Hello. How do you install and bolt from an external hard disk? I have tried attaching it into SATA cable and install it the usual way. I have not encountered any error so I detached the HDD from the desktop then inserted it into my HDD enclosure. I have tried to boot it from the USB but it seems to stop at the startup logo. Also, I’ve seen error while it boots from HDD, I just can’t read it because it disappeared very fast. I’ve tried attaching it as a normal removable device and it seems fine. Did I performed the correct steps? Please help me. Thanks!
is it correct to assume opensuse is installed on your internal HDD …
and then a second version has been installed to an HDD connected to a usb port,
and grub2 is being used?
if yes,
then do a normal boot with the usb HDD plugged in,
then run yast, -Boot Loader, and select Boot from Master Boot Record,
then select Boot Loader Options, then select Probe Foreign OS,
then select ok at Boot Loader Options and again at Boot Loader Settings
on the next reboot the desktop manager should give the option of which HDD / os to boot from
cheers
I suggest you read up on Partitions and such: Creating Partitions During Install for MBR and GPT Hard Disks - Blogs - openSUSE Forums
You can install directly to an external hard drive, but by default openSUSE will try to load the grub boot loader to the first hard drive. You can can over ride everything, but you may not know what to look for. You can just swap hard drives, but a few things still use logical drive settings and so swapping a drive around can mess logical drive settings such as using /dev/sda or /sdb/sdb. Booting from a secondary hard drive, even when installed correctly requires you select /dev/sdb in your BIOS or UEFI setup as the first boot drive. Finally, all new mbr formatted hard drives will contain a blank boot sector. You must on purpose place a generic boot sector on this external hard drive or install Grub in the boot sector, or it will not boot. Clear? I suggest you start reading about partitioning first I suggest.
Thank You,
No. Initially, there’s nothing installed in my HDD. I attached it in SATA then installed the OpenSUSE I downloaded (12.2).
I’ve tried booting from USB HDD but it stops at the OpenSUSE welcome screen (or so I say. I am referring to the one that has the OpenSUSE logo on the center with green background and floating bubbles around it which will eventually disappear).
Are there any guide or article about this? An article that is fool-proof. Sorry for the word but I am having hard time understanding what are you guys are saying. Such technical terms are hard for me to comprehend.
Suggest a read of https://en.opensuse.org/Portal:Installation
and see if any advance can be made.
When the HDD is on SATA, the interface installed to, the green screen should
finalize with a choice to boot opensuse 12.2 or safemode opensuse 12.2,
if the initialization is not getting that far, the best way forward would be to
download a liveCD version, preferably 12.3, burn it to a DVD then boot from that
if all goes well you can then do a full install from gnome or kde whichever is
your choice
hth
Oh well, I guess I’ll just stick with the Live CD. I was considering the latency I would receive when I boot from CD compared to that of the external HDD.
Anyway, thanks!
I’ve experienced this. I took the hard drive from a previously working system (with hardware failure), installed in a disk enclosure, and tried to boot it.
What happened in my case, and most likely happens in your case, is that the kernel loads but is unable to read the root file system.
You need to somehow get the USB drivers into the “initrd” before it will work. I had to mount to another working system, do a “chroot” into the mounted drive, and run “mkinitrd”. After that, it worked.
It might be easier to just reinstall with the disk enclosure. That way, the “initrd” will be built with USB drivers on the initial install.
ok so the booting is from a liveCD
to install and boot from an internal HDD,
attach the HDD to the sata cable and also connect the power input
then boot the liveCD, then from the desktop select install,
the icon for it should on the desktop in the window with other icons,
just follow the instructions,
on completion remove the liveCD and reboot
after rebooting and entering password it should finalize at the gui desktop
if not check in the bios to make sure the HDD is enabled for booting,
for safety, make sure the DVD/CD is the first bootable device
and the internal HDD is the second
best of luck
note:
on this pc the internal HDD is addressed as /dev/sda,
the external HDD is addressed as /dev/sdb
if the interface cable is changed grub tries
to address a device which no longer exists
I asked for a more detailed explanation of the above procedure and you replied with, what seemed to me to be a very good one. Unfortunately, I did not print it out because I thought that it would still be here when I was ready to try it. That seems not to be the case. Would you please repost?
That seems to be a post that was lost in the Tuesday outage.
Boot from the install DVD or the live media. It needs to be the same architecture (32-bit or 64-bit) as the installed system you are trying to fix, and preferably the same opensuse version.
Mount the root directory of the system that you are trying to fix:
# mount /dev/sdb2 /mnt
# mount /dev/sdb1 /mnt/boot
but note that it might not be “/dev/sdb2”. You will need to find the device name to be used. And you won’t need the second of those lines unless you have a separate “/boot” partition. If you do need it, you will have to work out which device name is appropriate.
Make some other information available:
# mount --bind /dev /mnt/dev
# mount --bind /proc /mnt/proc
# mount --bind /sys /mnt/sys
This takes important file systems on what you are running, and connects them to the system you have mounted on “/mnt”.
