[ SOLVED ] Linux Lite Only Boots From Other Hard Drive

[tomg54]

Boot Repair is a must have. I have it on a USB stick and I install to the hdd in every install. One of the 1st things I do.

[mdiemer]

Thank you TC for that great info. I will certainly keep it in mind as I contemplate the changes I'm about to make.

I did wonder whether the Boot Repair Disc was making "deep" changes, or just providing a kind of workaround. This is good to know.

I know how to rebuild the boot menu in Windows if it won't boot after I make the changes.

[trinidad]

Suggestions for the future:

1) If you are going to keep Windows 7 (assuming it's an MBR install) It should be disk 1 (assuming they are SATA and you are running all three at once) and It would also be best to have Linux Lite grub on the MBR of disk 1.

2)However if you are powering these disks on an off with a mechanical and/or logical switch, or plugging and unplugging them and/or switching them, each one should have its own grub in MBR on its own disk otherwise Linux could record the wrong UUIDs that mismatch the BIOS entries when you power up respective disks.

3) Whichever OS is in control of grub (should be Linux Lite and/or if EFI Windows 7 to avoid issues) must run update-grub after any kernel changes to any of the other systems listed in its grub or they will not boot from their new kernel mods after updating or upgrades.

4) Boot repair disks for MBR disks can only add configuration entries to the OSs, and you probably now have extra grub configuration entries in every system you are running. All that gets purged is entries on the grub screen not entries in the grub configurations of the OSs. Repeated use of boot repair disks on boxes running multiple Linux systems will eventually fill/mess up grub configurations and functions like updating and kernel removal tools.

5) True OS is a slick little OS with some nice BSD file features, but for versatility and security Debian LAMP with SSH and Apache2 is the way to go if you want to learn about servers and such.

TC

   

[mdiemer]

SOLVED! I gave the Boot Repair Disc one more try, and it worked. What was happening was, it gave me these commands, which I ran in the terminal, let it work; but then this time I hit ENTER when it was done. It then purged Grub. I was then able to use it to reinstall Grub, and my computer booted straight to Grub. Linux Lite was listed as Ubuntu, but it did boot and all was well.

The issue was I was not actually purging Grub, by not letting the commands run completely. I didn't realize I needed to hit ENTER after it did its initial working. That Boot Repair disc is amazing.

[mdiemer]

I've been gravitating more and more to Linux Lite as my default OS. The more I use it, the more I like it. However, I can only boot it from my other hard drive. Here's my setup:

Drive 1 has True OS (something I'm trying out, in order to learn more about Unix and related systems).
Drive 2 has Linux Lite and Windows 7.
Drive 3 has Ubuntu Mate and Ubuntu Budgie (kind of a face-off, to decide which I like better).

They all have grub menus, but Linux Lite's is not working right. I have to boot from U-Budgie's grub to actually get LL up and running. I have tried the Boot Repair Disc, but it has not worked (I have used it before successfully). I want to be able to boot LL directly from its own grub, as I may transfer it to Drive 3. Having so many systems on my computer is confusing; in trying to learn them all, I just end up not knowing any of them very well. So, I think I'm going to simplify things by having True on Drive 1, Windows on Drive 2, and Lite on Drive 3. One system per disk. So I can actually become proficient in all three. This is especially important as I hope to get my wife on Linux, since I don't want her to use Windows 10, and I need to really know what I put on her computer, so I can deal with whatever problems come up.

So, that's it, how can I fix the boot/grub problem on LL, and get it booting on its own, so I can then transfer it to another drive? I could of course just clean install, which I have thought of doing, but if I go that route I probably would want to wait for LL4 to come out, which I believe is this summer. Unless I can upgrade to version 4, which I'm not sure is possible.

Addendum: When I try to install grub (sudo grub-install), it starts to do it, then I get a message about ext2 and blocklists, and it says it won't do it. When I update grub (sudo update-grub), it does it, but it does not find Linux Lite!

From the searching I've done, this appears to be a rather dicey problem, and I'm afraid to tinker too much. I did try force-installing (grub-install --force /dev/sdXY) once, but permission was denied, and I don't want to fool around anymore until I get some guidance.