USB Harddrive booting

[pgp_protector]

I'm trying to get Linux to run on a laptop using a external 20G USB Hardrive.

Laptop AMD3200 Simperon 1.25G Ram (HP pavilion zv6000)

1) Can't touch Internal HD, so no GRUB or LiLo on that drive.
2) Tried SuSE 10, got it installed, but will not boot, every time I try to boot just from the USB drive, the screen goes black & displays "GRUB ", no curser, no keyboard responce or anything.
3) If I boot from CD, then go to install, boot from HD, it will then run fine.

so.....
What versions of Linux can handle booting from USB (The SuSE forums were telling me that SuSE wont boot from a USB Drive )

Thank you for any help you can provide.

Rember. I can't install anything to the internal HD, no boot loaders or anything.

[Game master pro]

Just a question? but why can't you install a boot loader to the internet harddrive?

anyway, with about 2 minutes of googling i found this: link

it seems fedora has support for what you are looking for

[pgp_protector]

Just a question? but why can't you install a boot loader to the internet harddrive?

anyway, with about 2 minutes of googling i found this: link

it seems fedora has support for what you are looking for

Work Laptop, cant modify it, but I can boot from external devices.

[pgp_protector]

FYI I was reaning over the link provided, and that for USING a USB Drive, not the issue Im having, I want to boot the system off the USB Drive.

Still No Joy

[winter]

there was a guide on here on using fedora on a external hd

[pgp_protector]

found the guide, got fedora installed (works if I have it on the internal drive), but on the usb drive, displays the word "GRUB " and thats all

[Roxoff]

there was a guide on here on using fedora on a external hd

That was me! I wrote that (but thanks to all on here - I didn't make any of it up, I just cribbed it from several posts by other people and put it all together)

[Roxoff]

found the guide, got fedora installed (works if I have it on the internal drive), but on the usb drive, displays the word "GRUB " and thats all

You've not followed the instructions properly. You must use 'mkinitrd' to build the img file for the disk, this ensures that the USB drivers are loaded before trying to access the filesystem. You also need to be sure that you updated your grub.conf to point at the new .img file with the kernel you're using. The new .img file will still work if the disk is used internally or externally. Just dont do what I did, and move the laptop with the drive plugged in and have the drive slide off the table and bounce on the floor. If you do this, you'll find it becomes really really hard to boot the kernel.

[pgp_protector]

Ok, I know I'm doing somthing wrong (it's not working )

When I boot it in the internal HD location, I've got the following in the Root Folder/Boot/ location

config-2.6.11-1.1369_FC4 (50K)
initrd-2.6.11-1.1369_FC4.img (1.7Meg)
System.map-2.6.11-1.1369_FC4 (894K)
usbinitrd.img (1.9Meg)
vmlinuz-2.6.11-1.1369_FC4 (1.9Meg)

I thought I created the usbinitrd.img correctly, i used the command

mkinitrd --preload=ehci-hcd --preload=usb-storage --preload=scsi_mod --preload=sd_mod /boot/usbinitrd 2.6.11-1.1369_FC4

and that created the usbinitrd.img file

My Grub.conf file shows

title Fedora Core (2.6.11-1.1369_FC4)
root (hd0,0)
kernel /vmlinuz2.6.11-1.1369_FC4 ro root-/dev/VolGroup00/LogVol00 rhgb quite
initrd /usbinitrd.img


So what do I change ?

[Roxoff]

You should be using this:

cd /boot
mkinitrd --preload=ehci-hcd --preload=usb-storage --preload=scsi_mod --preload=sd_mod /boot/usbinitrd.img 2.6.11-1.1369_FC4

to create your .img file

Your grub.conf file should contain this in the kernel line:

kernel /vmlinuz2.6.11-1.1369_FC4 ro root=/dev/VolGroup00/LogVol00 rhgb quiet