Please bear with me as I am new to Suse although not particularly new to Linux having used many other distros. Here is my set up & why it is causing me a problem. I am currently in the process of saving for a new laptop after my current one has developed many problems. Firstly my display has gone (the backlight has packed up on me & to fix would be as cheap to get a new laptop), secondly my hard drive packed up on me & thirdly & more recently my CD drive works when it feels like it (more often not than it chooses to). So, with all these problems in mind, here is my setup.
I am using an external flat screen TV as my monitor by way of an HDMI cable. I am using an external hard drive for my drive. Initially I managed to get the install done to the external hard drive & boot displaying on the TV screen & all was well. This was until I updated all the software & installed Enlightenment…little did I know that the install had involved the initial internal hard drive of my laptop which works intermittently and very rarely so when I came to reboot it chose not to work therefore I couldn’t boot my setup. So I am trying to install Suse to my external hard drive ONLY. The problem is I can’t get my CD drive to work at all now. I have borrowed a laptop with CD drive & plugged in the external hard drive (usb drive) & now I am ready to install. Everything installs brilliantly but the only problem I have is the actual boot management & where to install it. I have tried multiple options & as I am not overly confident with working on Grub it appears I am missing something somewhere. Obviously I don’t want to install it in to the MBR because that would affect the laptop I am using to install it on. I just need to be able to boot from the external hard drive in to Suse. My own laptop is set in the bios to boot from the external hard drive ahead of the internal drive (just in case that did try to work). Any advice would be appreciated. Thanks guys,
This should be no problem, I had openSUSE 12.2 on/booting from a usb drive for a couple of months. I am a little rusty on the install but at some point you will need to select the drive/partition to install too, obviously you will need to change this to /dev/sdd or whatever your external drive is. Also, you need to change where Grub2 is installed to point to either the MBR or the /root partition of the external drive.
As I recall that last step can be missed easily, I have done it. You just need to hunt around the installer for the Booting settings.
Thanks for the advice, it was the last bit that was missing as you said. Once I knew it booted I removed the external drive from the laptop I borrowed to use the CD drive & plugged it back in to my own laptop. Once I booted it perfectly came up on my TV monitor & went through a first configuration boot and then the KDE Crash Handler came up. It wouldnt close so I tried rebooting. Now it wont reboot. In the advanced options in Grub it gives me 2 choices of booting opensuse 12.3 with linux 3.71. The first one attempts to boot from the external drive and I get a blank screen after a bit. The second boots up to “1 Reached Target Graphical Interface” but pauses there. If I press ‘Escape’ it changes to the opensuse Desktop Background with nothing else on the screen. Incidentally this info I am having to get off my laptop screen with a torch because of the backlight problem as the HDMI does not kick in like it did on the initial boot. Does it sound like KDE is corrupted and if so can it cause so much damage? I’m thinking it’s something prior to the graphical interface even loading because the HDMI no longer kicks in. Any help would be appreciated. Thanks,
I dont know the exact type. All I can say is it’s an HP Pailion laptop and it has an Nvidia G something…G400??? Not 100% sure on that but definitely Nvidia. Sorry I couldnt be exact.
On 05/02/2013 03:36 PM, coremedia wrote:
>
> gogalthorp;2553298 Wrote:
>> What graphic chip is in that machine?
>
> I dont know the exact type. All I can say is it’s an HP Pailion laptop
> and it has an Nvidia G something…G400??? Not 100% sure on that but
> definitely Nvidia. Sorry I couldnt be exact.
I’m unable to gather any such information like that because like I said earlier it hangs when booting so it doesn’t actually load anything. If it helps the exact model laptop is HP Pavilion dv9700. Sorry I can’t be more specific re the graphics card. I’m having to update this thread via my Blackberry as I can’t do anything at all with the laptop at the moment because it just hangs.
Thanks for all your input guys, I’ve finally got it working. Plugged the external drive in to the other laptop to install everything again from the CD then prior to the first boot when I plugged the drive back in my laptop, I inserted an ethernet cable to gain internet access…normally i connect via wireless. Once I rebooted, the KDE Crash Handler came up again but i ignored it & downloaded & installed all updates. Once all that was complete I rebooted & all worked a treat. KDE Crash Handler comes up no more
