External HD

[RobinVossen]

At my school we have a Windows System that works like nothing.
And well I can chose to buy a Laptop or a External HD to run a Linux System. (Gentoo).
Anyhow,well I am a a Poor Student so i pick the 2,5" External HD.
When I plug it in I can just write to it as a SDX device. So I can just install it to the HD and fill my /etc/fstab with the right stuff.
But here is the Tricky part.


I want to be able to Plug it in and Use it as a normal System on my Home system AND at my school AND at my office.
So, I wonder?
How can I accomlish this without making it a LiveCD?
Since at my office its /dev/sda at my school its /dev/sdd and at home its /dev/sdc

So, well. Thats a Small problem.
And well should I install a Bootloader and which?

Wel, can anyone kinda help me on this? ^^

Thanks

Cheers,
Robin

[devils casper]

Install GRUB in the MBR of External HD and use SuperGRUB CD or Smart Boot Manager to boot it up in any machine.

[Jonathan183]

Just curious ...will this mean also using UUID or serial_ID in fstab to identify partitions ... and will three grub entries be required ... one for each system to identify root correctly?

[RobinVossen]

But, Ill still have a problem with my fstab wont I?

[Jonathan183]

But, Ill still have a problem with my fstab wont I?

In case its any use to you Robin ... here is the fstab for OpenSUSE which seems to use this ID method by default ...

/dev/disk/by-id/ata-MAXTOR_6L080J4_364202923672-part11 /                    ext3       acl,user_xattr        1 1
/dev/disk/by-id/ata-MAXTOR_6L080J4_364202923672-part8 /home                ext3       defaults              1 2
/dev/disk/by-id/ata-MAXTOR_6L080J4_364202923672-part7 swap                 swap       defaults              0 0
proc                 /proc                proc       defaults              0 0
sysfs                /sys                 sysfs      noauto                0 0
debugfs              /sys/kernel/debug    debugfs    noauto                0 0
usbfs                /proc/bus/usb        usbfs      noauto                0 0
devpts               /dev/pts             devpts     mode=0620,gid=5       0 0
/dev/fd0             /media/floppy        auto       noauto,user,sync      0 0
/dev/disk/by-id/ata-MAXTOR_6L080J4_364202923672-part5 /windows/E           ntfs-3g    ro,users,gid=users,fmask=133,dmask=022,locale=en_GB.UTF-8 0 0
/dev/disk/by-id/ata-MAXTOR_6L080J4_364202923672-part1 /windows/C           vfat       ro,users,gid=users,umask=0002,utf8=true 0 0
/dev/disk/by-id/ata-MAXTOR_6L080J4_364202923672-part2 /windows/D           ntfs-3g    ro,users,gid=users,fmask=133,dmask=022,locale=en_GB.UTF-8 0 0
/dev/disk/by-id/ata-MAXTOR_6L080J4_364202923672-part6 /windows/F           ntfs-3g    users,gid=users,fmask=0,dmask=0,locale=en_GB.UTF-8     0 0
/dev/disk/by-id/ata-MAXTOR_6L080J4_364202923672-part10 /windows/G           vfat       users,gid=users,umask=0002,utf8=true 0 0
/dev/disk/by-id/ata-MAXTOR_6L080J4_364202923672-part9 /Gentoo-root         ext3       acl                   1 2
/dev/disk/by-id/usb-_USB_DISK_074111540025-0:0-part1 /media/disk          vfat       ro,users,gid=users,umask=0002,utf8=true 0 0

devils_casper may have a more elegant solution ....

[RobinVossen]

Ah and ata-MAXTOR_6L080J4_364202923672 is the ID of the HD and the -part is the partition?

Well thats elegant Enough for me ^^

Unless there is something easyer :P like /EXTERNALHD/PARTITION3


THANKS!

Cheers,
Robin

[devils casper]

You can assign Label to each partition and use those in grub.conf ( menu.lst ) and fstab files. Its default in Fedora.