On Sb, 13 iun 20, 00:58:57, Matthew Campbell wrote: > I hope I don't create a fight with this. > > I booted the Debian netinst disc and installed Linux on /dev/sdb1 as > the root partition. My computer is old. The system BIOS does not see > this hard drive, nor does Grub, but the Linux kernel does. I'm running > the 4.19.0-9-686-pae kernel, #1 SMP Debian 4.19.118-2 and Buster > 10.4.0.
This implies that this particular hard drive is not shown at all in the BIOS setup (please confirm). By the way, to avoid confusion it might be better to refer to it by make and/or model and/or size (whatever is unique in your environment). On next boot it could be sda instead of sdb. > The installation program tried to set up Grub on /dev/sda, but since > Grub cannot see /dev/sdb the system gets stuck in rescue mode. So it appears you have some "other" hard drive in this system that is recognized by you BIOS (please confirm). > It sees two hard drives hd0 and hd1, but says both have unknown > filesystems. I had to install Linux on a 32 GB USB flash drive just to > get my computer to boot. Now I can boot Windows again too. The flash > drive is _really_ slow. Somewhere in your system there is also a Windows installation. Might be useful to know exactly on which drive and partition and if you can spare some space on the same drive (see below). > Grub has /dev/sdb1 listed as an option, but says the disk does not > exist and to load the kernel first, which of course is on the new hard > drive partition /dev/sdb1 which I can access just fine after starting > the kernel. The catch is that I have to boot the flash drive /dev/sdc1 > to do so thus making it the root filesystem. > > 1) How can I help Grub see and use /dev/sdb1 ? > > 2) Can I create a CD or USB flash drive with which to boot the > computer so it loads the kernel and mounts /dev/sdb1 as the root file > system? (I'm specifically avoiding the sda, sdb designations as they are likely to change, especially if/when you boot with the flash drive plugged in.) Start the installation process. At the partitioning step tell it to use the flash drive as /boot (the rest of the system and *especially* the swap partition should go to the "new" hard drive). Then install grub on the flash drive (not the /boot partition). Configure your BIOS to boot from the flash drive. In this configuration the speed of the flash drive matters only until the kernel is read from it and during kernel upgrades, so it's unlikely for it to be a major hindrance. > 3) How long is my flash drive likely to last? Will it wear out as I > continue to use it? Will reading from it damage it, or just writing to > it? Flash drives are of various quality. It could be a month or a year or 10 years. Considering it will be mostly read from and written only on kernel upgrades it might last a few years for a Debian stable system. It's also very easy to create an (automated) backup of it with 'dd' as /boot doesn't even need to be mounted during regular operation (only for kernel and grub upgrades, which are rare on stable). If the "other" hard drive is recognized without problems by your BIOS another option to consider is putting /boot on it instead and GRUB in its MBR. Some more information about its size and partitioning would help to provide useful suggestions. Kind regards, Andrei -- http://wiki.debian.org/FAQsFromDebianUser
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