New /boot/grub/menu.lst for Linux on usb-HDD

Because I had to delete ALL of my internal HDD because of an unrepairable problem in OS X, my precious menu.lst that handled, besides 4 Linux OSes on the internal drive, a further 6 installed on my usb drive.
Today I got three of them back, updated and generally tidied up to make them usable again. The three I got were Pclos, Fedora 9 and Mepis. Few if any problems were encountered other than the fact that the first two (Pclos and Fedora insist on calling the drive on the usb HDD /dev/sdax rather than the expected /dev/sdbx.

Major scare with MacBook today.

OK, as I mentioned in the last post, I got over the problem with the Ubiquity installer crashing during the Ubuntu install.
What I didn't mention was that when I went to reboot, I just got a white screen -- nothing else -- no Apple or Linux logos.
I really though I had lost yet another HDD on this machine which would be the third in less than a year.
Then I found that I could use the Ubuntu LiveCD to get something to show up -- so it wasn't the graphics card which I had also suspected.
Strangely, though, I was able to mount all of the Linux partitions that I tried as well as the OSX partition. Also, I could read, copy any of the files from these partitions and even play music on the OSX partition.
So, this didn't suggest that the hdd was unreadable.
Then I tried the OSX Leopard install DVD which also booted fine. Here I tried the disk utility and it said the OSX disk verified OK.
I was lost and thought I'd have to bring my Mac to the repair shop tomorrow.
However, as the OSX disk utility didn't show either /dev/sda1 (EFI) or /dev/sda3 (Foresight /), I thought I'd try Parted Magic to see how these partitions looked.
Well, they all showed up but every single one had a yellow warning sign against it.
Just by chance I noticed that the Foresight / partition had a boot flag so I took this out and all partitions lost the warning sign.
Tried again to boot and this time absolutely everything was back to normal.
This is quite incredible as I'm totally sure that boot flag had been there for a while without causing any problems at all. So, why did a simple install of Ubuntu II (alpha3) cause this to turn very nasty? I really do not understand this. Nevertheless, I really was on the verge of making another trip to the Apple repair shop in my city and I'm very glad I didn't have to.

I should mention as well that the Ubuntu II install also seems to mess up the GPT/MBT synchronisation so that you get a "no bootable disk" message when you try to boot (at least into Linux -- not sure if this also happens if you try to boot to OSX). However, this is very easy to fix: In the opening rEFIt page, just move to "Start Sync Tool" and say "y" to the sync suggestion offered.

Incidentally, during the various desperate attempts I made to get this thing to boot, I restored the Mac Darwin boatloader to the MBR. Here's how this is done.
Boy that was scary but had a happy ending.

Strange boot and resolution problem in Ubuntu (Dell)

When I tried to boot into Ubuntu on the Dell this morning, it just kept going back to the login screen.
I found another blog post that seemed to have had a similar problem and overcame it by deleting ~/.gnome, .gnome2. .gconf, .gconfd and .metacity. However, when I did the same, no improvement.
So, now I had to re-install Ubuntu Hardy without formatting the /home.
This went fine and I got everything back (Opera, yakuake, /etc/dhcp3/dhclient.conf etc, etc).
I also had to manually install the legacy nVidia driver 96.43.05 and this went fine. When I restarted X, the screen came back with the required 1280x1024 resolution and everything looked good.
So after a while I rebooted, but to my great surprise, the screen came up saying that it was in Low-Graphics mode (800x600). So, I re-installed the nVidia driver. The installer said the driver was already there but would be deleted in the new install. Once again, when X was restarted everything was fine but on a further reboot got the same problem over again.
Interestingly, the old xorg.conf file which the nVidia installer renames as a backup, has some differences from the new file. I really have no idea how it gets changed but, even so, I don't see anything that should lead to a 800x600 resolution.
Really don't understand this. Wonder is it at all related to the boot problem I had this morning which, equally, has not been explained.

Foresight slow boot on MacBook

For some time I've been concerned about the delay during boot of Foresight where it stops at "foresight login" for about two minutes.
I was going to post to the forum about it.
Then today I just stumbled on this which provides the solution which is just to type this in a terminal:

sudo chkconfig network --levels 5 off

This works fine when wired is connected or not. Saves me at least 90 seconds on the boot.

