Installing SUSE 11.4 64 bit on External Hard Disk to Replace 11.2 64 bit on Internal Hard Disk

English Install/Boot/Login
#1

I have a Dell Dimension C521 (AMD AthlonX2) with a 160 GB internal HDD and 3 GB RAM. The system has dual iboot for Windows Vista Home Premium and SUSE 11.2 64 bit. Recently I added an external Hard Disk (Seagate GoFlex ITB capacity). I wish to uninstall the 11.2 and install 11.4 on the external drive. There are additional instructions for installing 11.4 on an external disk.

a) Will it be possible to uninstall the 11.2 as 11.4 is being installed, leaving the space on the internal disk free for re-allocation to Windows,
b) Or should I first uninstall 11.2 repair the Windows installation and then install 11.4 afresh.
c) What are the implications if 11.4 is installed as direct replacement of 11.2 on the internal disk and it is allocated additional space on the external disk.

PrakashC

#2

Hi,

if you install the 11.4 on the external disk only, then the 11.2 on the internal disk will not be touched by the install (other than, perhaps, the grub loader).

You can thus install 11.4 on the external drive whilst leaving 11.2 intact on the internal drive - should anything go wrong during the installation, you still have the old 11.2 as it was.

Once you have 11.4 installed and working to your satisfaction, you could delete the 11.2 and then do with the free space as you see fit.

If you install 11.4 on the internal disk, you could either have it replace the old 11.2 (possibly keeping the /home directory) or have it installed besides the other two OSes (space permitting). As usual, before installing anything, make sure your data is safely backed up somewhere.

When installing, the installer will ask you where and how to install 11.4, you can then direct it what to do :install on the internal, external or even both (you could have / on the internal drive and /home on the external drive etc…).

HTH

Lenwolf

#3

Dear Lenwolf,

Thanks. That clears up a few doubts. I do not have space on the internal disk for both 11.4 and 11.2 or even enough for a full 11.4 install. So it has to go to the external disk.

Grub at the moment is on the internal disk. If I install 11.4 on the external disk, if I am correct, I will be asked if I wish to reinstall/install Grub and if so where? If I select to install it on the external disk as advised in the installation instructions it will automatically be removed from the internal disk. Is that assumption correct?

Next is the tricky issue. With the Grub on the external drive, what happens if the external drive is not switched on or connected and the PC is booted. Will it find the Vista partition and boot into Windows or will it ask for a bootable disk? Also the installation instructions are very clear about accidently unplugging or disconnecting the external drive while the PC is running. Obviously, it means while the OS is Linux. I have some windows partitions too on the external disk and the “remove device safely” instructions apply!

Thanks again,

PrakashC

#4

Hi,

Grub at the moment is on the internal disk. If I install 11.4 on the external disk, if I am correct, I will be asked if I wish to reinstall/install Grub and if so where? If I select to install it on the external disk as advised in the installation instructions it will automatically be removed from the internal disk. Is that assumption correct?

No, I don’t think so. I don’t believe that it will be automatically put on the external disk, or if you put it there, it might automatically delete the one on the internal disk, but I might be wrong. Anyway, during install, you can tell it to install grub on the external disk.

Next is the tricky issue. With the Grub on the external drive, what happens if the external drive is not switched on or connected and the PC is booted. Will it find the Vista partition and boot into Windows or will it ask for a bootable disk?

Ok, your situation right now is that grub from 11.2 is on the internal disk, right?
I would suggest that you keep it on the internal disk but let it add the 11.4 you’re installing to its menu. That way it will continue to boot from the internal disk and offer you windows & Opensuse(11.2 + 11.4, or only 11.4 if you decide to remove 11.2).

Also, if I were you, I’d download the supergrub/rescatux disk (Super Grub Disk) & burn it to a CD before installation of 11.4. With it you’ll be able to repair any grub errors, if need be.

Also the installation instructions are very clear about accidently unplugging or disconnecting the external drive while the PC is running. Obviously, it means while the OS is Linux. I have some windows partitions too on the external disk and the “remove device safely” instructions apply!

Well yes, cedrtainly!

