Subj : Slimmed down Debian
To   : Ky Moffet
From : Barry Martin
Date : Mon Aug 26 2019 10:05:00


Hi Ky!

 > And as a FWIW: might want to get "Boot Repair Disk":
 >     https://help.ubuntu.com/community/Boot-Repair
 KM> Used something similar when Mint's GRUB committed seppuku (how? I
 KM> *LOOKED* in the video config util. Didn't touch anything, just
 KM> looked. Reproducible.
 
I had a somewhat similar issue with Windows ages ago: use a specific 
option on a communication utility I used with BBS mailrun and it (the 
utility) would then fail and needed to be reloaded.  Eventually found a 
specific file as being corrupted; found could just copy in that one file.  
Eventually renamed that one file to act as a placeholder, copied in, and
no more problems.  Apparently didn't like where it was on the hard 
drive.

 KM> This is why I dumped Mint, tho I gather the
 KM> bug has since been fixed.) Took about two seconds. But it was
 KM> just rewriting GRUB. If it has to do a sector hunt for where the
 KM> partition should start/end, it would take longer. I don't know if
 KM> it's significant that Mint is based on Ubuntu, but... seems to me
 KM> the bootloader should be absolutely bulletproof and bombproof.

If I were to troubleshoot Mint being based on Ubuntu would be a starting
point.  As for bullet- an bombproof, should be, but nothing is.


 > Be patient: there are times when it looks like nothing is happening and
 > then the screen will update after "five minutes" ==> I didn't time but
 > seemed like it.
 >
 > With my just-finished project I had installed a SSD for the OS and using
 > the old HDD for general storage.  I think the problem was the BIOS is
 > old -- looked up some old documentation and was from 2012.  I think the
 > problem was a "GPT" (something like that) boot partition was needed and
 > the Boot Repair Disk created this for me.  Fixed my problem where after
 > the install kept going to a GRUB Repair prompt.


 KM> GPT is needed for HDs that exceed 2.2TB.

So that wasn't the issue as only a 250 GB SSD.  The problem got 
corrected, I didn't bother to try to figure out what the correction was.


 KM> I have a bunch of
 KM> systems all about the same age, 2009ish, and only the Dell
 KM> supports GPT, as we discovered when the rest all rejected a 3TB
 KM> HD. (Hmm. I could put it in the PowerEdge.)

I'm not keeping track of the dates; enough for me to remember what
hardware is inside!  (And usually that's only when working on it!)  Any
system requiring a large storage device also needs to be fast so
automatically new/newer.

 KM> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/GUID_Partition_Table
 KM> <looks at table> Well, I guess I'm covered on the PowerEdge (with
 KM> its gaggle of 3TB HDs), cuz it'll need a 64bit OS to make good
 KM> use of it, and they all handle it.
 
Is the PowerEdge the system you were given a few months ago?  Seems like
it had a few multi-TB drives and several smaller ones.  At the time
wouldn't boot as was a remote boot.


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