On Mon, 30 Nov 2020 at 14:53, Martin McCormick <marti...@suddenlink.net> wrote:
> I typed sudo grub-install /dev/sdd. It ran for a few > seconds, announced that grub was installed without any errors and > exited. > After looking at /dev/sdd1/grub and seeing no updated > date stamps, I had a sinking feeling and looked at /dev/sda1 > which is the boot partition on the system I haven't killed yet > and, sure enough, grub-install had run on that drive. > $ ls -lt /boot/grub [...] > It didn't even touch any part of /dev/sdd1. The bootloader on /dev/sdd would have been updated. [...] > What am I failing to do to make the changes occur on the > designated drive? Your lack of success is because the the command you used has designed behaviour to install the grub bootloader to the boot sector of /dev/sdd, and also install the grub files you listed into the current system /boot/grub (which was not on sdd at the time). That is the reason why you see those files on /dev/sda1, because it was the boot partition at the time you ran the command. If you want a grub-install command that writes /boot/grub files somewhere onto /dev/sdd then you will first have to mount the desired target boot partiton of /dev/sdd on some mountpoint that you choose, and then run a command something like this: sudo grub-install --boot-directory=/some/mountpoint/where/is/the/sdd/boot /dev/sdd
