Arch Linux

sunnieside-up

Member

Registered: 2011-08-10

Posts: 58

Installing Arch on external hard drive

Hi guys,

I'm trying to install Arch on an external hard drive, and making it bootable. However, I can't install grub on it. The grub installation failed during setup, and when I run grub-install, I get:

/usr/sbin/grub-setup: warn: This GPT partition label has no BIOS Boot Partition; embedding won't be possible!.
/usr/sbin/grub-setup: warn: Embedding is not possible.  GRUB can only be installed in this setup by using blocklists.  However, blocklists are UNRELIABLE and their use is discouraged..
/usr/sbin/grub-setup: error: will not proceed with blocklists.
ubuntu@ubuntu:/$ sudo grub-install /dev/sdb3
/usr/sbin/grub-setup: warn: Attempting to install GRUB to a partitionless disk or to a partition.  This is a BAD idea..
/usr/sbin/grub-setup: warn: Embedding is not possible.  GRUB can only be installed in this setup by using blocklists.  However, blocklists are UNRELIABLE and their use is discouraged..
/usr/sbin/grub-setup: error: will not proceed with blocklists.

How can I boot without grub, or make grub work?

davidgurvich

Member

Registered: 2010-02-11

Posts: 118

Re: Installing Arch on external hard drive

That sounds like the partitioning failed.  You may need to set up the hard drive manually prior to installation.

sunnieside-up

Member

Registered: 2011-08-10

Posts: 58

Re: Installing Arch on external hard drive

I can never get the Arch partitioner to work, so I did manually partition beforehand. I'm not sure if my external hdd doesn't support this? Or perhaps I need to format the entire thing...

lifeafter2am

Member

From: 127.0.0.1

Registered: 2009-06-10

Posts: 1,332

Re: Installing Arch on external hard drive

I'm sure you have a good reason .... but generally you don't want to install grub onto a partition, but onto a disk.  What is your partition scheme?

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sunnieside-up

Member

Registered: 2011-08-10

Posts: 58

Re: Installing Arch on external hard drive

Well I tried installing GRUB onto MBR first, but it didn't work. That's when I tried to put it onto a partition, but that didn't work either, same message.

fdisk -l /dev/sdb:
WARNING: GPT (GUID Partition Table) detected on '/dev/sdb'! The util fdisk doesn't support GPT. Use GNU Parted.

But reading with gparted (in their order on the disk):
/dev/sdb1    ext4     142.58GB
/dev/sdb3    ext4      3.91GB (that's the Arch / partition)
/dev/sdb2    ntfs      151GB