HTH

Lenwolf

#5

Dear Lenwolf,

Re Grub location : The way I understand it, when Linux is installed on an existing dual boot, it asks whether the earlier installation of Linux is to be over written or the new installation is to be made in unallocated available space. In the first case the older bootloader is over written, deleted or even if it exists the pointer to it is removed. In the latter case the user is asked if grub should be written: if yes, a fresh Grub is written and activated. If not, nothing is done and the user has to boot into the earlier linux installation and update the grub to add the newer installtion. I suppose if the new bootloader is written in the same partition the first one would get overwritten/deleted. What happens to the old file if the new file is written on another partition?

My existing set up indicates stage 1.5, which I undersatnd means that the grub menu.lst file is also in the very first partition along withthe MBR?  That is what worries me!

Re Booting with External Hard Disk not connected : It appears that with the Grub on the external disk the system will not boot at all (even into Windows) and probably ask for a bootable disk/device. Your advice to keep the Grub on the internal disk seems the best option. A small partition could be there for this purpose only. That way even if the external disk is not connected the system will be able to boot into Windows.

Re Rescue : I have just down loaded Rescatux and burnt the CD. Need to test it before going ahead. I also have Gparted CD and Dell Rescue DVD.

Thanks,

PrakashC

#6

No, definitely not. The menu.lst file is in your /boot/grub directory on the installed 11.2 (and if you install 11.4, also there). That could be on any partition in the drive, it doesn’t have to be in the first one, nor in the be with the MBR (which is the first one).
You could do worse than read this GNU GRUB - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia…

Re Booting with External Hard Disk not connected : It appears that with the Grub on the external disk the system will not boot at all (even into Windows) and probably ask for a bootable disk/device. Your advice to keep the Grub on the internal disk seems the best option. A small partition could be there for this purpose only. That way even if the external disk is not connected the system will be able to boot into Windows.

Yes, that’s the way I’d do it.

HTH

Lenwolf

#7

After a quick read I’d say that this is likely going to bring some trouble…

If you remove 11.2, you may end up with an unbootable Windos.

I would ‘dd’ the entire 11.2 install over to the external disk, incl. /home. Then perform the 11.4 install on the external drive, reusing the partitioning (/home can be resized afterwards), thus overwriting only the 11.2 “/” with a new 11.4 “/”.

#8

Dear Knurpht,

I will need somewhat more detailed guidance! Especially how to “dd the entire 11.2 install over to the external disk”. What happens to the space the 11.2 was on, does it become unallocated?

And will this solve my requirement to be able to boot into Windows even with the external drive disconnected? Is having the boot partition of 11.4 on the internal not feasible or advisable?

Thanks,

PrakashC

#9

So, installing openSUSE on an external hard disk works just fine. If you can set your boot drive to the external hard disk, everything needed to boot openSUSE 11.4 can be placed on that disk while keeping your internal disk just as it is and working like it always did. It will be up to you, looking at the boot options, to make sure you are not modify the internal drive, but make all changes to the external hard drive. I do this all of the time. Here is more info on such a install:

Each hard drive can have up to four PRIMARY partitions, any of which could be marked active and bootable. No matter what you might hear, only one of the first four primary partitions can be booted from. That means you can boot from Primary partitions 1, 2, 3 or 4 and that is all. In order to boot openSUSE, you must load openSUSE and the grub boot loader into one of the first four partitions. Or, your second choice is to load the grub boot loader into the MBR (Master Boot Record) at the start of the disk. The MBR can be blank, like a new disk, it can contain a Windows partition booting code or generic booting code to boot the active partition 1, 2, 3, or 4. Or, as stated before, it can contain the grub boot loader. Why load grub into the MBR then? You do this so that you can “boot” openSUSE from a logical partition, numbered 5 or higher, which is not normally possible. In order to have more than four partitions, one of them (and only one can be assigned as extended) must be a extended partition. It is called an Extended Primary Partition, a container partition, it can be any one of the first four and it can contain one or more logical partitions within. Anytime you see partition numbers 5, 6 or higher for instance, they can only occur inside of the one and only Extended Primary partition you could have.

