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HELP! XBMC Live install on usb external hard drive - Printable Version

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+---- Thread: HELP! XBMC Live install on usb external hard drive (/showthread.php?tid=92286)

HELP! XBMC Live install on usb external hard drive - bryanchicken - 2011-01-27

Hi all,
i've seen similar posts about installing to external hard drives, but not found one with my particular problem. Hopefully one of you kind folks will be able to help me.

I want to install xbmc to a USB connected 2.5" HDD. This is because i want to add another drive to my data pool and will then be out of sata ports (no expansion as its mini-itx).

So, i disconnected all internal drives and attached usb hdd and usb dvd drive with the live cd in.
Everything in the install went swimmingly. The partitioner found the usb hdd and everything seemed to install correctly.

After installation was complete i rebooted (removed the cd from the drive) and after the bios flash screen i got:
Code:
Error 15 file not found
grub rescue>
The only command that i could find that worked was ls which gave me:
Code:
grub rescue>ls
(hd0), (hd0,1)

I tried on 2 different external hard drives with the same outcome.
Bios is set to have the external usb drive as the first boot device. In fact its the only boot device.

Anyone got any suggestions? Has anyone managed to install to external usb successfully before?

Thanks very much

- brulsmurf - 2011-01-27

Quote:Bios is set to have the external usb drive as the first boot device. In fact its the only boot device.

Was it also the first booting device when you installed it? Otherwise GRUB may have screwed up. I don't know how to repair a bad GRUB, so when I had the same trouble when I installed XBMC Live on a USB flash drive I ended up re-doing the install but I swapped the installer USB flash drive and the target drive USB ports. I'm sure there must be an easier way though.

- bryanchicken - 2011-01-27

thanks brulsmurf, i'll give that a go and see what happens.
Can't do any harm. Currently i'm trying things like chrooting from a live cd and faffing around with grub.
Frankly, i have NO idea what i'm doing.

I'll report back with any (non)progress.

Thanks

- bryanchicken - 2011-01-27

No luck i'm afraid.

I'm completely stumped again now Huh

- brulsmurf - 2011-01-28

Argh. Sorry, I wih I could help you out but this is just as far as my knowledge goes :|

- bryanchicken - 2011-01-28

No worries. Thanks for the suggestion, it was something i hadn't considered.

I'm starting to wonder if its something a bit more sinister now after playing around til the wee hours.
I can't boot from a live usb stick created with unetbootin either. The only things i can boot from are USB dvd drive and sata disk.

However, i _think_ i may have found a solution!
I installed to USB drive with usual results at boot. Then i re-attached the sata drive (with my current install already on).
I set the bios to boot from sata, which successfully brings up the grub prompt. If i edit one of the entries to use hd(1,1) instead of hd(0,1) then it boots the USB installation (i think, i was very tired).

So, at least that is a solution. The only issue is that i'll have grub installed on 2 disks and the issue that if i remove that data drive with grub on it then it won't boot.
I may be able to play around with the grub installed on the usb drive once i've booted into it using the other grub i suppose.
I don't understand grub2. I like grub1 Big Grin Maybe reading the grub2 ubuntu docs after a nights sleep might help.

Cheers guys.