Installing to External Disk

threecoins · June 4, 2009, 2:01pm

Hello,
I’m having trouble installing my opensuse11.1 into usb.

I have searched this forum and may others and googled for a week but whatever I came across, they are of no help to me…
I cant find a complete and clear solution so far so if any good friends here who would like to help this very n00b to help install opensuse to usb hard disk, please help me…

So, to the problem…
I have a clean and beautiful installation of opensuse11.1 on my internal harddisk. its working without any problems. So I thought of backing it up in a USB harddisk so that if in any case I have to reinstall my system, I can restore it from my usb disk. So searching in the opensuse forums, someone said that i could use yast-live-installer to install my current system to a usb drive.
I installed my live-installer and initiated the (live) installation of opensuse and it went OK till the installation settings window came (after copying root filesystem and all),
it showed like installing boot manager and after a few seconds poped up with a dialog saying
Grub Error :17

And asked whether I need to reconfigure the boot manager settings and I said yes and choose the same settings again and it installed all right then. And told me to reboot the system to finish the installation. BTW I choose to boot from root partition and also marked this partition as active(boot loader options).

But the problem is **I cannot boot from USB drive as the grub says
GRUB ERROR: 22
**
And it just hangs there and I cannot press any keys other than ctrl+alt+del

Thats my story…
And What I infer is grub is in a confusion about the disks and I’m in a confusion how to resolve its confusion…

If you need any fdisk or some other output let me know…

Please… I really need opensuse in my USB drive and It should work from any computer… So any help to get it to work…??
I’m a new user of opensuse but I’m in love with it within this short time

Please note that installation went all right but in case of the bootloader, i have doubt.

Sorry for such a boring long post but i just want you to understand my pitty situation…

caf4926 · June 4, 2009, 2:32pm

Are you trying to boot from the USB drive?
ie; Do you think you installed grub to it? Or is grub on another internal drive - or don’t you know.

We could really do with you booting the live cd. And getting the contents of /boot/grub/menu.lst
And the output of:

fdisk -l

this has to be done from a su terminal.

Any explanation of your other drives and installed OS’s would help.

threecoins · June 4, 2009, 3:17pm

Any explanation of your other drives and installed OS’s would help.

As I told you I have a working opensuse installation in my (internal)harddisk along with windows.
opensuse inside the internal disk boots without any problem and I’m replying you from that opensuse installation. I wanted to backup this installation to my external drive.

I used yast-live-installer.

I have three harddisk in total.
1)160 GB Internal, primary Slot, with windows.
2)500GB Internal, on secondary slot, with Opensuse
3)80GB External, 2 windows drives and one extended partition in which opensuse is somewhat installed with live-installer.

When “boot USB devices first” option is selected from boot settings in bios, grub shows error:22 and hangs.

When this option is disabled and then grub loads and works without any problem…

Do you think you installed grub to it?

I choose boot from root partition from boot loader settings in live-installer. I’m not sure if it is installed or not as I said it first showed an error and then installation continued.

fdisk -l

output is as below…

linux-eqeb:~ # fdisk -l

Disk /dev/sda: 160.0 GB, 160041885696 bytes
255 heads, 63 sectors/track, 19457 cylinders
Units = cylinders of 16065 * 512 = 8225280 bytes
Disk identifier: 0xf2e5f2e5

Device Boot Start End Blocks Id System
/dev/sda1 * 1 2550 20482843+ 7 HPFS/NTFS
/dev/sda2 2551 7649 40957717+ 7 HPFS/NTFS
/dev/sda3 7650 12748 40957717+ 7 HPFS/NTFS
/dev/sda4 12749 19457 53890042+ f W95 Ext’d (LBA)
/dev/sda5 12749 16012 26218048+ 7 HPFS/NTFS
/dev/sda6 16013 19457 27671931 7 HPFS/NTFS

Disk /dev/sdb: 500.1 GB, 500107862016 bytes
255 heads, 63 sectors/track, 60801 cylinders
Units = cylinders of 16065 * 512 = 8225280 bytes
Disk identifier: 0xafa4458b

