Booting from usb hard disk

[Mehmet Erol Sanliturk]

On Mon, Mar 23, 2009 at 6:36 AM, Robert Noland <rnoland at freebsd.org> wrote:

> So I have my i386 install on a usb hard disk, which I can only boot on
> one machine now.  ...



>
> robert.
>
> --
> Robert Noland <rnoland at FreeBSD.org>
> FreeBSD



My ideas is NOT related directly to the above message but based on my
observation presented below .

In a PC I have installed 7.0 . Then I have changed the PC ( or I have
attached the hard disk to another PC ) . The mainboards were the same Intel
DG965WH . but processors were different .

In the new PC . FreeBSD could NOT be booted successfully . It locked during
booting . Power disconnected and the PC re-powered could be booted in a new
try but not in other tries . When I attached the hard disk to its original
PC it continuously booted successfully .

This means that during booting . FreeBSD is looking some values stored
during installation ( for example : Signature of PC ) .

When hard disk is attached to another PC and signature of new PC is
different from the previous one , it is not booting successfully .

Consequence of this is that when a USB hard disk is used then it will NOT be
transportable to other PCs unless booting is made insensitive to such
changes .

I am also using Mandriva Linux Free 2008.0 . It is able to boot in different
machines . During installation it is possible to make an install parameters
diskette to store installation parameters and use this diskette for other
installations to give installation parameters directly from diskette .


Thank you very much .

Mehmet Erol Sanliturk