#1 - You may have misunderstood how the disks work in a PC. Your BIOS always gives the internal disk to boot first unless there is a facility for you to override it. Apparently there isn't. Therefore the information Grub obtains from the BIOS is frist disk=(hd0)=hda. The 2nd disk=(hd1)=sda. You cannot override this one artificially. Your best bet is to let Grub into the MBR and know the technique to restoring Windows's MBR whenever you need. In your case without a floppy drive you have to use a XP or Win2k installation disk.

#2 - if you have install successfully Ubuntu in the external disk it may stilll never boot because the standard kenel will panic when the response via the USB cable cannot match the memory activities. Specially rigged kernel and ram disk have to be in place and you seem to have done it. So why not test it with by change root to it. Normally it would be clear to you if you use a non-ubuntu Live CD so that you can tell the difference between the Live CD Llinux and the one in your extenral disk but you can achieve the same by examine the content of

ls /

as the Live CD version will have a lot less and certainly no /boot/grub/menu.lst in it.

You do this by making a temporary directory in /mnt of the Live Linux, mount the root "/" of external partition on it and do a "chroot". Thereafter you will be inside the external partition Linux.

From your description the Live CD has already mounted the external partition as /media/ieee1394disk. so just change root to it

chroot /media/ieee1394disk

You should see the prompt changed alightly indicating you have hoop from the Live CD Linux into the Linux installed in the external disk. There is a 50% change that if you type

startx

You can actually see the desktop of this installed Linux for the first time to you but if it doesn't you are still in full control of it in its BASH shell.
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Suggestions to move the situation forward. The hidden partition in your case should not matter because you have identified XP is in hda2.

(1) Reinstate the original hard disk naming system. i.e. hda2 must be (hd0,1) to Grub and sda1 must be (hd1,0), indicating XP is to be found in the 1st disk 2nd partition and Ubuntu is in the 1st partition of the 2nd disk (Grub counts everything from 0).

(2) Place Grub in the MBR after executing (1). There are two ways to do it in your case. My guess is that you already know this.

Traditional route - you replicate Grub by Linux in a Bash shell. After you have successfully change root to the external Linux just type

grub-install /dev/hda

Quicker route with a Live CD with Grub support - When you boot up the PC with the Ubuntu Live CD, click root terminal and type Grub to get a Grub shell, then type

root (hd1,0) <------- tell Grub the root of the Linux of interest to youright now
setup (hd0) <-----------tell Grub to set up itself in (hd0) using the data from the specified root

Boot the Ubuntu up to see if it can cope with the USB cable.

--------------------------------------

Last resort

I would probably use a XP based software like Partition Magic to resize XP down to 20Gb, use the spare 10Gb as 1Gb for swap and 5Gb for ubuntu (4Gb for a future Linux). Install Ubuntu to hda3 of the internal disk and use the external disk for data storage because the USB cable is a bottle neck to performance.

I would also consider upgrading the 30Gb to 60 or 80Gb internal disk. Clone the first 30Gb (hda1 and then hda2) across using Ubuntu Live CD. Make sure it boot well and then unleash my apetile of my Linux with the extra space I got.

For the upgrade route you are already half way there because you can buy a cheap 3.5" to 2.5" adaptor and swap the new laptop disk with your existing 3.5" hard disk in the external casing. Partition your sda1 and sda2 in "exactly the same size as your hda1 and hda2 with the Live CD and just dd the partitions across with commands

dd if=/dev/hda1 of=/dev/sda1 bs=64M
dd if=/dev/hda2 of=/dev/sda2 bs=64M

Have a bit of fun knowing Linux can't write on a NTFS partition but can still clone it.

Hi Saikee,

Thanks very much, you've given me a lot to absorb. Please don't assume anything with my knowledge, it's merely enough to get me into serious trouble like screwing up the MBR twice already. Allow me a little while to understand your instructions and try them out, I'll report back what happens.

