Re: [tlug] In the beginning there is GRUB... or is there another?

["Stephen J. Turnbull" <stephen@example.com>]

Dave M G writes:

 > Does this mean there is something screwy with the USB HD itself?

AFAIK, no.  The BIOS probably doesn't handle it very well, that's all.
It's possible the external port you have it connected to might be low
priority, so it checks for a zillion USB devices that don't exist
first, each with a short time out.

There are 4 hardware based ways to get around the time out that I can
think of based on the BIOSes I have seen.

1.  Physically disconnect the drive.
2.  Remove the drive from the boot sequence (eg, set USB devices to
    noboot) in the BIOS.
3.  Change the order of the boot sequence so USB devices come after
    internal hard drives in the BIOS.
4.  Change a timeout in the BIOS.

You don't like 1, and I suspect that 4 is not possible.  I wouldn't
recommend it if it were possible.  Since the internal hard drive will
always be bootable in your case, 2 and 3 are the same, except if in
some disaster the hard drive became unbootable.

The other possibility would be to install GRUB on the USB drive, and
have its default boot point at the internal hard drive.  That's kinda
Rube Goldbergish, of course.