This all happened because the hard drive on my shiny HP laptop was failing, 
and I decided to try and create a bootable USB drive with GRUB and and the 
Void Linux MUSL Live image.

As my route to finding a solution was a bit messy, I just wanted to let you 
know what eventually worked.

I started from Void Linux Live MUSL image, which I opted to load into RAM 
from USB, so that I could unmount the installation medium and remove.  This 
avoids getting confused with the target USB device:  a Samsung 250gb 860 
Evo SSD [SATA] connected via a STAR USB adaptor.
 
The void-installer script fails when running grub-install [it wanted UEFI], 
and my attempts to fix it failed.  However, as the basic system had been 
installed, I just needed to make it boot.

I ensured that the /dev/sdb1 partition was bootable by running fdisk 
/dev/sdb and use the "a" command to toggle the "bootable" flag.  

Next, I crafted a simple grub.cfg file:

  menuentry 'Void GNU/Linux MUSL 4.18.17 [sdb1]' {
    insmod gzio
    insmod part_msdos
    insmod ext2
    set root='hd0,msdos1'
    linux /boot/vmlinuz-4.18.17_1 root=/dev/sdb1 ro  
    initrd /boot/initramfs-4.18.17_1.img
  }

I don't understand "hd0" for the sdb device [why not "hd1"?], but only it 
works.  This is then installed with

  mkdir /usb
  mount /dev/sdb1 /usb
  grub-install --target=i386-pc --boot-directory=/usb/boot  /dev/sdb
  umount /usb

At this point the the system can be rebooted.

This all happened because the void-installer insisted that I use the crazy 
efi method, even though I have been using BIOS-based installs for ever.  On 
older [pre-efi] computers, the void-installer seems to just work.  Maybe I 
will embrace uefi one day [joke].




On Tuesday, June 25, 2019 at 10:25:30 AM UTC+1, jacksprat wrote:
>
> My laptop hard drive died, so as an interim solution, I wanted to install 
> Void Linux on a removable hard drive [/dev/sdb1].  
>
> I started with the current 64-bit MUSL live image.  The void-installer 
> script, run as root, fails to complete, complaining about expecting to find 
> an efi setup.  Rather than get involved with efi , I tried
>
>   mkdir /usb
>   mount /dev/sdb1 /usb
>   <create /usb/boot/grub/grub.cfg with suitable menu item>
>   grub-install --target=i384-pc --boot-directory=/usb/boot  /dev/sdb
>   umount /usb
>
> which completed without errors.  However, on reboot, I get the grub menu 
> from the failed hard drive.
>
> I also ran fdisk on /dev/sdb to mark the partition bootable.  What have I 
> missed?  Thanks.
>
>

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