Excuse the top post - bb email. You might be able to change the hdd boot priority in another menu to try usb hdd first then fallback on sata/ide whatever. Also you might have to add a slowusb kernel boot param if after the kernel boots you get a unable to sync vfs error when handing off to init.
Sent via BlackBerry from T-Mobile -----Original Message----- From: Michael Sullivan <msulli1...@gmail.com> Date: Wed, 12 Aug 2009 16:49:51 To: <gentoo-user@lists.gentoo.org> Subject: Re: [gentoo-user] Booting an exernal usb drive from grub On Wed, 2009-08-12 at 16:38 -0500, Paul Hartman wrote: > On Wed, Aug 12, 2009 at 4:30 PM, Michael Sullivan<msulli1...@gmail.com> wrote: > > My server box died last week, and, as it was about ten years old, I > > decided to replace it. My wife and I opened the case and removed the > > hard drive (A major undertaking for us, I might add). We hooked the old > > hard drive up to a hard drive enclosure and plugged it via USB into a > > new computer we bought this morning. This new computer runs Windows > > Vista and only Windows Vista. I want to run Gentoo Linux on the > > enclosure. I have to keep Windows on it because all the computer repair > > shoppes around here only know Windows, and will be confused if I take it > > in to be repaired and it isn't running Windows. I planned to install > > grub on the main internal hard drive and use that to boot to the USB > > drive. I checked the BIOS, and there's no option to boot to USB. I've > > spent a couple of hours today googling this question, but all I can seem > > to find is how to do this from a linux partition other than the one on > > the USB drive. Is this even possible, and if so, how would I do it? > > It seems surprising that such a new computer wouldn't let you boot > from USB. Usually in the boot order section of BIOS one of those > choices will be "removable disk" or "external device" or something > like that. That will typically boot your USB disk. > Nope. The only things it has are floppy boot (It doesn't even have a floppy drive!), cd boot, and hdd boot...
