Re: GRUB woes (install to hde)

From: Alvin Oga (aoga_at_mail.Linux-Consulting.com)
Date: 09/30/05

  • Next message: Tim: "Two upstream connections"
    Date: Thu, 29 Sep 2005 15:42:25 -0700 (PDT)
    To: Mike McCarty <mike.mccarty@sbcglobal.net>
    
    

    hi ya mike

    - how about you let the orginal poster ask questions
      and/or present real problems he's facing ??

    - sme of your comments are contradcitory to those
      your stated earlier or later in within the context
      of just this emails

    - making clones of xxx into another disk is trivial
      or complicated ...

            - making it bootable is equally trivial
            or complicated

            - i've already posted the booting portion
            at least 3x - 5x to make /dev/hde bootable
            as any other disk in any other system,
            but you do need to read and understand
            what the answer was, otherwise i could have
            also written the answer in chines characters
            and the answer is still meaningless to some

    - i've clone disks by the thousnds on the various
      you-name-it-i-bought-this-mb-system, but it doesn't
      work for me, can you come fix it ...

      i like getting paid (full rate) to fix things
      that somebody else bought w/o knowing if it works
      or not with today's flavor of linux and kernel

    am top posting as protest ... :-0

    c ya
    alvin

    On Thu, 29 Sep 2005, Mike McCarty wrote:

    > Alvin Oga wrote:
    > >
    > > On Thu, 29 Sep 2005, Mike McCarty wrote:
    > >
    > >
    > >>>it'd be pointless to install the grub mbr on /dev/hde if it cannot boot
    > >>
    > >>Umm, no, what he's doing is perfectly reasonable.
    > >
    > >
    > > if doesn't work ... one should figure out technically why it will
    > > not work
    > > - some bios will NTO let you boot from /dev/hde is all
    > > i'm saying and since it is a "grub woes" what does grub do
    > > for you in this case, esp if as you say, he's not booting it ??
    > >
    > >
    > >>He wants to
    > >>duplicate boot discs for use on other machines.
    > >
    > >
    > > ah... more grub problems ..
    >
    > Yeah. Well, not problems. Just want to install using a technique
    > GRUB isn't deliberately set up for.
    >
    > > you cannot move a /dev/hde w/ grub info already on it from PC#1
    > > to boot it as /dev/hda on PC#2 and expect pc#2 to boot it
    > > - explain why ... you can .. and under what circumstances
    > > you can boot
    >
    > Of course he can't just do that. Nobody has said he could.
    > The trick is to figure out a way to accomplish the end goal,
    > which is to be able to put a disc into a machine, type a command
    > or three, and in several minutes have a disc which can be used
    > that way. THAT is what I think is the goal, and I also think it is
    > reasonable to want to do. And I'm sure there is a way to
    > do it. Just haven't figured it out, yet :-)
    >
    > > - same disk config or different disk config in terms of
    > > the number and ordering of fd, cd, dvd, ide, scsi
    > > and also referring to /boot/grub/device.map
    > >
    > > - since you're moving from /dev/hde which presumably
    > > implies you booted a different disk that you're trying to
    > > clone... you will have problems as /dev/hde become /dev/hda
    > > but is trivially fixed in 5 seconds if you know what to
    > > change .. and with grub you do NOT need to edit files
    > > and can change it dynamically to test it
    >
    > Yep.
    >
    > >
    > >>IIUI, he doesn't want to boot from /dev/hde ever.
    > >
    > >
    > > which gets back to the point .. why bother with grub in that case
    >
    > He wants GRUB on the /dev/hda when he moves the disc to the
    > new machine. He wants GRUB to manage the boot from the disc
    > he's making. At some point, GRUB needs to be installed
    > somewhere.
    >
    > >>He wants to create a disc
    > >>connected as /dev/hde which can become /dev/hda on another
    > >>machine.
    > >
    > >
    > > and again .. why ???
    >
    > Because he has lots of machines to install on. I forget the
    > number, if he even mentioned it exactly, but the impression I get
    > is tens of machines with identical or nearly identical discs.
    >
    > He wants a disc duplicator which will duplicate a bootable hard
    > disc.
    >
    > >
    > > - it's a lot of headache when there are trivially 100x simpler
    > > ways of doing the same thing
    > >
    > >
    > >>One way to do that would be to dd if=zero of=/dev/hda ...
    > >
    > >
    > > that could be the equivalent of " rm -rf " if one were to use
    > > that command without knowing what it might do
    >
    > Umm, no. This was in context of copying the device. If the device is not
    > filled with zeroes, then the compression doesn't work so well,
    > and that would result in very large file.
    >
    > >>and then make the thing a minimal bootable, then put it on
    > >>as, say, /dev/hdf and then dd if=/dev/hdf | gzip image to create a
    > >>(relatively) small image on /dev/hda.
    > >
    > >
    > > now you have /dev/hdf to create what would be /dev/hda on /dev/hde
    > > ( more complications )
    > >
    > >
    > >>I've tried to figure out a way he can clone his boot for him without
    > >>writing multi-megs of data. It should be easy, but isn't, quite.
    > >
    > >
    > > to clone any boot info from any disk to another ..
    > >
    > > dd if=/dev/hda of=/dev/hdc bs=446 count=1
    > >
    > > where you want /dev/hda to be the way the clone will boot
    > > when /dev/hdc will become /dev/hda later in a different
    > > or same box
    >
    > And that causes /dev/hdc to have Linux installed on it how?
    >
    > > converting hda to hdc is a imple matter of changing fstab
    >
    > Well, this isn't what I think he wants to do.
    >
    > He has, say, twenty virtually identical machines with Some Other
    > OS installed on them. Call these machines B-U.
    >
    > He wants to take the hard drive out of each, say one or two at
    > a time, and put them into a machine which already runs Our Favorite OS.
    > Call this machine A. So he takes the disc out of machine B, and puts
    > it into machine A, and boots.
    >
    > He then would like to issue a few commands, which hopefully run in a
    > reasonable amount of time, after which he can take the disc originally
    > from disc B back out of machine A, and put it into machine B, which
    > then automagically is a Linux booting machine. Then he'd like to repeat
    > this with the disc currently in machine C, making machine C a Linux
    > machine. And so on.
    >
    > This is what I understand to be the goal. It's a reasonable one.
    > And I'm pretty sure it's achievable. One just has to hold his
    > tongue right.
    >
    > There may be a better way to clone off machines. Maybe you even
    > know one.
    >
    > > - there are say hundred ways to make a bootable disk
    > > and NOT all will work in all situations
    >
    >
    > Well, that's pretty much evident.
    >
    > Mike
    > --
    > p="p=%c%s%c;main(){printf(p,34,p,34);}";main(){printf(p,34,p,34);}
    > This message made from 100% recycled bits.
    > You have found the bank of Larn.
    > I can explain it for you, but I can't understand it for you.
    > I speak only for myself, and I am unanimous in that!
    >
    >
    > --
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