On Sat, Mar 02, 2019 at 11:15:03PM +0100, karl@??? wrote:
> hendrik:
> > Currently booting from a 750G BIOS-partitioned disk.
> > Trying to enable booting from the 4.7T drive, which is GPT partitioned.
> >
> > With grub-install I get errors:
> >
> > april:/farhome/hendrik# grub-install /dev/sda
> > Installing for i386-pc platform.
> > grub-install: warning: this GPT partition label contains no BIOS Boot Partition; embedding won't be possible.
> > grub-install: error: embedding is not possible, but this is required for RAID and LVM install.
> > april:/farhome/hendrik#
> >
> > Evidently there is some kind of incompatibility here.
> >
> > What is going on? What can I to do other than continuing to boot from
> > small BIOS disks?
>
> I have:
>
> # file -s /dev/sda
> /dev/sda: DOS/MBR boot sector, LInux i386 boot LOader; partition 1 : ID=0xee, start-CHS (0x0,0,1), end-CHS (0x3ff,254,63), startsector 1, 4294967295 sectors
> # fdisk -l /dev/sda
> Disk /dev/sda: 2.7 TiB, 3000592982016 bytes, 5860533168 sectors
> Disk model: TOSHIBA MG03ACA3
> Units: sectors of 1 * 512 = 512 bytes
> Sector size (logical/physical): 512 bytes / 512 bytes
> I/O size (minimum/optimal): 512 bytes / 512 bytes
> Disklabel type: gpt
> Disk identifier: 7A22F348-BA09-4E8C-9EE5-D2534E719D7C
>

> Device          Start        End    Sectors   Size Type
> /dev/sda1        2048     194559     192512    94M Linux RAID
> /dev/sda2      194560    1953791    1759232   859M Linux RAID
> /dev/sda3     1953792   19531775   17577984   8.4G Linux RAID
> /dev/sda4    19531776  117186559   97654784  46.6G Linux RAID
> /dev/sda5   117186560  136718335   19531776   9.3G Linux RAID
> /dev/sda6   136718336 1953124351 1816406016 866.1G Linux RAID
> /dev/sda7  1953124352 5860532223 3907407872   1.8T Linux RAID
> #

>
> Using lilo and mdraid mirrored partitions, no problems at all.
> I always use a small /boot partition first, no initrd, self compiled
> kernel.

Interesting. I used to have lilo boot from a floppy, as an alternative
in case the complicated grub ever failed. But lilo hasn't worked for
me lately -- it turns out the problem was hardware -- over the years
the floppy disk's magnetic oxides had completely worn off. It was
*transparent*!

Or at least. transparent where the boot track used to be.

I'll get a new floppy disk before I mess with grub. I hope hthe floppy
drive's heads aren't also worn down of clotted wit oxide.

This does bring up another problem that I've wondered about. Why is my
floppy drive always turning when there's a disk in? I'll investigate
later. Right now I have enough to do. I'll just make sure I don't
keep the disk peranently in the drive.

I vaguely remember that it may
have started about two years ago when I moved house, so it may also
be a hardware problem. Loosened cable, maybe? My USB ports stopped
working around the same time.

>
> Hope this helps you.

It might. It reminded me.

-- hendrik