OpenSUSE Install :: Using An External Drive As A Root Device?
Jan 6, 2010
I have a large external drive, which I connect to my laptop via a PCMCIA card - the machine is old and does not have USB 2.0 built in, so I use the PCMCIA card for that.
I am thinking of the following setup, and hope you can give me some tips on whether or not that would be a sound solution:
- designate a boot partition on the laptop's internal hard drive, which could store kernels
- make up a linux partition (or more than one) to use as root for any distribution on the external drive
- keep /home as separate partition on the external drive
My goal in mind is to be able to boot more than one Linux partition from the external drive. I can't make it through USB boot because the PCMCIA card is not recognized before a kernel module is loaded, and I can't use the internal USB 1.1 port for the external drive.
Do you think this is the way to go? Currently, I only have my /home partition mounted off the external drive.
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Apr 21, 2010
I tried two times to make an new partition (after the FAT partition on it) on my external hard drive with YaST>Partitioner.Fist I had tried ext3 now I have ext2 on it.Both times the partition (or the corresponding folder in /media) was only writeable to the superuser/root but not to a normal user (readable to the normal user). Root is the owner.The FAT-Partition on the same external drive is owned by the normal user who was logged in as I plugged the USB-cable in.I can unmount both partitions als normal user in natilus.1. Can I start nautilus as root to change the permissions?2. What have I done wrong? Should I use an SuSE Live-CD or an CD with an special partitioning-program instead?ng X20) openSuse 11.1 and Gnome 2.24.1 (mostly, 1 account is using KDE) and Kernel Linux 2.6.27.45-01.1-pae. "/home" is on an separated partition (as part of an extended partition). I have also 2 NTFS partitions for Windows XP (System and Data), and a FAT, a root (/) and a swarp partition.
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Jun 5, 2010
[openSUSE 11.1, kernel 2.6.27.45-0.1-Default, Gnome 2.26.3] I have a problem where I have an external USB drive which mounts at boot, with /home aboard it along with several data-only partitions, and if I try to add another USB drive *after* boot, the system changes the device IDs previously given to the original drive. The already running sdb now becomes sdc. If a user or processes are attached to /home when this occurs they are left in the twilight zone and stuff starts crashing. An added weirdness is the newly added drive isn't stealing the sdb ID, the added drive becomes sdd instead, and nothing at all is left at the sdb ID.
Note:
- System boots from sda, a non-USB drive with the system as well as /swap onboard, that should be uninvolved with the problem.
- Among the 4 partitions of the boot-mounted USB drive there are 2 lux-encrypted partitions (ext3). One is /home (originally encrypted under 10.3 and added back after machine upgraded to 11.1) and another being a data directory (later encrypted under 11.1).
- The problem _may_ occur only when the additional added drive is also lux-encrypted, but this may or may not be always true as I have limited other USB stuff to test with, most of it is also lux-encrypted.
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Dec 17, 2010
So my aim is to install openSUSEx64 11.3 onto my Macbook; but for whatever reason, upon boot-up, the system won't recognize the USB thumb drive with the expanded image of openSUSE on it. I followed steps in Terminal to expand the image onto the said USB stick and know it worked properly because Terminal said "Process Completed." Do I need a special type of USB thumb drive or am I missing something? I am using a late-2009 Macbook. By the way, these were the steps used to prep the USB thumb stick:
1. Open a Terminal (under Utilities)
2. Run diskutil list to get the current list of devices
3. Insert your flash media
4. Run diskutil list again and determine the device node assigned to your flash media (e.g. /dev/disk2)
5. Run diskutil unmountDisk /dev/diskN
6. Execute sudo dd if=/path/to/downloaded.img of=/dev/diskN bs=1m
7. Run diskutil eject /dev/diskN and remove your flash media when the command completes
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Sep 26, 2010
Ubuntu 10.04.1 to prepare a USB flash drive for use as installation media for a new computer that's on the way. When the Linux kernel tries booting up on the flash drive, I get an error saying VFS: Cannot open root device "<NULL>" or unknown-block(8,1).Here's how I got to this point...Created bootable partition on the thumb drive.Put the following files onto the flash drive: initrd.gz, vmlinuz, and ubuntu-10.04.1-server-amd64.iso fromhttp://archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu/dis...ages/hd-media/Install Grub2 to the drive via grub-install.Put the following into boot/grub/grub.cfg:
Code:
set timeout=120
set default=0
[code]....
