grub-install on unmounted partitions

grub-install on unmounted partitions

[Teresa e Junior]

Hello there!

grub-install man page doesn't mention whether the device needs to be
mounted or not. Any ideas?

Thank you!
Teresa e Junior

Re: grub-install on unmounted partitions

[Colin Watson]

On Tue, Sep 14, 2010 at 10:15:07PM -0300, Teresa e Junior wrote:
> grub-install man page doesn't mention whether the device needs to be
> mounted or not. Any ideas?

With EFI firmware, it does, but otherwise (including in the common case
of PC BIOS systems) it doesn't matter.

-- 
Colin Watson                                       [cjwatson@ubuntu.com]

Re: grub-install on unmounted partitions

[Teresa e Junior]

On Wed, 15 Sep 2010 06:01:06 +0100
Colin Watson <cjwatson@ubuntu.com> wrote:

> On Tue, Sep 14, 2010 at 10:15:07PM -0300, Teresa e Junior wrote:
> > grub-install man page doesn't mention whether the device needs to be
> > mounted or not. Any ideas?
> 
> With EFI firmware, it does, but otherwise (including in the common
> case of PC BIOS systems) it doesn't matter.
> 

Hello, Colin!

I didn't even know there was a replacement for BIOS..! I'll include an
error handler in my scripts then, if an error occurs, the user should
mount the device. 

Thanks!
Teresa e Junior

Re: grub-install on unmounted partitions

[Дмитрий Ильин]

If you are talking about grub2 (not legacy)

Yes, usually disk must be mounted because grub-install copies grub files to --root-directory
for example grub-install --root-directory=/mnt /dev/sdb will copy grub files to /mnt/boot/grub and install grub to /dev/sdb (if /dev/sdb1 is mounted on /mnt)

You can also not use grub-install and use grub-mkimage to create core.img and then use grub-setup to write boot sector and then manually copy files to prefix dir.

If you are talking abount grub-legacy, then i never used grub-install and manualy copied files and:
grub> root (hd0,1)
grub> setup (hd0)
grub> quit

I assume you can do this (and grub-install) on mounted partition too.

Re: grub-install on unmounted partitions

[Colin Watson]

On Wed, Sep 15, 2010 at 10:17:10AM +0400, Дмитрий Ильин wrote:
> If you are talking about grub2 (not legacy)
> 
> Yes, usually disk must be mounted because grub-install copies grub files to --root-directory

Teresa asked specifically about "the device", presumably the device that
you pass to grub-install.  That's different from --root-directory, and
(on BIOS systems) is only passed to grub-setup.  It makes no difference
to grub-setup whether the device is mounted anywhere or not.

-- 
Colin Watson                                       [cjwatson@ubuntu.com]