[SOLVED] Problem booting Gentoo on external USB drive

[tgc47]

I have installed Gentoo on my external USB drive. I have Kubuntu installed on the internal IDE drive and have installed GRUB on the mbr on the internal drive.
Here's the section of my /boot/grub/menu.lst file on the internal drive:

title Kubuntu, kernel 2.6.12-9-386
root (hd0,4)
kernel /boot/vmlinuz-2.6.12-9-386 root=/dev/hda5 ro quiet splash
initrd /boot/initrd.img-2.6.12-9-386
savedefault
boot

title Ubuntu Dapper Drake, kernel 2.6.15-22-686 (on /dev/sda2)
root (hd1,0)
kernel /vmlinuz-2.6.15-22-686 root=/dev/sda2 ro quiet splash
initrd /initrd.img-2.6.15-22-686
savedefault
boot

# Gentoo Linux
title Gentoo Linux 2.6.16-r7
root (hd1,5)
kernel /boot/linux-2.6.16-gentoo-r7 root=/dev/sda6 rootdelay=12 ro single
initrd /boot/initrd-2.6.16-gentoo-r7
boot

On the external drive I also have Ubuntu Dapper installed and it boots ok.
On the external drive I'm only using /dev/sda6 for "/" and also /dev/sda5 for swap.

I compiled the kernel and enabled USB and SCSI support however when I boot I get the following
error:

Booting 'Gentoo Linux 2.6.16-r7'
root (hd1,5)
Filesystem type unknown, partition type 0x83
kernel /boot/linux-2.6.16-gentoo-r7 root=/dev/sda6 rootdelay=12 ro single
ERROR 17: cannot mount selected partition.

So I went back and recompiled the kernal making USB support and SCSI support as modules.
Then I used mkinitrd to make an initrd with the following:

mkinitrd -v --omit-raid-modules --omit-lvm-modules --fstab=/etc/fstab --preload=ehci-hcd --preload=usb-storage --preload=scsi_mod --preload=sd_mod /boot/initrd-2.6.16-gentoo-r6 2.6.16-gentoo-r7

And added the 'initrd' line to the menu.lst file. After booting I get the same error.

Here's my /dev/sda6/etc/fstab fiile:

/dev/sda6 / ext3 noatime 0 1
/dev/sda5 none swap sw 0 0
/dev/cdroms/cdrom0 /mnt/cdrom iso9660 noauto,ro 0 0
#/dev/fd0 /mnt/floppy auto noauto 0 0

# NOTE: The next line is critical for boot!
proc /proc proc defaults 0 0
shm /dev/shm tmpfs nodev,nosuid,noexec 0 0

Any idea what I'm doing wrong?

Thanks,
Ted

[slashes]

Make sure your root parameter in grub is correct. Are you sure root (hd1,5) is your correct /boot ? Make sure by going into grub and running it's command line by pressing 'c' in the menu. Run the command root (hdx, y) where x is your usb drive and y is your boot partition to properly check where your boot partition is.

I use and external usb drive myself and grub for me detects my usb hard drive first as root (hd0,0) instead of my internal hard drive first. But that's just me so it might be different for you. Let us know your progress.

[tgc47]

I used the root command in GRUB on the various partitions in my external drive.
It recognizes my 3 primary partitions, but it doesn't recognize any of my extended partitions.

ie., when I do root (hd1,0) or root (hd1,1) or root (hd1,2) it recognizes the filesystem type as ext3
but when I do root (hd1,4) or root (hd1,5) or root (hd1,6) I get the "Filesystem type unknown" error

When I boot up Kubuntu from my internal drive and use GParted to list the partitions this is what I get:
/dev/sda1 ext3
/dev/sda2 ext3
/dev/sda3 ext3
Extended partitions:
/dev/sda5 swap
/dev/sda6 ext3 "/" for Gentoo
/dev/sda7 ext3

Does GRUB not use extended partitions or something?

Also, I should add that the kernel image is on the partition /dev/sda6 in the /boot directory.

[tgc47]

I have found a way to solve my problem. I never could get GRUB to recognize the extended partitions on my external USB drive.
I already had a partition that I was using for /boot on Ubuntu as a primary partition on the external drive so I copied the Gentoo kernel
image to that partition and also added the /boot to the fstab file. I also modified the menu.lst file to reflect this.
I'm now able to boot Gentoo!

Also I had recompiled the kernel to include SCSI & USB support internally instead of as modules.

Now I just have to figure out how to configure everything...

[slashes]

good to see u got it to work..