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May 13, 2010
I initially installed OpenSuse on my Laptops internal drive (clean formatted) and everything worked fine. Later I took out laptop's hard drive and put it into a USB enclosure to use as an external drive.
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Oct 19, 2010
I've pretty much installed Ubuntu Linux9.10, 10.04 and Debian 5 on external hard drives before, however, I just want to avoid certain pitfalls that may occur with openSUSE11.3. Has anyone successfully done this before? And, is it similar like Debian and Ubuntu installs in that you have to install the OS using an advanced option and specifying /dev/sdb, etc? Right now, I have Ubuntu installed on an external harddrive along with Debian as well and wanted to do the same for openSUSE11.3 and was wondering if all Unix derivatives share similar installation processes. I would just like to keep things as I have it currently where the system does not boot with Grub, and instead I have to go to the bios and specify which physical drive to boot from in order to change the boot order.
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Jun 12, 2011
What I've done is partition my external hard drive to have 130g for my Windows info. Then putting the 90g towards Linux. I used a live cd on my home computer to format the 90g of Linux. I'm simply wanting something to learn more about from time to time that I can use on my home computer, laptop, fiance's computer, etc. So the formatting went successful. I have linux on the 90g of hard drive that I wanted it on. The problem is this. When I take the live cd out, when I remove my external hard drive from my computer. The home computer (which has Windows) won't boot. It comes up with a error 21. But now when I boot with the external hard drive I use, I make it to the boot menu and can boot from Windows.I need to be able to boot from Windows on this home computer, since my mother and grandparents use this computer quite a bit. I'm not always going to have my ext. hard drive plugged into this computer, so I need some help if you all know now.
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Apr 25, 2010
Is it possible to install Linux on an external SATA drive?I have a system dual booting between OpenSuse and Windows XP. I wanted to see what other distros were like so I tried installing Ubuntu to my external SATA drive. After installing, I got an error from GRUB, and I had to recover my MBR.I tried the same thing with Mandriva, and got the same result. Finally, I tried another install of OpenSuse 11.2. The result was that I get a grub error 21. The only result of my efforts to try other distros is a lot of experience recovering my MBR.
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Aug 11, 2010
I am setting up a Linux laptop for my parents, and want to also create some backup scripts to allow them to easily back up to an external hard drive. [And for them to be able to use it, it has to be super simple.]
For security purposes (should the external drive ever get lost or stolen), I want to encrypt the entire device using TrueCrypt. That means my scripts will have to use TrueCrypt to mount the backup volume using the device name. [Right?]
Now to the actual question(s): 1) Is there a way to ensure that an external hard drive will ALWAYS be assigned the same device name when plugged in? [That would be the simplest solution for me.]
2) Alternatively, is there a way (using bash scripting) to "find" the device name of a particular external hard drive, even if it might not be known in advance.
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Apr 1, 2011
I am trying to write a script to modify /etc/fstab that will add entries for a number of partitions on different disks.
The only thing that I do not know how to do is to obtain a unique id such as the ones in /dev/disk/by-id/ to address by from a given partition (ie /dev/sdb1). In my fstab I noticed that in installation the system added fstab entries that are unique (in /dev/disk/by-id/)
I could simply do /dev/sdb1 and so on, but I would prefer a unique identifier so that each mount point is tied to a partition on a specific and unique physical drive.
i need this to be script-able if possible, if not I would still like to know.
