Re: Debian Installer Design Oversight?
On Thu, 03 Mar 2011 10:19:21 -0500, Thomas H. George wrote:
> I downloaded debian-6.0.0-i386-DVD-1.iso and used it to install Debian
> on a usb stick. All went perfectly until the final question which was
> to the effect
>
> Other operating systems and hard drives have been found on this system.
> Do you want the mbr written to the first hard drive?
That question can be "misleading".
What is the "first" disk from the installer's outlook (internal ide,
internal sata, internal scsi, external usb1, external esata1...)?
> My answer was no, of course. I wanted the mbr written to the usb stick
> and I certainly didn't want to alter the system I was using. So the
> installation ended without writing the mbr anywhere.
>
> Since the computer was running from the installation disk I could have
> modified the bios boot sequence for hard drives to move the usb stick to
> the top of the list but would the installation program look at this
> information? How would it chose between the first ide hard drive, the
> first sata hard drive and the usb stick?
>
> Without starting over what is the best way to make the stick bootable?
This is what I did with my external USB disk: I removed the internal sata
disk (this was on a laptop) and installed GRUB -via commands- into the
MBR of "whatever disk" the system thought it was the first disk... as
there was only one, failure was not an option.
Greetings,
--
Camaleón
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