What does openSUSE want as far as partitions? It needs at minimum a SWAP partition and a “/” partition where all of your software is loaded. Further, it is recommended you create a separate /home partition, which makes it easier to upgrade or reload openSUSE without losing all of your settings. So, that is three more partitions you must add to what you have now, if installing on a drive with Windows. What must you do to load and boot openSUSE from an external hard drive? Number one, you must be able to select your external hard drive as the boot drive in your BIOS setup. Number two, you need to make sure that the external hard drive, perhaps /dev/sdb, is listed as the first hard drive in your grub device.map file and listed as drive hd0. I always suggest that you do not load grub into the MBR, but rather into the openSUSE “/” root primary partition which means a primary number of 1, 2, 3 or 4. If number one is used, then that will be out. You will mark the openSUSE partition as active for booting and finally you must load generic booting code into the MBR so that it will boot the openSUSE partition. I suggest a partition like this:

  1. /dev/sdb, Load MBR with generic booting code
  2. /dev/sdb1, Primary SWAP (4 GB)
  3. /dev/sdb2, Primary EXT4 “/” openSUSE Partition Marked Active for booting (80-120 GB)
  4. /dev/sdb3, Primary EXT4 “/home” Your main home directory (Rest of the disk)

Thank You,

#10

Dear jdmcdaniel3,

It appears that you are suggesting use of System Setup (Press F2 while booting) and select/change sequence in which the system will search for bootable device when switching from one OS to another. No doubt it will work. But my requirements are slightly different.

The existing HDDs partition details (Gparted) on my system are as follows :

Internal HDD 160 GB

dev File Sys Label Size Used Flag

/dev/sda1 Fat 16 Dell Utility 39.19 MiB 7.07 MiB diag
/dev/sda2 ntfs Recovery 10 GiB 5.28 GiB boot
(sda2 shows up as F: drive in Windows)
/dev/sda3 ntfs OS 69.86 GiB
(sda3 shows up as C: drive in Windows)
/dev/sda4 extended 69.11 GiB lba
/dev/sda5 ntfs New Volume 1 21.41 GiB
/dev/sda6 ntfs New Volume 2 21.41 GiB
unallocated 7.46 GiB
/dev/sda7 linux swap 1.39 GiB
/dev/sda8 ext4 7.82 GiB
/dev/sda9 ext3 11.06 GiB
(sda7 to sda9 were created while installing SUSE 11.2 64 bit)
unallocated 7.72 MiB
unallocated 1.89 MiB

External HDD Seagate GoFlex 1 TB

dev File Sys Label Size Used Flag

/dev/sdb1 ntfs Free Agent Go Flex 232.9 GiB
/dev/sdb2 ntfs New Volume 3 232.94 GiB
unallocated 1 MiB
/dev/sdb3 ntfs New Volume 4 229.27 GiB
unallocated 236.41 GiB

sda1, a FAT 16 partition has the files autoexec.bat, config.sys, command.com and Dellboot.exe. It runs the Dell system check utilities. I can boot into this partition through Grub.
sda2 is ntfs and has the file bootmgr and folder boot. I am not able to boot into it through Grub!
sda3 is the Windows C: drive and boots Vista and contains the file bootmgr and folder boot.
The system can boot from an USB device.

For the above reasons I have to use the internal drive for Windows. Initially I could afford to allocate about 20 GiB for Linux. But as data, especially photos accumulated, I decided to add an external HDD. External since Dell Dimension C521 does not have space or slot for a second HDD!

A proper install of SUSE 11.4 (64) requires more space than available on internal disk and so it is to be installed on the external and allocated 236 GiB. But a major part of this disk nearly 700 GiB again goes to Windows. By the way I am putting Linux at the end of the Drive, beyond 690 GiB.

I am also chary of entering system set up as a routine.

Hence my call for guidance. I’ll sum it up as follows :

a) Eventually my system will have dual boot - Windows Vista and SUSE 11.4 (64). I may think of upgrading to Windows 7 in future.
b) Existing space used by SUSE 11.2 on internal disk to be freed and allocated to Windows. SUSE 11.4 to be on external disk only.
c) How do I go about achieving the above in the safest and simplest manner? I wish to avoid having to recover access to Windows Vista.
d) Where should Grub be placed – separate small partition on internal disk or on external disk ?

Thanks

PrakashC

#11

Hello PrakashC and thanks for taking the time to answer back. It is very much appreciated. Let me say that while you can select the boot drive on many BIOS setups at boot time, I am suggesting you go into BIOS setup and set your external drive as the boot drive. Then, your external drive is booted from and controls the entire loading process. If for any reason you remove your external hard drive, on most system, the boot process will go with the next hard drive in sequence. And since you have loaded openSUSE and the Grub bootloader on this external hard drive, you have not modified the internal drive in any way. If the external drive is removed, you boot from the internal drive. There are many reasons why such a setup would be desirable. Here are some that come to mind:

  1. No modifications to the Internal hard drive, it still is able to boot as always.
  2. With Windows, it is best to leave it unmodifed. This allows the easy installation of Service Packs and permits Windows included backup programs to work.
  3. Failure of the External Hard drive or its format does not corrupt the Windows disk.
  4. If you change your mind about using openSUSE, just unplug the external hard drive.
  5. I use this method on my work laptop. My work laptop is not modified in any way. My personal files and openSUSE all exist on the external hard drive drive. And these 2.5" disks are small, powered from the USB port and now up to 1 TB these days.