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Aug 22, 2010
kde 4.3.4 kernel 2.6.32.7-smp Have Seagate 500GB (fuseblk) external usb drive that gets listed in the "Devices recently plugged in, pop-up panel" but a Verbatim 1.5TB does not. I have to mount it manually as ntfs volume.
eg bash-3.1# mount /dev/sdd1 /verbatim
/dev/sdc1 fuseblk 4.0G 598M 3.5G 15% /media/Free-4GB
/dev/sdd1 ntfs 1.4T 401G 997G 29% /verbatim
/dev/sdc2 fuseblk 462G 409G 54G 89% /media/FreeAgentDrive
When I boot using the Mint distro on same PC both ext usb drives are automounted. Looking for pointers as to why the 1.5TB verbatim disk does not automount.
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May 20, 2011
Somehow, the wife got her laptop into this situation yesterday. The Windows partition booted normally when selected from GRUB but os 11.3 would boot to a command line login and pretty much everything besides CTRL-D was useless as the root partition was ro.
I booted a live CD and found two a couple of strange things. First, the system clock was reset to the default date/time (2007-xx-xx). I reset that. Second, after correcting the time I ran fsck on the root and home partitions. Both went through with no errors reported but the 20GB root partition took a long,long time to complete while the 80GB home partition went pretty quickly. After doing the above, the system booted normally but both partitions reported running the transaction log as well as forcing fsck where I had just done that. My question is for future reference: how does the system react to a grossly incorrect date/time, especially where all the drive data reports being much later than the reported system time? Would this be the reason for what I saw? I have no idea how the wife managed to reset the system clock, even if the
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May 22, 2010
I initially thought the problem had to do with the Lucid Lynx upgrade, a lot of people have been reporting similar issues with drive mapping and things along those line. My issue is that an external drive, formatted in FAT32 appears to be corrupted, and overtime begins to read or mounts as 'read-only.'
What I've read, and deduced, is that this is ultimately and issue with the drive. I've backed it up, reformatted, and been able to write to the drive successfully, but I've been moving a lot of files (backing up) and the system has been reporting input/output errors in transferring some files (through the GUI).
The only thing I can think of, is that the device itself is corrupted or damaged, and that I need to be thinking of other back-up options for the future. Any suggestions on disk-doctoring? I'm hoping to do a clean-install of the OS once I back up my files manually.
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Jan 11, 2011
this is my first time doing a custom partition, I tried to do it with only the assistance of reading as I go, but I don't believe I found enough information last night. What I am trying to do, is put openSUSE on 200gb out of 500gb space on my external hard drive, as well as on 50gb space out of 110gb on my internal hard drive. The remaining 60gb space on my internal drive is going to be for microsoft windows. The remaining 300gb space on my external drive will be storage space. It seems like what I want to do is achievable
What I want is to have my main openSUSE on the external drive (primary partition I think?), with the GRUB loader so that when the external drive is not plugged in, my little brother can use windows on my internal hard drive. I tried this last night, and when installation had finished, I rebooted my computer and the screen was just blank black with the flashing white line as if waiting for me to type, although it would not allow me to type when I tried. It would be great if someone could tell me the order in which to partition, including the terms primary partition, extended partition, and logical partition, as needed.. I don't want to permanently muck up this machine.
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Jan 11, 2011
It started when I wanted to dual boot Windows 7 and Opensuse off of my netbook (No DVD/CD drive) I tried install suse from an external hard drive and I botched it. I ended up erasing EVERYTHING off of my internal netbook hard drive. Windows and all.
Well, I had a couple of other computers so I studied up and eventually successfully installed OpenSUSE 11.2 on my external hard drive (11.3 being the one that I accidentally erased everything with, so kinda scared of it) and now I want to install openSUSE 11.2 on my internal netbook hard drive.
