Ok I did everything you said and it still says 07 a bunch of times when I try to boot the computer with the ext drive off. Will I have to format the hd and reinstall it I would like to avoid that as much as possible.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------- -----Original Message----- From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On Behalf Of Mikkel L. Ellertson Sent: Sunday, August 28, 2005 8:53 PM To: [email protected] Subject: Re: [newbie] Installing on an external hard drive Connor wrote: > Well I am using a Seagate USB external hard drive and I am on a Dell > Dimension 4600 with Windows XP SP2, I did set it to boot from the external > hard drive and then went to install it, but it loaded the boot loader on to > the Dell and now without the ext hd attached to the computer and on the > computer will not start up. > > I want to be able to load Linux on the hd and use it with different > computers (i.e. my laptop and other computers) I am just doing this so that > I can learn to use it and get the feel for the Linux environment. > Ok - the first thing you probably want to do is boot to linux, and run "lilo -u" to restore the origional boot loader. Then edit /etc/lilo.conf and change the line "boot=/dev/hda" to "boot=/dev/sda". Then add two more lines after the boot= line in lilo.conf: disk=/dev/sda bios=0x80 Then run "lilo" to install the boot loader to the USB drive. The boot= option controlls where the boot loader is installed. There is an option during install on where to install the boot loader. For your use, the best place is probably the boot record of the root partition. You may not need the two added lines. I am not sure about this for booting from a USB drive, but I have had to use it before when I have a system that boots off a SCSI drive, and I also have an IDE drive. This is because LILO can not detect the BIOS mapping of drives, so it defaults to the IDE drive being the first BIOS hard drive. This works for most people. But when you select to boot off the USB drive, I suspect the BIOS maps it as the first drive. Mikkel -- Do not meddle in the affairs of dragons, for thou art crunchy and taste good with Ketchup!
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