Tiny Core Linux

Tiny Core Base => TCB Q&A Forum => Topic started by: 3guesses on August 17, 2015, 05:38:36 PM

Title: Moving Installation Partition
Post by: 3guesses on August 17, 2015, 05:38:36 PM

Hi,

I have TinyCore 5.3 installed on a dedicated logical partition on my laptop (sda8).  If I wanted to have it installed on another partition, could I just move the files across (eg, after booting another Linux distro) or would I also need to make some system configuration changes to let the install know its new installed partition?

Thanks,

3g

Title: Re: Moving Installation Partition
Post by: gerald_clark on August 17, 2015, 05:43:09 PM

Your boot loader configuration file defines where to look for the kernel, initrd, and persistent directories.

Title: Re: Moving Installation Partition
Post by: 3guesses on August 18, 2015, 02:23:18 AM

OK, thanks.  I use GRUB4DOS to boot TinyCore, so if I just move the files over from the TC partition (sda8) to another partition and update mu GRUB configuration, everything wll just work?

3g

Title: Re: Moving Installation Partition
Post by: Rich on August 18, 2015, 02:36:56 AM

Hi 3guesses
Yes, that should work. The only other thing to be aware of is if you set up any scripts that reference sda8.

Title: Re: Moving Installation Partition
Post by: 3guesses on August 20, 2015, 06:08:14 PM

OK, well that didn't work - GRUB reports "Error 13: Invalid or unsupported executable format."

I copied the menu.lst entry for sda8 and simply changed the UUID to that for the new partition (sda25), but that clearly isn't sufficient.  The new menu.lst entry looks like:

Code: [Select]

title Tiny Core (sda25)
  uuid e8ae...
  chainloader +1
Does sda25 need something in its boot record to tell GRUB what to actually boot?

3g

PS  I also changed the UUIDs in /tce/boot/extlinux.conf

Title: Re: Moving Installation Partition
Post by: gerald_clark on August 20, 2015, 06:15:13 PM

What in the world is sda25 ?

Title: Re: Moving Installation Partition
Post by: 3guesses on August 21, 2015, 06:26:03 AM

sda25 is the logical partition to which I've copied the Tiny Core installation (basically the /tce directory structure) from its original installation partition (sda8):

Quote

I copied the menu.lst entry for sda8 and simply changed the UUID to that for the new partition (sda25)

Title: Re: Moving Installation Partition
Post by: Misalf on August 21, 2015, 06:41:59 AM

Quote

Does sda25 need something in its boot record to tell GRUB what to actually boot?

Yes, if you chainload, there will be some code expected in the boot record (i.e. another boot loader).

What if you use your current Grub4Dos to boot directly

Code: [Select]

title Tiny Core Linux
find --set-root /tce/boot/vmlinuz
kernel /tce/boot/vmlinuz  tce=UUID="1234567890"
initrd /tce/boot/core.gz

You can also change the location of Core's base files to make sure the correct installation boots up

Code: [Select]

title Tiny Core Linux
find --set-root /tce-5.x/boot/vmlinuz
kernel /tce-5.x/boot/vmlinuz  tce=UUID="1234567890"/tce-5.x
initrd /tce-5.x/boot/core.gz


Title: Re: Moving Installation Partition
Post by: 3guesses on August 21, 2015, 04:36:24 PM

Thanks, Misalf.  I'm no GRUB expert, but I still had the Tiny Core installation on sda8 so using your post and the other entries in menu.lst I went for the following:

Code: [Select]

title Tiny Core
  uuid e8adee...
  kernel /tce/boot/vmlinuz root=/dev/sda25 tce=UUID="e8adee..."
  initrd /tce/boot/core.gz
And I rather surprised myself that it worked 8-)

I dont know what wrote the boot sector information to the original install partition (sda8) - does the TC install do that, and the GRUB configuration tool then pick this up when scanning all the partitions on the disk?

3g

Title: Re: Moving Installation Partition
Post by: gerald_clark on August 21, 2015, 04:41:25 PM

root= is not a valid kernel option for Core.

Title: Re: Moving Installation Partition
Post by: 3guesses on August 21, 2015, 05:20:53 PM

Have removed the "root=" from the menu.lst entry.  Still works 8-)