I can not use disks
I can not use a flash drive (For some reason, even if I make it bootable, it will not load up, this could be because it's actually a 8GB microSD card that is placed in a USB card reader.)
I can not use an external hard drive because that's what I'm running suse off of.
I've tried reading up on how to install suse on another drive off of the hard drive and I've gotten as far as whenever I boot up the netbook with the suse external hard drive connected it will ask to boot into OpenSUSE, the Fail Safe, or to install OpenSuse. When I select to install it it gives me the Error 18 Unknown File system.
I've tried formatting the internal hard drive twice. One as NTFS and again as EXT4. Neither seems to effect it other than when it's ext4 I can open it and it contains a Lost and Found folder.
When I interrupt the boot sequence by pressing c and going to the terminal and I use the root (hd +TAB command it tells me I have a hd0 and a hd1. The hd1 only has 1 partition which is ext4, which I'm assuming hd1 is the internal hard drive (I'm not sure how to check) and the hd0 is the external hard drive, which has three partitions. One with an unknown file system and two with ext4. When I try to enter the set up from the terminal it gives me the same error for any thing I put it (e.g. root (hd0,0) gives the same error as root (hd0,1), or root (hd0,2) and root (hd1,0)
Something like it cannot locate these two files I'm assuming it needs to boot. If anyone finds this relevant I'll retry it and post the files its missing.
I've been searching for awhile and can't find any threads that can solve my problem. From other threads, however, I have noticed that I should probably include my menu.lst, listed below
Code:
I have also ran the boot info script and received the RESULTS.txt file it generates. Listed below
Code:
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Mar 18, 2011
I have a Linux application(ProMAX 5000) running in a virtual Machine on my windows OS. I am using an external Hard drive of 250G in ext2 file system as my device for large data read, write & execute file system. I have already mounted the device from /etc/fstab. But i want my application to access this device as a Primary data storage device OR Secondary storage device. What command will i invoke to partition this 250G drive as my primary or secondary storage device.
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Apr 28, 2010
I am trying to use my external hard drive to store webpages and on the webpages it is uploaded to the folder. When i navigate to the address it says it is forbidden. I also noticed that it would not let me upload files to the folder it says i do not have permission. Can someone help me get passed the barriers. The hard drive is ntfs.
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May 26, 2011
I have Seagate Freeagent Go 500GB external hard drive that I use for backup. I wanted to resize the partition so I used GParted to shrink the 500GB NTFS partition to 400GB. The other 100 I wanted to encrypt and use for some other more important files. For some reason, the shrink failed and I disconnected the hard drive and reconnected it. I didn't see the icon appear on the desktop. I went into the Disk Utility to discover that GParted's shrink error deleted all of the partitions on my hard drive. So I created a new 400GB NTFS partition and put back all of my files. The other 100 is unallocated currently.
It will normally mount automatically and show up on the desktop but the hard drive won't mount without me going into the Disk Utility and mounting it through there. I can't even mount it from the Terminal with root privileges. It gives me this:
Quote:
sudo mount /media/My Data
mount: can't find /media/My Data in /etc/fstab or /etc/mtab
Now, I can unmount with root privileges and I can unmount it from the Disk Utility. I can browse and edit the files within. But I can't unmount it from within Nautilus or on the desktop (the Safely Remove Drive option is not there).
The new 400GB partition also isn't detected by GParted. It just shows the whole drive as unallocated.
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Nov 14, 2009
Currently running rc2. Downloaded 11.2 final DVD, md5sum is good, burned DVD, YaST says media check is good. (And for completeness burned a second DVD and get the same problem.)
On booting from the DVD I select "Installation" - a kernel loads and starts checking available h/w devices then crashes with the above message.
Followed by Please append a correct "root=" boot option.
Tried with root=sda1 (partition that is /) and only change is unknown-block (0,0)
My best guess is that I have EXT4 (did a clean install of RC2)? And/or I dont have a swap partition?