Not sure if mentioned it's a Firewire IEEE 1394a cable connection to external Seagate drive, not USB 2.0 (this works faster than USB 2.0 in my Windows XP arrangement). Also forgot to mention a third partition I'd made on notebook IDE Windows drive where C: ntfs partition already 20.5 GB:

/dev/hda5 logical fat32 OSSHARE F: size 7.35GB

Partition Magic shows the 30.0 GB IDE has that silly HP default FAT16 partition, admittedly small but before the Windows ntfs partition on the drive, as well as about 7MB of unallocated space right at the start of the disk before the FAT16. As back-up for screwing up anything more I've been able to use an XP quick rescue disk (boot.ini, NTDETECT.COM and ntldr) since earlier bad MBR episode, which I boot from a HP Mitsumi 3-1/2" floppy drive connected thru docked notebook USB 1.1 port, to keep me out of trouble. BIOS now set to boot from CD-ROM, then floppy A:, last from hard disk.

I've also read Linux may not work or boot with hard drives that cross the 137GB boundary. What's your take on that?

Finally, if had the cash and notebook disk upgrade options reasonably available from a trusted local store I'd surely take the upgrade route you propose to avoid all this agony and gnashing of teeth but I'm afraid I just don't.

Again, many thanks. Your knowledge is impressive!

on mandriva LE 2005, GNU grub 0.95,
I have not researched why / where the limitation was, but on my 160 Gb,
I had created 4 or 5 6 gb ext3 partitions at the end to tests some distros,
well there was no way to boot them from the grub which is on the MBR.
I would get an error (cannot remember which one, basically saying it was too far on the HD). The distro on partitions before that threshold works all right

I have no idea if chainbooting (and how) grub to another grub might solve the issue

Saikee,

[Edited immediately after posting... and now I've run yet another Ubuntu Live CD session I've got to correct what's said between these square parentheses as /media/ieee1394disk/etc/fstab file once again shows external Firewire Seagate is /dev/sda. This is terribly bewildering to a newbie.

oops, I see on re-review of what I've just posted external Firewire Seagate disk which used to be /dev/sda before effecting Saikee's changes now appears in FSDISK as /dev/sdb I hadn't noticed this before. Not certain how this happened but seems to be result of grub stage2 install succeeding. I think I'll hold off doing anything else to further mess things up until Saikee replies where I should go from here. TIA, Saikee, ball back to you. Thanks]

Know how these issues in threads can quickly become hopelessly confusing so I've printed out files and dialogues of what I did and what ensued below your quote. I got a GRUB Error 21 although GRUB stage2 now does seem to be installed on /media/ieee1394disk so I'm not certain if I'm going backward or forward deeper into a bootlessable swamp.

After reverse-editing /media/ieee1394disk/boot/grub/menu.lst back to original Ubuntu 5.10 Install CD's settings for three GRUB occurrences of root (hd1,0) and Windows title section root (0,1) here's what happened Sun 27-Nov-2005 when launched GRUB as root in Ubuntu Live CD session shell:
===============
GNU GRUB version 0.95 (640K lower / 3072K upper memory)

[ Minimal BASH-like line editing is supported. For the first word, TAB
lists possible command completions. Anywhere else TAB lists the possible
completions of a device/filename. ]

grub> root (hd1,0)
Filesystem type is ext2fs, partition type 0x83

grub> setup (hd0)
Checking if "/boot/grub/stage1" exists... yes
Checking if "/boot/grub/stage2" exists... yes
Checking if "/boot/grub/e2fs_stage1_5" exists... yes
Running "embed /boot/grub/e2fs_stage1_5 (hd0)"... 16 sectors are embedded.
succeeded
Running "install /boot/grub/stage1 d (hd0) (hd0)1+16 p (hd1,0)/boot/grub/stage2 /boot/grub/menu.lst"... succeeded
Done.

grub> exit


GNU GRUB version 0.95 (640K lower / 3072K upper memory)

+-------------------------------------------------------------------------+
| Ubuntu, kernel 2.6.12-9-386 |
| Ubuntu, kernel 2.6.12-9-386 (recovery mode) |
| Ubuntu, memtest86+ |
| Other operating systems: |
| Microsoft Windows XP Home Edition |
| |
| |
| |
| |
| |
| |
| |
+-------------------------------------------------------------------------+
Use the ^ and v keys to select which entry is highlighted.
Press enter to boot the selected OS, 'e' to edit the
commands before booting, or 'c' for a command-line.