Retrieving OSes on usd HDD to MacBook

Before my computer had its Brazilian mishap in early May, I was able to boot to 5 other OSes (all Linux; Mepis, Fedora 8, Sabayon, PCLOS and Linux Mint).
Well, they're all back now. At least things are more or less set up for them to boot. However, still can't get Fedora to boot so I'll have to try a little harder there.
PCLOS also gave some problems. So while i had the root setting at /dev/sdb3 in the kernel boot line. in fact PCLOS sees this as /dev/sda3.
So, to get PCLOS to boot I had to change not only this in the Ubuntu /boot/grub/menu.lst but also all the sdb stuff in the PCLOS /etc/fstab had to be changed to sda.

Ubuntu boot failure after Linux headers update.

This is a problem I've had before and I've even gone to re-installing the OS because it just wouldn't boot.
Seems the problem is that the /boot/grub/menu.lst is substituted with a new one containing ONLY Ubuntu (incl. recovery) and MemTest. However, the kernel line contains a reference to UUID (in root=UUIDxxxxxxx...xxxxxx) which seemingly is not recognised. So, the real root is not reachable.
However, as Ubuntu can't boot, can't get at /boot/grub/menu.lst to fix it.
Becuase Ubuntu can't boot (and this is where the MBR is) nothing else can boot.
So, a BIG problem.
However, using the Gutsy install CD, which allows access to the internal HDD and the non-bootable Ubuntu, I was able to take out the UUID in menu.lst and substitute /dev/sda3 and then it booted fin and everything worked again.
I posted on this here (post #122) as some other guy had a problem with initramfs showing up as a shell when his system wouldn't boot. This gives more detail on what I did.

PCLinuxOS - 2007 -Gnome

I had used PCLOS 2007 before (kde version) but this Gnome is apparently newer.
Previously I had no problem at all getting Pclos to boot from the usb drive without any alterations (which is actually the most common occurrence).
However, this time with the Gnome version, I couldn't get it to boot.
I actually tried my hand at increasing the sleep within mkinitrd from the default 8 seconds to 20 seconds. However, I have to admit that I don't think I did this very well as I'm much out of practice and I neither wrote anything down the last time nor can I find a suitable guide this time.
Cannot explain this. Right now, I'm trying again with the older version but, certainly, I'm going to have to brush up on all of the tricks I learnt 6-8 months ago on how to modify the initrd.img files.

More attempts to install WinXP on an external HDD

From what I had seen, the ngine guide ONLY works if your computer supports booting to an external HDD. Now for years I thought that Dell computers did not!
So, I posted to Dells forums and was surp[rised to find that in fact they do, or at least, nearly all of the Dell desktops we have here do, or at least should. Very interesting thread.
However, my 4550 Dell did not behave as expected when I pushed the F12 key during initial boot in that no usb devices showed up in the alternative menu which showed up.
But, on the E520, both the external HDD and a usb key I plugged did (or at least seemed to).
Then today, I tried to see if the hacked WinXPPro.ISO could be installed to my Seagate usb drive using Margaret's computer (E520).
However, no luck here.
First time, got BSoD when all of the initial files were installed and screen said (on bottom) Setting up Windows.
Tried also with Margaret's 500 GB ext HDD in place of my Seagate but very same result.
Ran a CHKDSK /F as recommended in BSoD, but no change after this.
Tried also with my original WinXP install CD but, once again, got exactly the same result.
Maybe I'll try it on Cormac's machine (9200) as a last resort.

