From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 Received: from mailman by lists.gnu.org with archive (Exim 4.43) id 1NWWFX-0006u8-I2 for mharc-grub-devel@gnu.org; Sun, 17 Jan 2010 09:37:07 -0500 Received: from mailman by lists.gnu.org with tmda-scanned (Exim 4.43) id 1NWWFV-0006sh-Eg for grub-devel@gnu.org; Sun, 17 Jan 2010 09:37:05 -0500 Received: from exim by lists.gnu.org with spam-scanned (Exim 4.43) id 1NWWFQ-0006pk-Le for grub-devel@gnu.org; Sun, 17 Jan 2010 09:37:05 -0500 Received: from [199.232.76.173] (port=41670 helo=monty-python.gnu.org) by lists.gnu.org with esmtp (Exim 4.43) id 1NWWFQ-0006pe-GF for grub-devel@gnu.org; Sun, 17 Jan 2010 09:37:00 -0500 Received: from mx20.gnu.org ([199.232.41.8]:6031) by monty-python.gnu.org with esmtps (TLS-1.0:RSA_AES_256_CBC_SHA1:32) (Exim 4.60) (envelope-from ) id 1NWWFP-0002C5-Qf for grub-devel@gnu.org; Sun, 17 Jan 2010 09:37:00 -0500 Received: from nereid.marlboro.edu ([206.192.68.76]) by mx20.gnu.org with esmtp (Exim 4.60) (envelope-from ) id 1NWWFL-0005R8-Vw for grub-devel@gnu.org; Sun, 17 Jan 2010 09:36:56 -0500 Received: from [192.168.1.102] (71-10-224-192.dhcp.oxfr.ma.charter.com [71.10.224.192]) (Authenticated sender: idupree) by nereid.marlboro.edu (Postfix) with ESMTPSA id C4F11234087; Sun, 17 Jan 2010 09:36:37 -0500 (EST) Message-ID: <4B532073.2000706@isaac.cedarswampstudios.org> Date: Sun, 17 Jan 2010 09:36:35 -0500 From: Isaac Dupree User-Agent: Thunderbird 2.0.0.23 (X11/20090817) MIME-Version: 1.0 To: The development of GNU GRUB References: <000001ca9756$fae87380$f0b95a80$@com> In-Reply-To: <000001ca9756$fae87380$f0b95a80$@com> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1; format=flowed Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit X-Marlboro-Information: Please contact techsupport@marlboro.edu for more information X-Marlboro-MailScanner-ID: C4F11234087.A3B53 X-Marlboro-MailScanner: clean X-Marlboro-SpamCheck: not spam, SpamAssassin (not cached, score=-2.91, required 5.5, autolearn=disabled, ALL_TRUSTED -1.80, BAYES_05 -1.11) X-Marlboro-MailScanner-From: ml@isaac.cedarswampstudios.org X-Marlboro-MailScanner-Watermark: 1264343798.65075@ULgBmphSJ1W7BzPhIkReyg X-detected-operating-system: by mx20.gnu.org: GNU/Linux 2.6 (newer, 3) X-detected-operating-system: by monty-python.gnu.org: GNU/Linux 2.6, seldom 2.4 (older, 4) Subject: Re: Trouble booting from a large USB hard drive X-BeenThere: grub-devel@gnu.org X-Mailman-Version: 2.1.5 Precedence: list Reply-To: The development of GNU GRUB List-Id: The development of GNU GRUB List-Unsubscribe: , List-Archive: List-Post: List-Help: List-Subscribe: , X-List-Received-Date: Sun, 17 Jan 2010 14:37:06 -0000 Daniel Richard G. wrote: > What all but confirmed it for me was an ingenious solution I saw posted > somewhere: an out-of-order partition table. Put the Linux partitions first on I accidentally have an out-of-order partition table and I was surprised that such a thing is possible (vs. that everything gets automatically numbered in order). Nevertheless, it is a useful feature, though not obvious how to control with 'gparted' and the like. "extended partitions" probably add a bit of complication too. > With all that said, I don't consider this to be a bug in GRUB, and this is not > meant to be taken as a bug report. (I presume grub-pc can't work around such > limitations in the BIOS, because there isn't enough room in the MBR to stuff > in a disk-reading library that makes BIOS disk calls unnecessary.) Rather, I > think it is a corner case of which users should be aware---and perhaps GRUB > and/or the Ubuntu installer could do a better job of warning the user if grub-install, which doesn't have code space limitations, could possibly check for it, it would be a great help. But is it possible for a running system to check the BIOS like that? (or possible for grub to check somehow on a non-running system in a safe testing sort of manner?)