Booting 'Ubuntu, kernel 2.6.12-9-386 '

root (hd1,0)
Filesystem type is ext2fs, partition type 0x83
kernel /boot/vmlinuz-2.6.12-9-386 root=/dev/sda1 ro quiet splash
[Linux-bzImage, setup=0x1c00, size=0x124b1b]
initrd /boot/initrd.img-2.6.12-9-386

Error 16: Inconsistent filesystem structure




So hit Escape key back to bootloader options including Microsoft Windows XP, chose Microsoft and got


Booting 'Microsoft Windows XP Home Edition'

root (hd0,1)
Filesystem type unknown, partition type 0x7
savedefault

Error 15: File not found

Press any key to continue...

Seems like endless GRUB loop so I closed GRUB window, shutdown Ubuntu Live CD to reboot, and removed Ubuntu Live CD-ROM when it was ejected from CD drive, hit Enter to reboot. Next had to manually power off notebook PC and reboot using my emergency floppy XP quick rescue disk to be able to boot up into Windows XP again because here's the GRUB screen notebook PC shows when I'm presuming the once-again-messed-up-MBR-by-me-in-Ubuntu Live CD tries to reboot:

1800 MHz Pentium 4 CPU
External cache: 512K installed
No Bootable CD in ATAPI CD-ROM
GRUB Loading satge 1.5.

GRUB loading, please wait...
Error 21
(blinking cursor on black screen accepts no keyboard entry)

I am able to reboot WinXP OK from floppy drive A: connected to one of the docked notebook PC's four USB 1.1 ports.


Finally, to be double-certain we're on the same page here's menu.lst and partitions now after GRUB setup (hd0) command
that is /media/ieee1394disk/boot/grub/menu.lst saved Nov-27-2005 during Ubuntu Live CD
================================================================

...
## ## End Default Options ##

title Ubuntu, kernel 2.6.12-9-386
root (hd1,0)
kernel /boot/vmlinuz-2.6.12-9-386 root=/dev/sda1 ro quiet splash
initrd /boot/initrd.img-2.6.12-9-386
savedefault
boot

title Ubuntu, kernel 2.6.12-9-386 (recovery mode)
root (hd1,0)
kernel /boot/vmlinuz-2.6.12-9-386 root=/dev/sda1 ro single
initrd /boot/initrd.img-2.6.12-9-386
boot

title Ubuntu, memtest86+
root (hd1,0)
kernel /boot/memtest86+.bin
boot

### END DEBIAN AUTOMAGIC KERNELS LIST

# This is a divider, added to separate the menu items below from the Debian
# ones.
title Other operating systems:
root


# This entry automatically added by the Debian installer for a non-linux OS
# on /dev/hda2
title Microsoft Windows XP Home Edition
root (hd0,1)
savedefault
chainloader +1


======================================================
FDISK


ubuntu@ubuntu:~$ sudo fdisk -l

Disk /dev/hda: 30.0 GB, 30005821440 bytes
255 heads, 63 sectors/track, 3648 cylinders
Units = cylinders of 16065 * 512 = 8225280 bytes

Device Boot Start End Blocks Id System
/dev/hda1 2 9 64260 84 OS/2 hidden C: drive
/dev/hda2 * 10 2686 21503002+ 7 HPFS/NTFS
/dev/hda3 2687 3648 7727265 f W95 Ext'd (LBA)
/dev/hda5 2687 3648 7727233+ b W95 FAT32

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

Device Boot Start End Blocks Id System
/dev/sdb1 * 1 19186 154111513+ 83 Linux
/dev/sdb2 19187 19457 2176807+ f W95 Ext'd (LBA)
/dev/sdb5 19187 19457 2176776 82 Linux swap / Solaris



Thanks for all your help and patience.

On the subject of some Linux can cross the 137Gb barrier I think the situation will improve with time as most of the big distros have done it.

The following distros can cross the 137 Gb barries

Mandriva 2006 0.4 onward, Suse 9.1 onward (9.1 is the earlies I have), Sam 1.1, Xandros 3.0, PClLinuxOS 0.92, Slax 5.0.4 and Slamp 1.1, Slackware 10.2, Knoppix 4, rPath 0.7, Ubuntu 5.10 (need to boot directly), Foresight 0.9 and Fedora Core 5.