Now chroot into the mounted system, and run “mkinitrd”
# chroot /mnt
# mkinitrd
The “mkinitrd” script should recognize that it is running from a USB mounted device, and should make sure that the needed drivers are there.
When done, reboot and test it out.
On 2013-08-29 17:57, nrickert wrote:
>
> nlgootee;2581715 Wrote:
>> Unfortunately, I did not print it out because I thought that it would
>> still be here when I was ready to try it. That seems not to be the case.
>> Would you please repost?
>
> That seems to be a post that was lost in the Tuesday outage.
I have a local copy of one you posted the 24th. Is that the one?
+++·······················
There’s probably a “How To” document for that.
Here’s the gist:
1: Boot from a live system, or from an install DVD in rescue mode. It
needs to be the same architecture (32-bit or 64-bit) as the system you
are trying to fix. Best is for it to be the same opensuse release.
·······················+±
I can resend it, if you want.
–
Cheers / Saludos,
Carlos E. R.
(from 12.3 x86_64 “Dartmouth” at Telcontar)
That’s probably worth doing.
On 2013-08-30 02:36, nrickert wrote:
>
> robin_listas;2581858 Wrote:
>> I can resend it, if you want.
>
> That’s probably worth doing.
>
>
Here goes:
From: nrickert <nrickert@no-mx.forums.opensuse.org>
Date: Sat, 24 Aug 2013 19:36:01 GMT
nlgootee;2581426 Wrote:
> I have the exact same situation, however I am very new to Linux and the
> command line so while "mount to another working system, do a “chroot”
> into the mounted drive, and run “mkinitrd”. sounds like it is what I
> need to do, I don’t have any idea about how to do it. Could you possibly
> enlighten me, please?
There’s probably a “How To” document for that.
Here’s the gist:
1: Boot from a live system, or from an install DVD in rescue mode. It
needs to be the same architecture (32-bit or 64-bit) as the system you
are trying to fix. Best is for it to be the same opensuse release.
2: Get to a root terminal. In a live system, you can usually open an
“xterm” or other terminal emulator, and use “su” to become root. In a
rescue boot of the install DVD, you might have to login as root (no
password should be required).
3: Mount the system that you are trying to fix. It could be something
like:
Code:
mount /dev/sdb1 /mnt ## mount the root file system
mount /dev/sdb2 /mnt/boot ## mount the “/boot” partition if any.
The chances are that there’s only the root partition that you need to
mount. It is usually unnecessary to mount the home partition.
You then need some additional mounts:
Code:
mount --bind /dev /mnt/dev
mount --bind /proc /mnt/proc
mount --bind /sys /mnt/sys
That makes those file system also visible under your mounted system
“/mnt”
Now use “chroot”
Code:
chroot /mnt
That gives you a command line, where “/mnt” will act as the root
directory, and all paths will be relative to that.
Finally
Code:
mkinitrd
That should rebuild the “initrd”. Assuming that your mount of the
target root on “/mnt” used a USB, then the USB drivers will be
automatically included in the “initrd”. The “mkinitrd” script is pretty
good at working out what is needed, based on the current configuration
that it finds.
I hope that helps.
–
-opensuse 12.3; KDE 4.10.5; testing 13.1M4; -
–
Cheers / Saludos,
Carlos E. R.
(from 12.3 x86_64 “Dartmouth” at Telcontar)
Thanks a lot! I followed your instructions and it works. When I first asked for help, I had a disk that only had SUSE 12.3 32 bit installed. While fumbling around trying to get the usb boot to work, I managed to make it unbootable so I started over and set up a new disk that has Windows 8 64 bit and openSUSE 12.3 64 bit in a dual boot. SUSE has VMWare 9 64bit installed running a vm with Windows 7 32 bit. I tested the new USB boot on my notebook and a desktop and SUSE loads and runs fine except that I get a message while Windows 7 is loading in the vm. “The Nepomuk Service Stub closed unexpectedly”. This message has to be closed 6 times before it stays gone. I don’t know if it is a Win7 problem or VMWare or SUSE. Windows 8 doesn’t work. It starts to load but then there is a blue screen with a message that flashes too fast to read and it shuts down. I don’t care about Win 8, I installed it to see if I could get the dual boot to work. My notebook came with Win8 and after I installed SUSE, windows wouldn’t load and while trying to get that to work, I bricked the drive. I have done that 3 or 4 times in the last 3 weeks but I think that I am starting to get a handle on this stuff. At least maybe a little bit. Thanks again for your help.
Most people turn off nebomuk. it is a search function and eats lots of CPU. In KDE-Configure Desktop-Desktop search simply turn it off. With a VM running you may have low memory.
or try cmd
systemsettings -caption %c
then select Workspace Appearance and Behavior
then Desktop Search
then disable everything under Basic Settings