Booting HD without grub

[Steve Litt]

Why do you want to boot it just once? Perhaps if we knew what you were
trying to do, we could suggest other alternatives. For instance, if the
disk is small, you could ddrescue it off to an image, dd that image
onto a larger or same disk, and use that disk in another computer as
sda.

Or you could copy the Mandrake partition to a partition made of unused
space on SDA, modify the /etc/fstab to either rename the devices, or
better mount by UUID, and then add that partition to your current grub. 

I've seen things like you mention, where the live CD can boot only sda.
And Grub really is a PITA.

SteveT

Steve Litt                *  http://www.troubleshooters.com/
Troubleshooting Training  *  Human Performance


On Thu, 12 Sep 2013 13:56:05 +0300
Eli Marmor <eli at netmask.it> wrote:

> Thank you Shlomi.
> No success, so far.
> I'll give more details, so if anybody can help, I'll be grateful.
> I'm also willing to bring the system to anywhere and/or pay:
> 
> I have a full Linux system (old Mandrake) on hdd4,
> including /boot/vmlinuz, /boot/initrd.img, etc. (all the system on
> one partition). It has been booted for years from another disk.
> The file system is correct (according to fsck), and mountable (when
> the computer is booted from a live-CD).
> All I want is to boot it once, manually, without writing any MBR, but
> from a live CD.
> Any live-CD and grub has its own limitations, for example some of them
> can't reach hd3,4 (although they can mount hdd4!).
> I believe that for some of you it's a matter of minutes.
> 
> Anybody can help?
> 
> Thanks a lot,
> Eli Marmor
> 
> 
> On Wed, Sep 11, 2013 at 8:38 PM, Shlomi Fish <shlomif at gmail.com>
> wrote:
> 
> > Hi Eli,
> >
> > On Wed, Sep 11, 2013 at 7:37 PM, Eli Marmor <eli at netmask.it> wrote:
> >
> >> Hi,
> >>
> >> I have an old PC (with an old Mandrake), and its grub screwed up.
> >> I want to boot it WITHOUT re-installing the grub (I don't want to
> >> touch the HD till I see it works again, but boot it manually from a
> >> Live-CD/floppy).
> >> How can I do it from a Live-CD or floppy?  (both work under this
> >> PC). What Live-CD/floppy is recommended for this purpose?
> >> Can I do it from the boot prompt?
> >>
> >
> > The GRUB command prompt allows you to enter any arbitrary GRUB
> > command and boot the machine however you like. So if the LiveCD
> > contains a working GRUB installation, you can use the GRUB command
> > prompt there to boot it like you would boot from the hard disk.
> >
> > Regards,
> >
> > -- Shlomi Fish
> >
> >
> >>
> >> Thanks,
> >> Eli Marmor
> >>
> >> _______________________________________________
> >> Linux-il mailing list
> >> Linux-il at cs.huji.ac.il
> >> http://mailman.cs.huji.ac.il/mailman/listinfo/linux-il
> >>
> >>
> >
> >
> > --
> > ------------------------------------------
> > Shlomi Fish http://www.shlomifish.org/
> >
> > Electrical Engineering studies. In the Technion. Been there. Done
> > that. Forgot a lot. Remember too much.
> >
> > Please reply to list if it's a mailing list post -
> > http://shlom.in/reply .
> >
> > _______________________________________________
> > Linux-il mailing list
> > Linux-il at cs.huji.ac.il
> > http://mailman.cs.huji.ac.il/mailman/listinfo/linux-il
> >
> >