grub2 hangs / freezes when external USB hard drive is connected

[Peter Tenenbaum]

Hi everyone --

My squeeze home machine cannot boot when an external hard drive is connected
via USB. When the drive is disconnected, booting occurs normally; but when
it is connected, I get a "Welcome to Grub!" message and then nothing further
happens.

I've tried going into the boot menu in BIOS and setting the boot order so
that the external hard drive is used last, but I still have this problem.
It seems like it must be at least partially successful in booting off the
internal hard drives, since they have grub2 installed but the external hard
drive does not.

Any suggestions for how I can configure the system so that it does not get
into trouble when the external hard drive is connected?

Thanks in advance,
-PT

[shawn wilson]

are you sure you don't have grub installed on that usb hdd?

either way, if you're not going to be booting off of usb devices on a
regular basis, go into the bios and put usb lower in the boot order. i've
seen things like usb mice and hubs mess with usb at boot time (not kidding).

Post by Peter Tenenbaum
Hi everyone --
My squeeze home machine cannot boot when an external hard drive is
connected via USB. When the drive is disconnected, booting occurs normally;
but when it is connected, I get a "Welcome to Grub!" message and then
nothing further happens.
I've tried going into the boot menu in BIOS and setting the boot order so
that the external hard drive is used last, but I still have this problem.
It seems like it must be at least partially successful in booting off the
internal hard drives, since they have grub2 installed but the external hard
drive does not.
Any suggestions for how I can configure the system so that it does not get
into trouble when the external hard drive is connected?
Thanks in advance,
-PT

[shawn wilson]

it seems i read too fast. i still think the bios is your issue, but to
uninstall grub on that hdd, do this:
dd if=/dev/zero of=/dev/<device> bs=446 count=1

if i'm right, instead of seeing welcome to grub, you'll just see a blinking
cursor after doing this (i think).

Post by shawn wilson
are you sure you don't have grub installed on that usb hdd?
either way, if you're not going to be booting off of usb devices on a
regular basis, go into the bios and put usb lower in the boot order. i've
seen things like usb mice and hubs mess with usb at boot time (not kidding).
On Sun, Dec 5, 2010 at 1:04 AM, Peter Tenenbaum <

Post by Peter Tenenbaum
Hi everyone --
My squeeze home machine cannot boot when an external hard drive is
connected via USB. When the drive is disconnected, booting occurs normally;
but when it is connected, I get a "Welcome to Grub!" message and then
nothing further happens.
I've tried going into the boot menu in BIOS and setting the boot order so
that the external hard drive is used last, but I still have this problem.
It seems like it must be at least partially successful in booting off the
internal hard drives, since they have grub2 installed but the external hard
drive does not.
Any suggestions for how I can configure the system so that it does not get
into trouble when the external hard drive is connected?
Thanks in advance,
-PT

[Chris Bannister]

[Please don't top post in this list.]

Post by shawn wilson
either way, if you're not going to be booting off of usb devices on a
regular basis, go into the bios and put usb lower in the boot order. i've
seen things like usb mice and hubs mess with usb at boot time (not kidding).

If I leave my USB "stick" in when booting it confuses grub about the
video modes which are available.

[Camaleón]

Post by Peter Tenenbaum
My squeeze home machine cannot boot when an external hard drive is
connected via USB. When the drive is disconnected, booting occurs
normally; but when it is connected, I get a "Welcome to Grub!" message
and then nothing further happens.

(...)

Here there are some hints:

http://grub.enbug.org/Manual#head-8c3cc7244059dce39943dc36512ce15cd9a55519

I also think Grub goes nuts with the USB attached disk and messes the
root device so it cannot boot properly.

You can confirm this point by falling into editing mode ("e") and play
with the current "root (hd0,2)" line to fit the current setup (i.e.,
change "hd0" with "hd1" and see if you can boot normally).

This should not happen, though, and if you confirm the error, it should
be reported.

Greetings,