Brian wrote:
On Fri 01 Mar 2013 at 19:25:30 -0500, Miles Fidelman wrote:
in fact, I expect that's what's happening to Mark when he tries to
install GRUB - the installer is either:
a) trying to install on the hdd, which he's disconnected (fail), or,
The kernel has no knowledge about a non-existent hard disk so how can
GRUB possibly attempt to install itself there?
good point, but then again, what does grub-install (try to) use as a default if a specific device isn't specified?
b) trying to install to the USB stick, which hasn't been partitioned
properly (fail).
The base system has been installed prior to the bootloader stage. The
kernel must have been happy with the existing partitioning.
Maybe yes, maybe no. In one of his emails, Mark indicated that:
Okay, this is a side trip: Here (to the best of my recollection) is how I'm trying to partition:
Pri-0: 243 MB, ext3, LVM, bootable
Pri-1: 28 GB, NTFS, "WindowsTemp"
Ext-0: 333 MB, ext3, /
Ext-1: 3.18 GB, ext3
Ext-2: 1.55 GB, swap
Ext-3: 524 MB, ext3
Ext-4: 277 MB, ext3
Ext-5: 3.24 GB, ext3
Which leads to three immediate questions:
- how and where are these partitions mounted (at the time that grub-install runs)?
- how does that jibe with the options specified to grub-install?
- or, if no options are specified, how does that jibe with the defaults that grub-install uses?
I'll still bet that the grub-install failure, and subsequent boot failure stems from:
- a partitioning error, and/or,
- grub-install installing the boot loader in the wrong place, and/or,
- a messed up grub configuration file.
From the above partitioning table, I'm going to guess that
1. he's booting and running the live-USB from Pri-0,
2. trying to install to Ext-0,
3. maybe re-installing the MBR on Pri-0,
4. not properly setting up the grub configuration to give a choice of booting from either partition