And of course, I think it is fun getting this to work. In fact, it is the reason I started using openSUSE way back at version 10.0 as SuSE was the first distro I got to work this way.

Thank You,

#12

I just caught on to the dd command! That would be fine if the external disk was new, without any data. I have Windows partitions on it!!

PrakashC

#13

Dear jdmcdaniel3,

I think I am getting the hang of it!  After reading your post, I went through the OpenSUSE-Reference all over again. Let me summarise my understanding :

  1. I can set the booting sequence in BIOS through the Setup to USB Device, Internal Hard Disk and finally the DVD/CD Drive. The external disk has to be made bootable. In case the external disk is not connected or switched off the system will try the internal disk and boot off it.

  2. OpenSUSE recommendation in respect of partitions includes that in case the disk has other OS, the Linux partions should preferably be the last and should not sit between partions allotted to another OS. I may therefore keep the first three partitions for Windows and have the last partition as extended containing the Open SUSE. The external disk is to be made bootable through Windows and then OpenSUSE 11.4 installed so that the MBR of external disk is modified by the new install leaving the internal disk as it is! Of course when installing 11.4 I have to change booting sequence to first try the DVD drive! If I boot now with the external disk switched off I get the old Grub and options. Is this assumption correct?

  3. I can then boot into 11.2 and repair/restore the internal disk MBR to its Windows settings. Reboot to 11.4 and add the old 11.2 install to the new Grub on external disk if I wish to retain it or delete the partitions for reallotment to Windows.

  4. Booting off the internal disk takes me to Windows and plugging in/switching on the external drive after booting makes the Windows partions on external disk available!

    Please examine and let me know if there is any flaw in the logic.

    I very much appreciate the help and advice. Thanks!

PrakashC

#14

All sounds good except that the internal drive must have a generic MBR and the boot flag must be set to the Windows partition. The generic MBR uses the boot flag the grub MBR does not. If you have a Windows disk you should be able to “repair” the MBR thus putting a generic code in the internal drive MBR. This assumes you installed 11.2 using defaults which will put grub MBR on the drive. You may have to Edit the /boot/grub/menu.lst file to get all the OS to boot. Also you need to decide which Linux will control the boot off of the external. You can do all the MBR repair with the Super Grub disk, I believe, if you don’t have a Windows disk.

#15

Dear gogalthorp, jdmcdaniel3, Knurpht, Lenwolf

Yes, I do have the Windows re-intallation/rescue disk. There is also a mbr_backup file under /boot in the 11.2 installation and that too (if in good order!) should enable 11.2 to restore the generic MBR.

The external disk already has its generic/Windows MBR. I do not intend to put any other OS (except OpenSUSE 11.4) on it. The 11.4 installation process should make the disk bootable. I only need to ensure that the 11.4 installation does not affect the MBR or the existing Grub for 11.2 on the internal disk. Guidiance in this regard is requested. Will the booting sequence during installation set as - First DVD drive, Second External HDD on USB and lastly Internal HDD - do the trick?

Thanks,

PrakashC

#16

Dear gogalthorp, jdmcdaniel3, Knurpht, Lenwolf

Yes, I do have the Windows re-intallation/rescue disk. There is also a mbr_backup file under /boot in the 11.2 installation and that too (if in good order!) should enable 11.2 to restore the generic MBR.

The external disk already has its generic/Windows MBR. I do not intend to put any other OS (except OpenSUSE 11.4) on it. The 11.4 installation process should make the disk bootable. I only need to ensure that the 11.4 installation does not affect the MBR or the existing Grub for 11.2 on the internal disk. Guidiance in this regard is requested. Will the booting sequence during installation set as - First DVD drive, Second External HDD on USB and lastly Internal HDD - do the trick?