Some of the above can't cope with high partition number, say bigger than 20.

In Generally if a distro can be installed at a high position of a hard disk there is a good chance that it can be booted by calling its kernel directly.

dhlw,

In your /boot/grub/menu.lst can you delete "boot" in each booting entry. "boot" is only use manually. Try again

In booting Windows choice, remove the line "savedefault" and try again.

Also would suggest you try

root (hd0,0)

for boot Windows to see if Windows boot loader has been placed inside the hidden partition. Grub apparaently couldn't find a boot loader in (hd0,1)

On your confusion between

/media/ieee1394disk and /dev/sda1 the explanation is simple.

The first one is a temporary directory used by the Live CD and some distros too for mounting an other Linux partition. I prefer to mount everything in /mnt and create a name same as the partition I want to mount.

For example if I want to mount a "device" partition sda1 when I am in a Linux from a Live CD. I would type

mkdir /mnt/sda1
mount /dev/sda1 /mnt/sda1

Then I can click the desktop and see and work every file inside /mnt/sda1.

/media/ieee1394disk is same as /mnt/sda1 for being just a chosen name of a mounted file system. If you have only one partition sda1 should be same as sda but in generally you should use sda1.

If it makes you feel a bit better the next time you mount sda1 manually using

mkdir /mnt/son_of_a_gun
mount /dev/sda1 /mnt/son_of_a_gun

Appreciate your taking the trouble to give us all the info on 137GB boundary issue, Saikee.

Take opportunity to post Partition Magic's tool PartitionInfo for my IDE internal disk /dev/hda and SCSI-Firewire external disk /dev/sda showing Ubuntu 5.10 / (root) at start of external drive, nowhere close to the 1024 cylinder boundary not that I think that matters:


======================================================================
Partition Information for Disk 1: 28,615.8 Megabytes
Volume PartType Status Size MB PartSect # StartSect TotalSects
===========================================================================
Unallocated Pri 7.8 None -- 63 16,002
Type 84 Pri 62.8 0 0 16,065 128,520
C: NTFS Pri,Boot 20,999.0 0 1 144,585 43,006,005
ExtendedX Pri 7,546.2 0 2 43,150,590 15,454,530
EPBR Log 7,546.2 None -- 43,150,590 15,454,530
F:OSSHARE FAT32 Log 7,546.1 43,150,590 0 43,150,653 15,454,467


============================================================================
Volume PartType Status Size MB PartSect # StartSect TotalSects
==============================================================================
Linux Ext3 Pri,Boot 150,499.5 0 0 63 308,223,027
ExtendedX Pri 2,125.8 0 1 308,223,090 4,353,615
EPBR Log 2,125.8 None -- 308,223,090 4,353,615
*:SWAPSPACE2 Linux Swap Log 2,125.8 308,223,090 0 308,223,153 4,353,552

=============================================================================
Boot Record for drive C: (Drive: 1, Starting sector: 144,585, Type: NTFS)
============================================================================
Having redone destroyed MBR with a Windows 98 boot disc (fdisk /mbr) to be able to boot normally into Windows XP since last posting this afternoon am looking forward to hearing how to move forward to get GRUB working as a dual-boot when you have time.

Thanks again.

Saikee,

Thanks, our posts crossed. I'll try your suggestions and report back.

Cheers.

Saikee,

Will live on the wild side in Linuxland for a week or so to see what life's like with a Linux box. Once again running grub> root hd(1,0) then setup (hd0,1) clobbered dual-boot loader and Windows MBR irrecoverably. Perhaps should have tried setup (hd0,0) first but re-booting with Live CD time after time is a hassle and got dreaded missing hal.dll screen that killed that. Rather than reinstall WinXP all over again, a lot of work - only have four HP Pavilion factory Recovery CDs, no separate OEM WinXP CDs to be able to enter Recovery Console and try and repair MBR, just ploughed on and installed Ubuntu 5.10 on both internal IDE and external Firewire Seagate disks. To my joy, back on the Internet in under an hour with Breezy Badger. Perhaps now I will learn some Linux commands!

