Re: GRUB1 on USB-Stick

[walt <wa1ter@myrealbox.com>]

Christoph Anton Mitterer wrote:
> Hello.
>
> I've just tried to install grub1 on an USB-stick in order to boot from
> it, but it continues to fail:
<mucho snippage>

I installed grub to a USB stick for the purpose of using it as an emergency
boot drive so I can use it to reinstall grub from the USB stick onto a hard
disk (after M$ deliberately trashes the MBR ;o).  Here is how I did it:

Format the USB stick with any filesystem that grub supports (FAT,ext2,UFS)
and copy all of the grub installation files into /boot/grub/ on the USB stick.
(I'm referring to files like  e2fs_stage1_5, fat_stage1_5, ffs_stage1_5, etc.)

Next, unmount the USB stick and start a grub shell from a command prompt.

 From inside the running grub shell, set 'root' to whichever partition on your
hard drive contains /boot/grub/<grub installation files>.

Now you need to determine exactly how your USB stick appears to the grub
shell, e.g. (hd2), (hd3), or whatever.  Let's say the USB stick is (hd3).

 From inside the running grub shell type 'setup (hd3)'.  You should see
some messages confirming that grub has been installed okay, and then you
can exit the grub shell and reboot.  If your BIOS is set to boot from the
USB stick first, you should get the usual grub prompt.  If you copied a
valid menu.lst into /boot/grub on the USB stick, then you should actually
see your grub menu displayed in the usual way (fingers crossed).