[Server-devel] 1TB drive of quality open content on XO/XS--won't boot

[James Cameron]

On Tue, May 14, 2013 at 10:45:36AM -0500, Jerry Vonau wrote:
> On Sat, 2013-05-11 at 12:58 -0700, Braddock wrote:
> > On 05/11/2013 12:44 PM, Holt wrote:
> > > Is there a way to boot a large USB hard drive attached to an XO?
> > 
> > Further detail on the trouble drive.
> > [...]
> > # fdisk -l /dev/sda
> > 
> > Disk /dev/sda: 1000.2 GB, 1000204885504 bytes, 1953525167 sectors
> > Units = sectors of 1 * 512 = 512 bytes
> > Sector size (logical/physical): 512 bytes / 512 bytes
> > I/O size (minimum/optimal): 512 bytes / 512 bytes
> > Disk identifier: 0x6f44561a
> > 
> >     Device Boot      Start         End      Blocks   Id  System
> > /dev/sda1   *        2048     8193149     4095551    7 HPFS/NTFS/exFAT
> > /dev/sda2         8193150  1953520064   972663457+  83  Linux
> 
> With James' earlier comment about OFW  booting a partition that has been
> flagged as bootable, perhaps setting the second partition as bootable
> will correct this issue.

Thanks Jerry.  Yes, it will.

Open Firmware is trying to open the file u:\boot\olpc.fth ... which is
a file specification without a partition number, therefore it will
choose either the first partition with a bootable flag, or if there
are no such partitions it will use the first partition.

So my earlier advice to remove the bootable flag was incomplete; I
should have suggested moving the bootable flag away from the NTFS
partition onto the Linux partition.

If the XO is secured, it should proceed normally.  In the absence of
the fix to the bootable flag on the partition, an unsecured XO can use
a special configuration setting as a semi-permanent workaround:

ok add-tag BD int:\boot\olpc.fth

This directs the unsecured boot process to begin with the internal
storage, ignoring any external USB device or SD card.  It does not
affect secured boot, so the four-finger install method will still
work.

#12678 updated.

-- 
James Cameron
http://quozl.linux.org.au/