Grub: "offline" installation

big_gie · Apprentice Joined: 31 Aug 2004 Posts: 158

Hi all,

I need to setup a new system but don't have physical access to it yet. So I've set up everything with the sata hard drive in a USB enclosure. The only thing remaining is installing grub on it.

I'm not sure how to proceed though. When installing grub, you need to tell it where to install itself, but also where to find its configuration files. Should I just do this? (with hd2 being the drive, connected by usb for now):

DONAHUE · Posted: Wed Apr 20, 2011 7:02 pm Post subject:

this grub.conf should cover the options, assume root is on partition 3 and that the build computer sees the usb drive as sdc
third choice should allow test boot after selecting the usb as boot drive in bios

cach0rr0 · Posted: Sat Apr 23, 2011 2:45 am Post subject:

it's also worth pointing out here, when you first boot this system up, with grub in the MBR you'll have access to a basic minimalistic grub shell, from which you can do darn near everything you need if it doesn't work "out of the box" (e.g. modify root, do your setup, etc)

to that same end, when you DO get to the grub menu, it's easy enough to hit 'e', edit the kernel command-line, hit enter, hit 'b' to boot - soon as doing this yields a magic functional combination for you, you know well enough what changes you need to make to grub.
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Aquous · l33t Joined: 08 Jan 2011 Posts: 700

threeheadedpuppy · n00b Joined: 24 Oct 2009 Posts: 9

I'm trying to do something similar to the OP, and I get grub error 17 when it boots up on the new system that I've tried to pre-prepare...

Is grub definitely clever enough to not hard code the location of the stage files in the MBR - for instance, if I install grub onto my USB drive on the test rig:

judepereira · Posted: Tue May 03, 2011 2:31 am Post subject:

That's not your problem actually, in the BIOS, just tell it that your USB is your first hard drive, and it will always be sda1, regardless of the multi million drives already installed in the system hardware.
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threeheadedpuppy · n00b Joined: 24 Oct 2009 Posts: 9

Hm this is not always possible in all different kinds of bios though, for instance my laptop only gives me one option - 'boot from usb' tickbox. Whether this causes the usb to be recognized as /dev/sda1 is anyones guess (maybe it is, and something else is the problem?)

judepereira · Posted: Tue May 03, 2011 8:28 am Post subject:

Well I had done something like this, https://forums.gentoo.org/viewtopic-t-668792-postdays-0-postorder-asc-start-0.html , that was detected and worked in the two laptops and six pcs that i tested it in.
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Jude Pereira
(http://judepereira.com)