Thanks,

PrakashC

The boot order you specify sounds correct. When installing openSUSE 11.4 onto the External Hard drive, pay close attention to the Booting section of the Installer as to the location of the Grub Boot loader (MRR or / partition), the target disk like /dev/sdb and the proposed boot order like sdb, sda for instance. This determines what is being written to and where and what drive is designated as hd0 from the device.map file and in the grub menu.lst file.

Thank You,

#17

Dear jdmcdaniel3,

I am practically ready to jump in/ proceed with the installation. I have also read the article “/SDB:Installation_on_external_hard_drive”.

Only one doubt remains - which disk MBR will be changed internal or external. My aim is to boot off the external disk and the MBR on it should point to the Grub of the new installation. The MBR on the internal disk should remain untouched, and also the existing Grub on the internal disk

Any check point to confirm this before committing install?

Thanks,

PrakashC

#18

Dear jdmcdaniel3,

I am practically ready to jump in/ proceed with the installation. I have also read the article “/SDB:Installation_on_external_hard_drive”.

Only one doubt remains - which disk MBR will be changed internal or external. My aim is to boot off the external disk and the MBR on it should point to the Grub of the new installation. The MBR on the internal disk should remain untouched, and also the existing Grub on the internal disk

Any check point to confirm this before committing install?

Thanks,

PrakashC

So when your desire is to not modify the Internal Hard drive, you would only modify the External MBR and not the internal one. As specified before, placing Grub into the MBR (of an internal or external hard drive) allows the “booting” of openSUSE from Logical Partitions 5 and higher. Strickly speaking, you can only boot from Primary Partitions 1, 2, 3 and 4, but if Grub is loaded into the MBR, openSUSE can be loaded into ANY partition and still boot your system. Generic booting code loaded into the MBR is better when dual booting with Windows, but only matters IF Windows and openSUSE are located on the same hard drive. If you really leave the internal hard drive untouched, you can load Grub anywhere you like on the external hard drive and putting it into the MBR of the external hard drive can provide more booting options. Finally, one thing many may miss is that the MBR of an External Hard Drive, when purchased new will be BLANK with no code contained there at all! So, you must on purpose elect to place generic booting code into the MBR or load Grub into the MBR of the External Hard Drive. Deciding to load nothing there will not work properly.

Thank You,

#19

You can chose which disk in the installers partition scheme expert mode. By default I think the MBR of the current boot drive is selected. But is good to check this before committing.

#20

Dear jdmcdaniel3, gogalthorp,

I started off with the installation reached the stage of final check. I aimed to install the 11.4 on the extended partition on the external disk, leaving the existing 11.2 installtion on the internal disk unchanged. I tried it with the booting sequence in BIOS set to first the DVD drive, second external HDD (as USB device) and last the internal HDD. My findings are :

a) Selected Fresh install option.
b) The install program detects the 11.2 system and the space available on the ext HDD and proposes a partitioning plan using the existing 11.2 created swap partition. Even if custom partitioning is called up and a new swap partition created on the ext HDD, the installtion retains the proposal to use the existing/old swap and there is no place to change this.
c) The booting options do not include booting to the existing 11.2 installation. I suppose this could be added in the change section.
d) The booting details show placing Grub(new) on the ext HDD as desired but is not clear if the old Grub will be retained on the internal disk. This could be worked around by keeping a copy of the files in another place and later restoring these.
e) And the proposal retains write the grub (stage 1) to the MBR of the int HDD. Again there is no option at any stage which could direct the install to write to MBR of ext HDD.

The external HDD came with some proprietory programs on it and therefore it must have been partioned and formatted with a MBR in place. Currently that MBR does not contain a pointer to load an OS i.e. if I make it the first device in the booting sequence, the system comes to an halt. It does not go on to the next device in sequence or ask for a bootable disk.

I had 3 primary partions for Windows on the Ext. HDD and so the intall wass restricted to creating an extended partition in the remaining unallocated space. I deleted one to leave only two primary partitions for Windows and hoped the install would suggest putting a small boot partition as the third primary partition and (hopefully) offer to write to the Ex. HDD MBR. Nothing doing, the proposal remained to create an extended (now third) partion) with further logical partitions and to write to MBR of Int. HDD.

There appears no simple way to be able to boot off either of the HDDs, unless the ext. HDD is dedicated to SUSE.

By the way I recollect that in version 10, it was possible to install both Gnome and KDE desktops and select one while logging in. Any idea if that can still be done?

Thanks, especially for the patient consideration to a puzzled penguin,

PrakashC