SuSe 10.2 - Booting from external USB drive (hd1,0)/message: file not found

[devils casper]

GRUB is installed in External Disk and External Disk is connected as Primary Master but GRUB assumes its Secondry.
our first task is to make GRUB menu appear at boot up. change the contents of device.map file

(hd0) /dev/sda
(hd1) /dev/hda

check if GRUB menu appears.






Casper

[GungHo]

This seemed to resolve the error message (hd1,0)/message: file not found. However the GRUB menu I'm presented with is a black&white text screen which says GNU GRUB menu version 0.97, and there are three options...
openSUSE 10.2
Windows
Failsafe -- openSUSE 10.2

When I select the openSUSE 10.2 option, the error message I get is...
kernel (hd1,0) /vmlinuz-2.6.18.2-34-default root= /dev/system/root vga=0x314 resume= /dev/sda2 splash= slient showopts

Error 17: Cannot mount selected partition

Press any key to continue...

I suspect it may have something to do with installing my root partition on the LVM rather than installing it as a Primary partition. I'm contemplating reinstalling (sigh) and installing root on a Primary partition.

Cheers

GRUB is installed in External Disk and External Disk is connected as Primary Master but GRUB assumes its Secondry.
our first task is to make GRUB menu appear at boot up. change the contents of device.map file

(hd0) /dev/sda
(hd1) /dev/hda

check if GRUB menu appears.






Casper

[devils casper]

dont re-install. edit menu.lst now.

gfxmenu (hd0,0)/boot/message
title openSUSE 10.2
root (hd0,0)
kernel /vmlinuz-2.6.18.2-34-default root=/dev/system/root vga=0x314 resume=/dev/sda2 splash=silent showopts
initrd /initrd-2.6.18.2-34-default

it SHOULD boot up SuSe now.





Casper

[Xaleandr]

“Booting from external USB drive (hd1,0)/boot/message: file not found”-very strange-according to your listing, file /boot/message exists, so the graphical grub menu should start

Below is a copy of my modified /boot/grub/menu.lst
# Modified by YaST2. Last modification on Fri Jan 12 11:59:15 GMT 2007
default 0
timeout 8
##YaST - generic_mbr
gfxmenu (hd1,0)/boot/message
##YaST - activate

###Don't change this comment - YaST2 identifier: Original name: linux###
title openSUSE 10.2
    root (hd1,0) -I am a bit confused with this line. Couldn't you try delete it or replace with root(hd1,3)

If it doesn't help, check
http://en.opensuse.org/SDB:The_Boot_...#The_Menu_File
or try to use standard "reiserfs" instead of LVM

[devils casper]

root (hd1,0) -I am a bit confused with this line. Couldn't you try delete it or replace with root(hd1,3)

hd1,3 is an Extended Partition, LVM. its a pointer that contains other volgroups. /boot is first partition and it should be (hd0,0) only.






Casper

[GungHo]

Good news and bad...
Your help has enabled me to load the Grub menu and it begins to launch SuSE from my external drive. Fantastic

However as it begins to load Linux, one of the error messages displayed is ...
Volume group "system" not found
.
.
.
not found --exiting to /bin/sh
sh: no job control in this shell
$

Any commands I type at the $ prompt has no effect and all I can do is Ctrl+Alt+Delete to restart my computer.

I have my root partition as part of the LVM system (i.e. /dev/system/root). Should I have installed it as a Primary partition?

Any suggestions...

Thanks again

dont re-install. edit menu.lst now.

gfxmenu (hd0,0)/boot/message
title openSUSE 10.2
root (hd0,0)
kernel /vmlinuz-2.6.18.2-34-default root=/dev/system/root vga=0x314 resume=/dev/sda2 splash=silent showopts
initrd /initrd-2.6.18.2-34-default

it SHOULD boot up SuSe now.





Casper

[devils casper]

no clue now. LVM is not active and its a bit complicated to activate it. moreover its a fresh install and LVM should not create any problem.
i would suggest you to re-install if possible. take care of a few things this time.

* if possible, unplug Internal disk during installation. Installer is detecting External Disk as Secondry but when you boot up from External Disk, BIOS assign it Primary tag. GRUB looks for stages in Secondry disk ( its internal disk now ) and throws error. you can add an entry for Windows in GRUB later on. ( check here )

* use reiserfs format as already suggested by Xaleandr. LVM created problem this time and its difficult to resize LVM partitions later on.




Casper

[GungHo]

Thanks everyone for their help (especially devils_casper) who has been a true example of how excellent this message board is.

I bit the bullet and reinstalled SuSE, however this time I did not specify a /boot partition and I created the / partition on it own Primary partition (choosing to boot from the root partition instead). Once the installation was complete I made the changes you specified earlier to my /boot/grub/device.map & /boot/grub/menu.lst files; finally I modified my /etc/sysconfig/kernel INTRD_MODULES as described earlier.

The result... A clean, problem-free boot. I don't know why loading / on a LVM should cause a problem, but I guess that a discussion for another thread.

Thanks again for all your help.

Cheers

no clue now. LVM is not active and its a bit complicated to activate it. moreover its a fresh install and LVM should not create any problem.
i would suggest you to re-install if possible. take care of a few things this time.

* if possible, unplug Internal disk during installation. Installer is detecting External Disk as Secondry but when you boot up from External Disk, BIOS assign it Primary tag. GRUB looks for stages in Secondry disk ( its internal disk now ) and throws error. you can add an entry for Windows in GRUB later on. ( check here )

* use reiserfs format as already suggested by Xaleandr. LVM created problem this time and its difficult to resize LVM partitions later on.




Casper

[devils casper]

Well Done !
i dont have much experience in LVM handling. as i mentioned earlier, its a bit complicated to resize, esp. shrink LVM and i had to reinstall Fedora coz of that. i am glad i could help you.





Casper

[bobsplatz]

Posted and removed due to solution provided above