Installing with Home on a second HDD.

Garbee · 2010-07-23 15:38:38

I seem to be having issues when trying to install with 2 Hard Drives. I set up both disks, then I double check GRUB and it finds the root partition ok. Write that file, reboot, and then I get GRUB saying that some file is not found, no other error code or anything.

Here is what my Partitions look like.

/dev/sda = 500GB

Partition Size Format MountPoint

1 500GB EXT4 /home

/dev/sdb = 160GB

1 2GB EXT2 /boot - Only partition with the Boot flag.
2 10GB SWAP SWAP
3 148GB EXT4 / (Root)
.

My GRUB does say
" root=/dev/sdb3" So it knows that is the root partition.

My BIOS is also set to boot /dev/sdb first so it is going to the right drive.

If you need anymore information please let me know and I will try to get it.

.:B:. · 2010-07-23 15:42:21

What does your menu.lst look like? And on what HD did you install GRUB? Logically, you should install it on /dev/sda, leave the order in the BIOS to standard and let GRUB do the thinking. Now you're just overly complicating it. As I understand the boot flag does not matter for a Linux bootloader anyway.

l3dx · 2010-07-23 15:43:31

Try editing the arch linux choice with 'e' and change from hd0 to hd1 or vice versa.

(From the GRUB screen)

Last edited by l3dx (2010-07-23 15:44:03)

Garbee · 2010-07-23 15:53:18

# (0) Arch Linux
title Arch Linux
root (hd1,0)
kernel /vmlinuz26 root=/dev/sdb3 ro
initrd /kernel26.img

# (1) Arch Linux
title Arch Linux Fallback
root (hd1,0)
kernel /vmlinuz26 root=/dev/sdb3 ro
initrd /kernel26-fallback.img

^^ There is my Menu.lst.

I installed Grub on sda this time to try that, and it still would not work. I installed before and put it on sdb, but when that failed I went back to sda. I manually booted sda and it still gave same error.

I will reboot real fast and give l3dx's idea a shot.

.:B:. · 2010-07-23 16:00:38

I would reset the order in your BIOS, then adapt your setup accordingly. GRUB can handle that just fine. I think the reversed order in the BIOS is confusing it.

Also, 2 GB for /boot is far too much. I use 100 MB myself and very few of that space is used:

Bestandssysteem       Grtte Gebr Besch Geb% Aangekoppeld op
/dev/sda2              92M   14M   73M  17% /boot

As for swap, a rule of thumb is: twice the size of your RAM on systems with little RAM (256 MB e.g.), on systems with plenty of RAM it should never be bigger than the size of your RAM, and only if you want to suspend to disk. All that extra space allotted to swap and /boot is wasted space .

Garbee · 2010-07-23 16:03:36

I know it is wasting, but I don't really care, I have plenty of space. As far as my SWAP, I have 3GB of RAM, but once again, just want lots of space for hibernation and stuff. Wasteing resources is what I am about, but getting the most for my /home is what I am worried about.

I reset the order in my BIOS, and now it works! I don't know why manually booting didn't work, I guess I was booting the wrong one or something.

.:B:. · 2010-07-23 16:06:01

As I said, GRUB probably got confused by the BIOS reversing the order. As for your /home, you could resize all three partitions on your second HD, create a new partition out of the remaining space and mount that in a subdirectory of /home. Like this:

Filesystem            Size  Used Avail Use% Mounted on
/dev/sda8             399G  262G  117G  70% /var/data
/dev/sdb5             1.8T  697G  1.1T  40% /var/data/video

Garbee · 2010-07-23 16:07:55

I thank you very much for pointing out the obvious. I will look into doing a subdirectory, never heard of doing it before so that will give me something to research.

.:B:. · 2010-07-23 16:10:20

It's pretty easy. My / partition is only 4 GB large (/var and /boot being on a separate partition), but e.g. 50 GB should be plenty for /. That means you couuld gain 100 GB for personal storage . Good luck .

Arch Linux

#1 2010-07-23 15:38:38

Installing with Home on a second HDD.

#2 2010-07-23 15:42:21

Re: Installing with Home on a second HDD.

#3 2010-07-23 15:43:31

Re: Installing with Home on a second HDD.

#4 2010-07-23 15:53:18

Re: Installing with Home on a second HDD.

#5 2010-07-23 16:00:38

Re: Installing with Home on a second HDD.

#6 2010-07-23 16:03:36

Re: Installing with Home on a second HDD.

#7 2010-07-23 16:06:01

Re: Installing with Home on a second HDD.

#8 2010-07-23 16:07:55

Re: Installing with Home on a second HDD.

#9 2010-07-23 16:10:20

Re: Installing with Home on a second HDD.

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