Hendrik Boom wrote on 14/9/19 1:03 pm:
> On Fri, Sep 13, 2019 at 06:50:05PM -0400, fsmithred via Dng wrote:
>> On 9/13/19 5:43 PM, golinux@??? wrote:
>>> On 2019-09-13 16:24, Hendrik Boom wrote:
>>>> Haven't replaced /dev/hdb yet.
>>>> Is there some way of getting it ignored in the following scenario?
>>>>
>>>> I started aptitude.
>>>> It told me it hadn't been cleanly shut down last time, and recommended
>>>> I do
>>>>     dpkg --configure -a
>>>> before I do anything else.
>>>>
>>>> I do that, and the system apparently does some cleanup, generating
>>>> initrd images, and then starts to update grub.
>>>>
>>>> Update-grub stalls on block 51 of device /dev/hdb, trying to do
>>>> something with it over and over (as presented on the main system
>>>> console, which is *not* the one I'm trying to run aptitude on)
>>>>
>>>> Now evidently /dev/hdb is not working and will need to be replaced.
>>>>
>>>> But isn't there some way to tell grub to ignore /dev/hdb?
>>>> What is it that controls which drives grub tries to work with.
>>>> It must get this from somewhere.  I did not specify or mention /dev/hdb
>>>> anywhere in my dpkg --configure -a.  And there are several other drives
>>>> I could use to install grub and a boot record.  I can even use the
>>>> grub-install command to do so.  So why, oh why, does it pick on
>>>> /dev/sdb?
>>>>
>>>> -- hendrik
>>>>
>>>>
>>>
>>> Open the case and unplug it?
>>>
>>> (golinux ducks and runs)
>>
>>
>> Golinux beat me to it.
>>
>> update-grub (grub-mkconfig) uses black magic to find all the bootable
>> systems within reach.
>
> That's useful information. It does suggest that I have to unplug to
> get update-grub to work.
>
> Does that mean if I temporarily have a disk drive plugged in for any
> temporary readon, it'll be found and get grub boot records installed on
> it?
>
> Sonds ike it.
>

That same question apparently came up a while ago at
https://unix.stackexchange.com/questions/56004/how-to-stop-update-grub-from-scanning-all-drives

In short: do something to /etc/grub.d/30_os-prober
(which is a shell script)

Ralph.

>> ...