Hmm. A workaround would be to install grub in the CF into the
partition, not the MBR. Then, you could use grub from another source
(say, a cdrom, or a tiny (4mb or so?) IDE "disK") to chainload to that
instance of grub. This "should" workaround the BIOS being lame.
I wonder... I know that VirtualBox won't boot from USB either. You
would think that these virtual machines "bios" could boot from just
about anything. I wonder why they don't.
On Thu, Feb 25, 2010 at 11:03 PM, Eben King <eben01@verizon.net> wrote:
> On Wed, 24 Feb 2010, Paul Bransford wrote:
>
>> Eben King wrote:
>>
>>> On Wed, 24 Feb 2010, Paul Bransford wrote:
>>>
>>>> Eben King wrote:
>>>>
>>>>> Ultimately, I'm going to use this card in an IDE -> CF adapter as a
>>>>> boot drive. In the meantime, I need to configure it on my machine. Is it
>>>>> possible to have VMware Player treat it as a bare drive so I can "boot" (in
>>>>> vmplayer) from a Linux install CD and have the installed OS run correctly
>>>>> once it's in its destination? I'd like to do this without shutting down if
>>>>> possible.
>>>
>>>> If you can boot grub from IDE or CD, you can try chainloading to the usb
>>>> CF reader. I chainload servers to USB sticks all the time at my workplace
>>>> datacenter. Pretty sure the CF readers are class-compliant mass storage.
>>>
>>> OK, I see how that (done on a vmdk, yes?) will boot from the card e.g. to
>>> test the installation, modulo the difference virtualization incurs. Will it
>>> also, outside the bootloader environment, give vmplayer access to the card
>>> as if it were an IDE/SCSI disk so I can install an OS to it?
>
>> Once the kernel loads, it shouldn't matter.
>
> Yabbut how do I get the kernel _on_ there? Just copy it? What all does it
> need to boot? A bootloader, /etc, parts of /var, what else?
>
> I did "connect" from mplayer, ran the Ubuntu installer in there on /dev/sdb
> (jeez the partitioner is SLOW), and it went through the motions. All the
> files are on there, but it's not bootable. vmplayer either can't really
> boot from "Removable Devices" or the installer failed to install GRUB.
>
> Do USB devices have the same bug floppies did 3-8 years ago (maybe still do,
> I haven't used floppies much since) where Linux couldn't write block 0, so
> it couln't make a bootable device?
>
>> The root issue is that the BIOS (virtual or not) doesn't see it as
>> bootable, and grub works around that. Assuming the bios sees it and just
>> doesn't support booting it.
>
> It at least pretends to allow it.
>
> --
> A Higgs boson is sitting at the bar when the phone rings. He says to
> the bartender "If that's a physicist, tell him you've not seen me."
> (maybe by KW in AFCA)
> -----------------------------------------------------------------------
> This list is provided as an unmoderated internet service by Networked
> Knowledge Systems (NKS). Views and opinions expressed in messages
> posted are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the
> official policy or position of NKS or any of its employees.
>
-----------------------------------------------------------------------
This list is provided as an unmoderated internet service by Networked
Knowledge Systems (NKS). Views and opinions expressed in messages
posted are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the
official policy or position of NKS or any of its employees.
This archive was generated by hypermail 2.1.3 : Fri Aug 01 2014 - 14:53:04 EDT