This is the closest I've seen to what I'm trying to figure out. How do I use that idea to deal with this?
This is part of my inxi output:
System: Host: XXX Kernel: 3.16.0-38-generic x86_64 (64 bit, gcc: 4.8.2)
Desktop: KDE 4.14.2 (Qt 4.8.6) Distro: Linux Mint 17.2 Rafaela
Machine: Mobo: ASUSTeK model: M5A97 version: Rev 1.xx Bios: American Megatrends version: 0705 date: 08/22/2011
CPU: Hexa core AMD FX-6100 Six-Core (-MCP-) cache: 12288 KB flags: (lm nx sse sse2 sse3 sse4_1 sse4_2 sse4a
+ssse3 svm) bmips: 39732.2
Clock Speeds: 1: 1400.00 MHz 2: 3300.00 MHz 3: 1400.00 MHz 4: 3300.00 MHz 5: 1400.00 MHz 6: 3000.00 MHz
Network: Card-1: 3Com 3c905B 100BaseTX [Cyclone] driver: 3c59x port: c000 bus-ID: 04:05.0
IF: eth1 state: up speed: 100 Mbps duplex: full mac: <filter>
Card-2: Realtek RTL8111/8168/8411 PCI Express Gigabit Ethernet Controller
driver: r8169 ver: 2.3LK-NAPI port: d000 bus-ID: 02:00.0
IF: eth0 state: down mac: <filter>
Drives: HDD Total Size: 1160.2GB (6.1% used) 1: id: /dev/sda model: SAMSUNG_HD161HJ size: 160.0GB
2: id: /dev/sdb model: ST1000DM003 size: 1000.2GB
Partition: ID: / size: 909G used: 67G (8%) fs: ext4 ID: /boot size: 236M used: 48M (22%) fs: ext2
ID: swap-1 size: 8.53GB used: 1.32GB (15%) fs: swap
I don't quite follow how it happened, but if I attempt to disconnect
Drive 1 in order to use Drive 2 alone, I get a message about no boot
sector and thus there's no opportunity to select from a grub menu. In
order to use the distro on /dev/sdb I need to have both drives
connected and interrupt the boot process when the splash-screen
appears. That seems to indicate that the boot sector on the 160 Gb
disk is being read.
There's a fair bit of information about temperatures and voltages but
there are precious few options available. The only options relate to
which disk to use. Puzzling to me is the fact that the Disk 2 is the
default but if I select that, I just get a blinking cursor and nothing
else happens. I can select the 160Gb (Samsung) disk which then comes
up with the sort of grub menu that is familiar.
From that menu, the default is the installation on /dev/sdb which then
works fine. That indicates that most of the grub configuration is OK
but not in quite the right place. What I need is to make that come up at the
beginning by default so I can remove the 160Gb disk.
I assume I need to edit /etc/default/grub somehow, the beginning of
which says:
Code: Select all
# If you change this file, run 'update-grub' afterwards to update
# /boot/grub/grub.cfg.
# For full documentation of the options in this file, see:
# info -f grub -n 'Simple configuration'
That info file is voluminous and I don't know what to look for. In
the days of lilo it was simple and grub (in the days of hdx before
sdx) was fairly easy to follow in the beginning too, but it's
progressed beyond my comprehension in recent years.
Do I need to understand this stuff? My main confusion is how to deal with the fact that
/dev/sdb will become /dev/sda when I remove the 160Gb disk, so the updated
configuration will be addressing a non-existent disk.
How do I avoid that?