Below is dialogue GRUB spewed out this morning
grub> root (hd1,0)
Filesystem type is ext2fs, partition type 0x83

grub> setup (hd0,1)
Checking if "/boot/grub/stage1" exists... yes
Checking if "/boot/grub/stage2" exists... yes
Checking if "/boot/grub/e2fs_stage1_5" exists... yes
Running "embed /boot/grub/e2fs_stage1_5 (hd0,1)"... failed (this is not fatal)
Running "embed /boot/grub/e2fs_stage1_5 (hd1,0)"... failed (this is not fatal)
Running "install /boot/grub/stage1 d (hd0,1) /boot/grub/stage2 p /boot/grub/menu.lst "... succeeded
Done.

grub> quit

Thanks for your help.

sorry to hijack my thread back (just kidding) but I think I found the answer to one of the first questions that was asked me:

# File generated by DrakX/drakboot
# WARNING: do not forget to run lilo after modifying this file

default="linux"
boot=/dev/hda
map=/boot/map
keytable=/boot/us.klt
menu-scheme=wb:bw:wb:bw
prompt
nowarn
timeout=100
message=/boot/message

image=/boot/vmlinuz
label="linux"
root=/dev/hdb1
initrd=/boot/initrd.img
append=" resume=/dev/hdb5 splash=silent"
vga=788

image=/boot/vmlinuz
label="linux-nonfb"
root=/dev/hdb1
initrd=/boot/initrd.img
append=" resume=/dev/hdb5"

image=/boot/vmlinuz
label="failsafe"
root=/dev/hdb1
initrd=/boot/initrd.img
append=" failsafe resume=/dev/hdb5"

other=/dev/hda1
label="windows"
table=/dev/hda

This is all starting to make sense now that I can actually see what is going on.I found this file using the gui KDE.It is now open with gedit.
You(Saikee) said grub started counting with 0.I think lilo must start with 1.I have a few questions.
1.When I re-size my now huge partition(hdb5) and make more to install other distros I will want to #them 6,7,8,etc?
2.The next distro I install do I want to make its root partition install into hda1 or hdb1?or will I have a choice?
3.[ timeout=100 ] Is this the 10 second timer I see when I first turn on my box?If so and I edit to [ timeout=200 ] this will give me 20 seconds to make a boot choice?
4.If I open this file with gedit,edit the file and "save as" the same file name and overwrite the old file will I be done or do I still have to "run lilo" as per the instructions at the top of page?If so how do I run lilo?

Sorry for all the questions but I REALLY appreciate the help.Thanks

Just a short answer first.

Lilo counts from 1.

Been busy myself as I built a 939 socket mobo with AMB64 3200 yesterday and cloned 33 partitions from an existing machine, runing Athlon 2800 with different video and network card. I forced the newt PC to accept the 33 partitions (1 DOS and 32 Linux) but none of the Linux booted because I cloned from a 200Gb disk and put them on a 300Gb disk, changing from 43 partition to 60 partitions.

I spent the whole day to pull one system up at a time, spending mostly to change the drivers for the video card and network card in the X-windows and getting the Internet.

Result of one day's effort - 30 systems now boot. The remaining 3 may take less time to re-install than trying to rescue them. Just an example to show booting cannot be a big deal in Linux.

I shall look at your problem later on.

Sounds like you have been VERY busy.Also sounds like a nice system you are installing them onto.
I have accomplished my original objective.2 hd bootable seperately on boot.
I have also learned alot throughout this thread.I am afraid I am going to get in trouble when I start resizing/making partitions.This is why I am interested in how to edit the boot files.

I am trying to read on how to change the bootloader from lilo to grub without reinstalling.Most of the things I have learned here are for grub.I also need to learn more terminal commands and stop relying on the gui.If I have to boot from floppy I wont have a gui to find things with.I could always use a live cd.I wrote down the mkdir commands for grub using a live cd somewhere

Thanks again

This is a faq about resizing
http://mlf.linux.rulez.org/mlf/ezaz/ntfsresize.html
With mandriva you should have little problem resizing, creating new partitions.
I do not think you can select the partition No, at least not with drakdisk.
The worse that will ever happened is that all number could change
(be shifted); I had this when I blasted a Zin partition. I was glad I knew how to use
vim. I just shifted the partitions No in menu.lst

Having a live cd, or more than 1 distro is always an idea to fix a problem.
Learn the editor vim (just the basics) if you are keen about CLI.
It will come to the rescue.

