Re: USB3 3TB HDD boot

[Aleš Nesrsta]

Hi Bob,

it is probably not GRUB bug according to Your description - it looks to
be BIOS problem.

1.
Currently I have no idea about Your HW, but it looks like Your xHCI (USB
3.0 controller) is not "native" part of the PC handled by BIOS, i.e.
BIOS cannot boot from any device connected to USB 3.0 port.

Or, if You are able to boot some another USB 3.0 devices on the same USB
3.0 port, BIOS probably cannot handle such huge device (4K sectors and
>2TB) - or has some another problem with Your new device.
But, unfortunately, the final result is the same - BIOS cannot load GRUB
and any other boot loader from Your new SEAGATE drive => You cannot boot
anything directly from such device.

There is no (easy) solution for such situation - it looks to be similar
situation like e.g. if You want boot from CD on some very old machine
where BIOS is able to boot only from floppy and it doesn't support
booting from CD...

Possibly You can use some additional small USB flash disc connected to
USB port where it can be handled by BIOS. Install GRUB manually on this
additional device together with copy of linux and initrd images from
SEAGATE Expansion, properly modify grub.cfg and boot Linux kernel from
it. I am afraid there is no better way. :-(

2.
Maybe is better to use GRUB BugTracker for such things, this case looks
more like bug report than developer's talk.. :-)

BR,
Ales

Bob Lemar wrote:
> Hi, guys
> 
> I got new SEAGATE Expansion USB 3.0 and want to boot linux from it.
> 
> I have successfully booted various linuxes before with different
> loaders from USB thumb flashes. But I cannot do it with this external
> drive.
> 
> There are three problems: USB3, 4K sectors and >2TB.
> 
> I try grub2 (fedora 17). Grub2 doesn't power on external USB drive.
> The drive is spinning up only after some OS is starting to load after
> grub2. So grub2 and BIOS don't see external HDD.
> 
> 
> Can someone point me out:
> 
> 1. either how to turn on external USB3 driver while computer is in grub2?
> 
> 2. or how to load OS with kexec from external USB3 4K sector drive
> (from OS which is located at internal HDD)?
> 
> --
> Best regards, Bob
> 
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