BIOS does not see
this hard drive, nor does Grub, but the Linux kernel does. I'm running
the 4.19.0-9-686-pae kernel, #1 SMP Debian 4.19.118-2 and Buster 10.4.0.
The installation program tried to set up Grub on /dev/sda, but since
Grub cannot see /dev/sdb the system gets stuck in rescue mode. It sees
two hard drives hd0 and hd1, but says both have unknown filesystems. I
had to install Linux on a 32 GB USB flash drive just to get my
computer to boot. Now I can boot Windows again too. The flash drive is
_really_ slow.
Grub has /dev/sdb1 listed as an option, but says the disk does not
exist and to load the kernel first, which of course is on the new hard
drive partition /dev/sdb1 which I can access just fine after starting
the kernel. The catch is that I have to boot the flash drive /dev/sdc1
to do so thus making it the root filesystem.
1) How can I help Grub see and use /dev/sdb1 ?
2) Can I create a CD or USB flash drive with which to boot the
computer so it loads the kernel and mounts /dev/sdb1 as the root file
system?
This is what you want.
The kernel and initrd can be on a separate partition to the root
filesystem. Append root=/dev/sdb1 to change the root from the ramdisk.
Or as on my Debian system, it ignores the kernel line and seems to find
the root filesystem anyhow. Handy when I mess up the order of the disks
and sdc1 becomes sdb1. No idea how it does it, magic I guess.
3) How long is my flash drive likely to last? Will it wear out as I
continue to use it? Will reading from it damage it, or just writing to it?
4) How exactly does Grub work? What is the process, step by step? How
do I configure Grub to do what I want? The installation program seems
determined to do everything its own way.
Thank you for your assistance in these matters.
name=Matthew%20Campbell&email=trenix25%40pm.me
--
Himself, he never took too seriously. His work most seriously.