If you go to the MCC, menu boot, you can change which loader you use.
My experience with Mandy is that I could never get grub to recognise
all the OS's on my system, and always handed up editing by hand.
But to replace lilo this should work.
There is the CLI way as well, but saikee will probably point you to "grub install"

BTW just wondered if you ever typed man grub

MRDucks

Answers to

(1)Primary partitions hda1 to hda4 are reserved even if you do not use all of them. Say if you use up one primary hda1 and create the next one as a logical then it will become hda5 regardless. More logicals will keep on increasing to about hda60. If you use the remaining space to make primary partition they will be hda3 and hda4. The hda2 of extended partition will automatically taken when the first logical partition is created.

(2)If you want trouble free booting have the root "/" in each partition reserved for that Linux. Don't bother with a separate partition for /boot. Linux will put it within its own partition.

(3)Yes the timeout is the time taken Lilo prepares to wait for you before booting the Linux specified in the "default" statement. I always add couple of zeros if I want to see the menu.

(4)Both /etc/lilo.conf and /boot/grub/menu.lst have a back up. For Lilo you must run Lilo again (by typing "lilo" at terminal) each time you amend /etc/lilo.conf, otherwise Lilo will keep using the old version already installed. This is special to Lilo. Its good thing is that Lilo will refuse to implement the chnages if there is an error do do read the message after issuing Lilo

If you read how a system is booted in either the /etc/lilo.conf and /boot/grub/menu.lst, especially with windows, you will laugh at how simple the process is. The rediculous thing is every Linux can be booted the same way as you boot windows. That is the indirect method generally called "chainloading". It does away all the awful naming of the kernel and ramdisk filenames.

By the way I rescused the 30 systems in transferring from one computer to another with just a Grub floppy (unattached to a system). That was all the tools I need and about 40% of the systems use Lilo as the boot loader.

I'm glad to hear that and a little jealous at the moment.

I resized my win hda down to 40gb and my linux hdb to 20gb successfully.That was so easy instead of making more partitions I thought I would just just install another distro on the empty space of hdb and resize it.

I installed mand2005le and I think out of habit I installed its root in the mbr(default choices) it installed fine but mand2006 is gone from my boot selection screen at start.Actually it just said linux.
My timer is back to 10 seconds and I had altered the order of the selections on boot and its back to default.
I'm assuming I'm now using the lilo.conf file I just made when I installed 2005le.

I have tried adding another entry in the lilo.conf file with this:
append="acpi=ht resume=/dev/hdb6 splash=silent" in it and after running lilo from term i get a fatal error 2 same names "linux" not allowed so I tried renaming: label="linux" to label="mand2006".Lilo did not like this either.mand2006 is on hdb6 and mand2005le is on hdb5.

I will try to figure out what I've done tomorrow I am very tired now.I have posted my "new" lilo.conf below.My original is a few posts before this.And I tried what I thought was the grub floppy I made and its a redhat install disk I dont even own a redhat distro.Who knows.

This is certainly not critical and I'm sure mand.2006 on hdb6 is just fine.I just need to straighten out the mess I made to get to it....I'm having fun learning anyway.

Thanks for all the help.

default="linux"
boot=/dev/hda
map=/boot/map
keytable=/boot/us.klt
prompt
nowarn
timeout=20000
message=/boot/message
menu-scheme=wb:bw:wb:bw
image=/boot/vmlinuz
label="linux"
root=/dev/hda5
initrd=/boot/initrd.img
append="acpi=ht resume=/dev/hdb5 splash=silent"
vga=788
read-only
image=/boot/vmlinuz
label="linux-nonfb"
root=/dev/hda5
initrd=/boot/initrd.img
append="acpi=ht resume=/dev/hdb5"
read-only
image=/boot/vmlinuz
label="failsafe"
root=/dev/hda5
initrd=/boot/initrd.img
append="failsafe acpi=ht resume=/dev/hdb5 devfs=nomount"
read-only
other=/dev/hda1
label="windows"
table=/dev/hda