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Feb 28, 2010
The external hard drive which contains all my photos and where I backed-up all my important documents is no longer recognized. It is a three month old 500GB Iomage Prestige Desktop Hard Drive.When I plug it in, it is recognised as a USB device, because it shows up when I type lsusb, but dmesg gives this error message.
[19712.013250] usb 2-2: new high speed USB device using ehci_hcd and address 21
[19712.145347] usb 2-2: configuration #1 chosen from 1 choice
[19712.147214] scsi25 : SCSI emulation for USB Mass Storage devices
[code]....
I popped the disk out of the casing put it on a SATA connect internally and then tried the file recovery programs testdisk/photorec and SpinRite, but both failed because they couldn't recognize the external hard disk.
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Sep 23, 2010
managed to get things working so well on my laptop i thought i'd install ubuntu onto an external drive so i can boot to either xp or Ubuntu whenever i want, when i started up after the install it doesn't recognise the drive i loaded it to and appears to have lost the link to xp. the exact words are:
error: no such device: 4368f21f-d1b6-4c60-8c6b-4d2d38d16920.
grub rescue>
what i can do to get my xp back, my wife uses the xp and will kill me if i don't sort it, fortunately the comps unrealiable anyway!
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Jan 4, 2010
does anyone know that if i can boot from an external hard drive with "openSUSE" installed on it?
how about FireWire, will it work?
i'm trying to set up a triple boot for me newly bought iMac.
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Jul 30, 2011
My wife is purchasing a netbook with no internal CD/DVD writing device, so we plan to purchase an external CD/DVD USB-2.0 read/write device. Our local PC shop has the following 3 external USB-2.0 DVD read/write devices:
(a) Samsung DVD-Burner SE-S084F/RSBS [not listed on Samsung site - too old ? ]
(b) LG DVD-Burner GE24NU21 USB2.0 [not listed on LG site - too old ? ]
(c) Super-Multi Portable DVD Rewrite (GP10 Lite USB2.0 Slimline) GP10NB20 (mentions Mac OS/X support, which is encouraging)
None of those are listed in the openSUSE HCL. Has anyone successfully used any of these with GNU/Linux (my google surfing on this revealed no GNU/Linux complaint nor any success stories) ? Or is there another such external USB-2.0 read/write DVD burner device that is recommended ?
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Jul 19, 2010
I want to mount a serial device. To get do the data section in the device and retrieve image files. Not even root can mount.
Code:
# ls -l /dev/ttyU*
crw-rw---- 1 root uucp 188, 0 Jul 20 13:07 /dev/ttyUSB0
# mount -t fuse /dev/ttyUSB0 /media/M65
/bin/sh: /dev/ttyUSB0: Permission denied
[Code]....
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Mar 30, 2011
New install, linux Fedora 15 Alpha. I am trying to switch over to Fedaora, but the bleeping thing keeps saying device/error/cant find the root.
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Aug 19, 2010
I want postfix to send me the root mail to an external account, but I never do it and I don't know how to do it, anyone can explain me how to do it?
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Jul 23, 2010
I just installed Ubuntu 10.04 and booted to the desktop 2 times. Both times the desktop was so big I could not see any of the icons. The third time and every time I tried to boot again I am getting the following Text Screen warning. "Gave up waiting for root device". I expect I have two different problems, but I can not work on the desktop being to big until I can get this system to boot again.
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Nov 21, 2010
I have 2 Debian OS's and wanted to put Fedora next to it.
Install went ok, but after rebooting it says: "No root device found. Boot has failed, sleeping forever."
During install from the live CD I didn't "v" the boot (efi or something?) because I thought Grub would take care of everything.
Should I just reinstall again and choose the Fedora bootloader? Won't it mess up Grub?
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Aug 12, 2010
I'm trying to copy files from my external hard drive to the desktop and instead of the usual copy or move to options, I get a widget menu! How do I correct this so I can copy files?I'm running opensuse 11.3 KDE 64bit
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