Vista and USB Drive Ubuntu?

markhdavis

markhdavis

Member
I have an Ubuntu installation that runs fine off of a BIOS start to a USB drive. I followed the instructions exactly on adding a Linux (Ubuntu) startup. The USB shows up as drive 1, partition 0. Can't get it to work. I get an error something along the lines of a non startup disk. Tried both the native and swap drive and a couple a variations with the same result. When I look at the info, I get this:

Name: Native Linux
BCD ID: {35cd7f05-ce34-11dd-a443-001111452d42}
Drive: C:\
Bootloader Path: \NST\nst_grub.mbr

Looks almost like it's going to the c drive? Any thoughts, anyone?
 
Yes, I understand. I actually have no problem booting from the BIOS - just press F12, select the USB and I'm off. Runs a full installation right off the USB stick drive - pretty cool actually, and seemingly no different than a USB drive.

Using the Linux module, i get the error "cannot load form harddisk"

I've tried Neogrub with the following code, which I copied right out of GRUB:

title Ubuntu 8.10, kernel 2.6.27-9-generic
uuid 20b8fc49-7424-4807-9d98-be8d4f29ddfa
kernel /boot/vmlinuz-2.6.27-9-generic root=UUID=20b8fc49-7424-4807-9d98-be8d4f29ddfa ro quiet splash
initrd /boot/initrd.img-2.6.27-9-generic
quiet

title Ubuntu 8.10, kernel 2.6.27-9-generic (recovery mode)
uuid 20b8fc49-7424-4807-9d98-be8d4f29ddfa
kernel /boot/vmlinuz-2.6.27-9-generic root=UUID=20b8fc49-7424-4807-9d98-be8d4f29ddfa ro single
initrd /boot/initrd.img-2.6.27-9-generic

title Ubuntu 8.10, kernel 2.6.27-7-generic
uuid 20b8fc49-7424-4807-9d98-be8d4f29ddfa
kernel /boot/vmlinuz-2.6.27-7-generic root=UUID=20b8fc49-7424-4807-9d98-be8d4f29ddfa ro quiet splash
initrd /boot/initrd.img-2.6.27-7-generic
quiet

title Ubuntu 8.10, kernel 2.6.27-7-generic (recovery mode)
uuid 20b8fc49-7424-4807-9d98-be8d4f29ddfa
kernel /boot/vmlinuz-2.6.27-7-generic root=UUID=20b8fc49-7424-4807-9d98-be8d4f29ddfa ro single
initrd /boot/initrd.img-2.6.27-7-generic

title Ubuntu 8.10, memtest86+
uuid 20b8fc49-7424-4807-9d98-be8d4f29ddfa
kernel /boot/memtest86+.bin
quiet

This is certainly overkill, but since I'm unfamiliar with this, just went with no changes. I get 4 boot options, but they return "Error 17: File not found."

I appreciate any insights you have into this.
 
Thanks. I just have to figure out what GRUB thinks this USB drive is. I get a message something along the lines of hd(0,0) ext 3 - which seems odd considering it's definitely not the main drive. If I figure it out, I'll post it here. Any hyper-links appreciated - I have the one to GRUB.
 
Have you tried fat32 for the file system instead of ext2 or ext3 to see if it can recognize the device? Go into Vista and make sure the partition is active too.
 
Drive location

Thanks, and sorry for the slo mo reply. I don't want to start over reformatting at this point, but I see the issue. Vista does see it as an active partition - I got some education out of the research.

It boots fine from the BIOS. My issue is figuring out how to correctly ID it for 'root' in GRUB or NEOGRUB. If looked at the docs and can't figure it out. If anyone has a script that will list the drives and this information, I'd be very grateful. :brows:
 
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