Install WinXP to an external usb HDD

I had wanted to do this so that i could see if I could boot to WinXP on the Ext HDD from my MacBook using Grub.
However, I hadn't realized that MS has done its utmost to make this almost impossible. Note that I don't want to boot in the normal way to WinXP on the external drive so I'm not counting on the BIOS recognizing the usb drive as bootable.
In the same way, I can easily boot to whatever Linux OS on an external drive from either the Mac or Dell, neither of which support usb booting.
I found this article which describes in detail how to go about this (or so I thought).
There's another guide as well which describes in detail how to use cabarc x which is by no means obvious from the first article. I'll link to this when I find it.
In any event, I went through an awful lot of work including modifying a version of WinXP_Pro.iso to allow usb-booting and disconnecting the internal HDD in the Dell dim4550 (so that it would see the ext HDD as the only drive. However all to no avail. It seems this just isn't going to work if the computer BIOS does not support usb booting. Amazingly, of 5 computers in this house, not ONE allows usb booting. If there were just one, I could install WinXP on the external drive and do what I want.
So looks like this is a dead end.
Too bad but you can't win them all.

Getting something to boot from a usb key

Well, I've now got some experience with these usb keys and it seems they do have quite a few limitations.
First, they don't seem to tolerate any more partitions than two
Second, FAT32 and FAT16 seem to be the favoured file systems and you can have twoo partitions with these fs's. However, I wasn't able to get any more than one partition with either EXT3 or reiserfs.
Then, it just doesn't seem to be quite as straightforward to copy stuff to and from a usb key as it is to a usb HDD.
Another problem, is that my MacBook seems even more reluctant than the Dell desktop to even "see" the usb key.
Nevertheless I did manage to get a Linux OS onto my key. This is Puppy Linux which i got from this guide.
This was actually very straightforward apart from two minor problems.
First, my Mac just didn't see the usb key so I couldn't do the installation there. When I moved over to the Dell, everything worked fine.
Secondly, the guide is meant for computers that will allow booting from a usb drive which, unfortunately, neither of my computers do.
So, I had to add the following to my /boot/grub/menu.lst on the Ubuntu partition on the Dell:

title PuppyLinux 3.01 (on /dev/sdc1)
root (hd0,5)
kernel /boot/puppy/vmlinuz root=/dev/sdc1
initrd /boot/puppy/initrd.gz
savedefault
boot

as well as putting the two files, vmlinuz and initrd.gz inti /boot/puppy/ on the Ubuntu partition.
Then it booted without problem.
I'll talk a bit about Puppy Linux itself tomorrow.

Boot to a usb flash drive

Because i couldn't stay too interested in Sabayon, I thought I'd like to install some Linux OS (I was thinking either Zenwalk or Puppy Linux) to a usb flash drive and boot to it.
My original thought was to do this through Grub on the Ubuntu partition (as I have on the MacBook and the Dell desktop).
However, I've come across this HowTo which actually allows you to boot directly from the thumbdrive (unfortunately, neither of my machines allow booting from usb devices).
I've been trying to partition the usb drive using Parted Magic but it's turning out to be surprisingly difficult.
Originally the drive had one partition (FAT32, 3.9GB). I tried to break this into to EXT3 partitions. While the first stayed as EXT3, the second became "Unknown". I've tried this over and over, but cannot get any more than one large partition, even with FAT32.
Something very strange here and the Wikipedia article mentions nothing about this.
I should mention that my usb drive DOES have a READ-WRITE switch (a real, physical SWITCH) on the side. You must turn this to RW (pushed towards the bottom of the drive) for any formatting work.

Sabayon wouldn't boot to desktop

When I booted the first time to my newly installed sabayon 3.4f, it got as far as a blank desktop (with the background but no icons or panels) and just stayed there with the "in progress" thing just circling.
So, I rebooted and this time, just as the X-server was starting, I pressed Fn-Alt-F1 which brought me to TTY1.
Here I logged in as root and cd'ed to /etc/init.d/
Now I tried "kdm start" but nothing happened.
So, out of desperation, I tried "gdm start" and this time it did start. However, on the way to the desktop, it told me that there already was a server on display zero (presumably kdm) so this one would be opened in display 1.
So this worked fine.
However, I posted to the forum just to see what I needed to do to avoid this messing around just to get to the desktop.
Apparently, this seems to be a Mac problem in that Mac doesn't like kde or kdm or something. But it's easily resolved by going to /etc/conf.d/xdm and changing the line DISPLAYMANAGER="kdm" to read DISPLAYMANAGER="gdm".
So that worked without a hitch.