Device Boot Start End Blocks Id System
/dev/sdb1 1 6527 52428096 7 HPFS/NTFS
/dev/sdb2 6528 13054 52428127+ 7 HPFS/NTFS
/dev/sdb3 13055 19581 52428127+ 7 HPFS/NTFS
/dev/sdb4 19582 60801 331099650 f W95 Ext’d (LBA)
/dev/sdb5 19582 26108 52428096 7 HPFS/NTFS
/dev/sdb6 32636 39162 52428096 7 HPFS/NTFS
/dev/sdb7 39163 45689 52428096 7 HPFS/NTFS
/dev/sdb8 45690 60801 121387108+ 7 HPFS/NTFS
/dev/sdb9 26109 26297 1518111 82 Linux swap / Solaris
/dev/sdb10 26298 28844 20458746 83 Linux
/dev/sdb11 28845 32635 30451176 83 Linux

Partition table entries are not in disk order

Disk /dev/sdc: 80.0 GB, 80026361856 bytes
255 heads, 63 sectors/track, 9729 cylinders
Units = cylinders of 16065 * 512 = 8225280 bytes
Disk identifier: 0x79950e30

Device Boot Start End Blocks Id System
/dev/sdc1 1 3983 31993416 7 HPFS/NTFS
/dev/sdc2 3984 6533 20482875 f W95 Ext’d (LBA)
/dev/sdc3 6534 9729 25671870 7 HPFS/NTFS
/dev/sdc5 6310 6533 1799248+ 82 Linux swap / Solaris
/dev/sdc6 3984 4913 7470162 83 Linux
/dev/sdc7 4914 6309 11213338+ 83 Linux

Partition table entries are not in disk order

caf4926 · June 4, 2009, 3:41pm

Booting as you would normally with your working interal HD install, have you tried adding a menu entry to the /boot/grub/menu.lst of that install?

Something like:

For booting Linux USB

 title  USB SUSE
 kernel (hd2,4)/vmlinuz root=/dev/sdc4

I’m certainly not sure about that but you could give it a go

Check here
GRUB bootloader - Full tutorial

and
GRUB Boot Multiboot openSUSE Windows (2000, XP, Vista) using the Grub bootloader.

Installing SuSE on External USB Drive - openSUSE

user · June 4, 2009, 4:02pm

> I have a working opensuse installation in my
> (internal)harddisk along with windows.
> opensuse inside the internal disk boots without any problem and I’m
> replying you from that opensuse installation. I wanted to backup this
> installation to my external drive.

maybe this is simply a communications problem…

that is, there is a HUGE difference between making a “backup” of data
(whether if it is one file or one FULL file system) onto an external
drive (whether attached via USB or the internet)…which can be used
(for example) in the event of internal drive damage to REbuild an
exact copy of the data/system backed up…

big* difference between that and making an exact, bootable image on an
external drive…

especially if the intent is to then take that (UBS) drive to a
DIFFERENT computer (with different hardware AND driver needs) and boot
up a mirror image of what was on the internal…

threecoins, exactly what do you want to accomplish:

operating system and data backup on USB for later use to restore
internal, if necessary? or
or
portable openSUSE–just pick up where you left off and go to work
somewhere else?
or
portable openSUSE which can be used to restore the original AND/OR
add all work done while portable and attached to a different computer?
or
what?

the way to proceed will vary greatly, depending on what you wanna do…

–
natural_pilot

threecoins · June 4, 2009, 9:41pm

threecoins, exactly what do you want to accomplish:

operating system and data backup on USB for later use to restore
internal, if necessary? or
or

portable openSUSE–just pick up where you left off and go to work
somewhere else?
or

portable openSUSE which can be used to restore the original AND/OR
add all work done while portable and attached to a different computer?
or

what?

the way to proceed will vary greatly, depending on what you wanna do…

Aactually I want a portable Opensuse in my external drive and in any case my existing installation in my internal drive get messed up, i should be able to reinstall it via live-installer from my USB drive. So I think your third option matches my requirement…

portable openSUSE which can be used to restore the original AND/OR
add all work done while portable and attached to a different computer?

knurpht · June 4, 2009, 10:11pm

You cannot just move the install from one computer to another. I’m having 64-bit installs and can install to USB-disk. even boot from it, but any 32-bit system wouldn’t. And that’s only one. If I would want something portable I’d do for a USB Live image.

