Re: Unable to boot BIOS/GPT system.
On 11/22/18 8:24 PM, Daniel Fishman wrote:
> Hello,
>
> I am trying to install Debian on a 4TB external HDD. Since I want
> to boot the HDD (also) on old systems which support only BIOS,
> and since the HDD is larger than 2TB, I decided to go with GPT
> partition table and BIOS boot (or, in other words: BIOS/GTP).
> I partitioned the HDD accordingly (see the details below), and
> installed Debian. During a pre-installation configuration the
> installer recognized BIOS boot partition, I configured the root
> partition as ext4 and installed grub into the disk's MBR. But
> when (after an installation) I am trying to boot the HDD, I receive
> an error message: 'error: unknown filesystem' and drop into a
> grub rescue mode.
>
> What is the problem here and how it can be solved? It seems as
> though grub's Stage 1.5 loader (that is - core.img, which is
> supposed to be embedded in BIOS boot partition) doesn't contain
> modules needed to read ext4 filesystem, which seems very strange.
>
>
> Following are a bit more details about the partitions:
>
> I used the following command to partition the HDD:
>
> parted -s /dev/sdb mklabel gpt mkpart BIOS_boot ext2 1MiB 2MiB \
> mkpart swap linux-swap 2MiB 16000MiB mkpart data ext2 16000MiB 100% \
> set 1 bios_grub
>
> [root@arch]# parted /dev/sdb unit MiB print
> Model: WD Elements 25A1 (scsi)
> Disk /dev/sdb: 3815415MiB
> Sector size (logical/physical): 512B/4096B
> Partition Table: gpt
> Disk Flags:
>
> Number Start End Size File system Name Flags
> 1 1.00MiB 2.00MiB 1.00MiB bios_grub
> 2 2.00MiB 16000MiB 15998MiB linux-swap(v1)
> 3 16000MiB 3815414MiB 3799414MiB
>
>
> Debian's installation was done on x64 BIOS-only system.
>
Hi Daniel,
in case of BIOS and GPT you have to create a partition for second stage
of GRUB. If I can remember correctly its size should be less than 50MB.
HTH
Kind regards
Georgi
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