Arch Linux

kpoboctok

Member

From: Colombia

Registered: 2019-12-16

Posts: 2

Install Arch linux on external HDD with BIOS and UEFI compatibility

Hi everyone,

I'd like to install Arch on my external HDD with GPT scheme (GPT is optional, it can be MBR).

My problem is that I have no compatibility with BIOS and UEFI when I want to start my Arch on an indiscriminate computer. I tried this with another distro and it work fine but recently I change to Arch because I learned more about linux :)
When I finish my installation and restart my computer, it loads the grub, but when I choose Arch, it shows me an emergency shell and says:

"ERROR: My root UUID device was not found skipping fsck".

I have four partitions on my disk

• /dev/sdX1 is a FAT32 for EFI boot with flags boot and esp.

• /dev/sdX3 is a grub2 core.img with flag bios_grub.

• /dev/sdX2 is a ext4 for root.

• /dev/sdX4 is a ext4 for home

Usually, I try to investigate and solve my problems on my own, but I haven't found anything concrete on the Internet.

Thank you for helping me.

WorMzy

Forum Moderator

From: Scotland

Registered: 2010-06-16

Posts: 11,839

Website

Re: Install Arch linux on external HDD with BIOS and UEFI compatibility

Have you tried booting the fallback initrd? The default is optimised for the hardware it is generated on, so on other hardware it will likely be missing required modules.

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Sakura:-
Mobo: MSI MAG X570S TORPEDO MAX // Processor: AMD Ryzen 9 5950X @4.9GHz // GFX: AMD Radeon RX 5700 XT // RAM: 32GB (4x 8GB) Corsair DDR4 (@ 3000MHz) // Storage: 1x 3TB HDD, 6x 1TB SSD, 2x 120GB SSD, 1x 275GB M2 SSD

Making lemonade from lemons since 2015.

kpoboctok

Member

From: Colombia

Registered: 2019-12-16

Posts: 2

Re: Install Arch linux on external HDD with BIOS and UEFI compatibility

Yes, I tried and it works, but I don't know how to fix the main image or what modules I don't have.

Today I tried to install Arch from VBox (I supposed that this could be a solution for any missing firmware or hardware)
This is a link with instructions that I tried to modify for my case: Installing Linux on an External HDD

Thanks for your response :)

WorMzy

Forum Moderator

From: Scotland

Registered: 2010-06-16

Posts: 11,839

Website

Re: Install Arch linux on external HDD with BIOS and UEFI compatibility

Rather than trying to "fix" the default image (which would require you to know exactly which modules you will need for all the hardware you intend to run the image on), just configure your bootloaders to use the fallback image instead.

I don't know what, if anything, using Virtualbox brings to this scenario. Perhaps the modules necessary to boot from virtual hardware are generic enough to work on most hardware, or perhaps Ubuntu just doesn't "autodetect" modules, who knows?

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Sakura:-
Mobo: MSI MAG X570S TORPEDO MAX // Processor: AMD Ryzen 9 5950X @4.9GHz // GFX: AMD Radeon RX 5700 XT // RAM: 32GB (4x 8GB) Corsair DDR4 (@ 3000MHz) // Storage: 1x 3TB HDD, 6x 1TB SSD, 2x 120GB SSD, 1x 275GB M2 SSD

Making lemonade from lemons since 2015.

shudouken

Member

Registered: 2015-03-27

Posts: 8

Re: Install Arch linux on external HDD with BIOS and UEFI compatibility

I followed these two guides and it worked for me:
- https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/In … _a_USB_key
- http://valleycat.org/linux/arch-usb.html

Before creating the initial RAM disk, in /etc/mkinitcpio.conf move the block and keyboard hooks before the autodetect hook. This is necessary to allow booting on multiple systems each requiring different modules in early userspace.