large usb2 hard disk drive booting diff computers?

[Thomas Kaiser]

I did install GRUB on one of my USB HDs some time ago. After I set the 
BIOS to boot from USB, it booted like it would be a ide HD. But the 
problem is to mount the USB HD as the root device. You have to make sure 
that the right USB drivers are loaded at boot time. This is usally done 
with an initial ramdisk (initrd).

After the right drivers are loaded, it shouldn't be a problem to mount 
the USB HD and run linux of it.

I hope this information points you in the right direction. Just try to 
install ubuntu and make sure GRUB gets installed on the MBR of the USB HD.

Regards, Thomas


Heitzso wrote:
> Quick question ...
> 
> I have an app for a client in which I need to have Linux
> booting and running from a 300G USB2 drive when attached
> to a computer, and 4 or 5 different computers involved,
> i.e. the one USB2 drive must be able to clean boot on
> several different computers.
> 
> There are a number of mini-distros w/ instructions for
> loading and booting from a USB thumb drive where
> everything is compressed and boot process makes NO
> assumption about what computer it is attached to.
> I don't want/need the compression, but I do need that
> "I don't know what computer I'm attached to now"
> mentality when booting.
> 
> If I do a straight Ubuntu install to a USB drive then
> take that USB drive to another computer and plug it
> in will I be able to do a reasonable boot on that new
> box?  (assuming set BIOS to boot off USB or boot from
> side CD/floppy to force boot of USB drive)
> 
> Gotchas?
> 
> THANKS
> 
> p.s.
> 
> The app is to use a third party computer in another city
> to grab 60 hours of victim's rights interviews over firewire
> (miniDV original format) at the production house responsible
> for the miniDV recordings, then take transcripts in MS .doc
> format (already prepared by the production house)
> with embedded timecodes and munge the transcripts
> over to PHP files with the timecodes turned into A HREF
> html tags to go to a PHP script that lets the user select
> segments of an interview to watch and/or burn to CD/DVD
> in DVD quality MPEG 2 file format.  Hence almost 300 G
> worth of MPEG 2 files.  Target site is a standalone
> computer at a University's library.  nanoweb is webserver.
> dvgrab/ffmpeg/etc. tools to grab/compress/manipulate video.
> 
>