threecoins · June 4, 2009, 10:20pm

All my systems which I intend to use my prtable Disk are of same architecture. And I only want it to boot from supported systems but here I cannot do it even from my computer… It should atleast start from my computer, isnt it? the very computer from which I installed it…

user · June 5, 2009, 7:30am

i’m no expert on this but i think (since you picked my earlier third
option) that what you want does not exist in ONE solution,

instead, you need to do routine system/data backups to rebuild if the
“internal drive get messed up”…that is the EASY half of what you want…

that easy half cannot (so far as i know) also fill your desire to have
the ability to carry with you a UBS which you can plug into any
available computer, boot from the USB and run your linux there…

why, because it is highly likely that each machine will need a
different set of drivers different from the ONE unique set of drivers
on your internal drive’s installed image…

see, openSUSE installation media contains a WIDE range of drivers and
the install script picks JUST those needed to install on a
computer…the UBS copy of your internal drive’s system does NOT
have that wide variety available and canNOT be expected to boot any
computer other than the one installed on, yours…

so, what you need is (i guess) a bootable Live CD (which HAS that wide
variety of drivers needed to match all the different hardware out
there) and a USB with a copy of your /home

that can be done relatively easily using Knoppix, with openSUSE not so
easy (if even possible)

problems of course is how/where do you get an exact copy of YOUR
desktop to a live CD? a question i can’t answer…perhaps a real
Guru will step in and help . . .

it is my guess that if anyone here can help you, it would be caf4926,
but maybe there are others who might know how to turn a personalized
openSUSE system into a bootable Live CD which would wake up looking
for /home on some plugged in USB drive…

i know, should be possible and i guess will be…someday…

–
natural_pilot

threecoins · June 5, 2009, 7:43am

OK, natual_pilot I understand. But here the problem is grub is irritating me wth its Error:22…
I just want to boot from my usb copy from my computer atleast… But even that is not possible now… I need to know how I can inform grub about the USb drive is plugged in and should boot from there…(someone told me when we boot from USB drive the order of hard disk changes and thats what confusing gurb where to load)

caf4926 · June 5, 2009, 7:54am

You need to absolutely clear about what you want. I’m still not sure what you expect. A live session or Installed system.
There are options! But try and be specific about your needs and what you need to achieve.
Have a look here in the mean time:
UNetbootin - Homepage and Downloads

threecoins · June 5, 2009, 8:47am

Ok, I’ll try to make it clear as possible…

See this thread, I have a similar need…

create install disk/wireless Q - openSUSE Forums

I have a installed and working opensuse installation in my internal HDD. I have updated it with kde4.2 compiz-fusion and some small adjustments to overcome emerald titlebar issues…
These updates took me 1-2 days to complete( Not 48 hours but I suspended to disk and continued whenever I got time)
And I really hate to redo that again and again…

So I searched here and found the above mentioned thread and followed what “ijbreakey” mentioned there…

I installed live-insaller and completed the installation with some issues during boot loader installtion but it went through.
But I cant reboot from usb drive as grub keep bugging me with error :22

Hope you got my point… I dont mind explaining again and again but I just need it.

So in short I need a bootable copy of my harddisk installtion of opensuse in my usb drive. If I can make it portable with some additional updates or installation, I’m ready to do it too… But primarily I need a excat copy of my installation in my usb.

caf4926 · June 5, 2009, 9:06am

OK. I can’t really say I have a good knowledge here. I have never bothered try to install to an external drive. I have used unetbootin to create a bootable live usb flash drive.
If I were to experiment myself, I would probably pull the power on all my internal HD’s boot from a live cd with the usb drive connected and see if I could install from there. I would use the installer partitioner to wipe the drive and create what I need (swap | / | /home) Grub should go to MBR if possible.

So long as your Mobo allows usb booting (and there is usually more than 1 option type for usb boot) and grub was successfully installed, it should work I guess. But I do know it’s not simple.

You would have to make it an exact copy by manually installing everything the same.

Now look at this option:
Cloning an old drive to a new drive - openSUSE Forums

This sort of thing is something you need to learn by just getting stuck in and having a go.