Use grub to boot a windows on a usb device

I'm going to install a windows for test. But somehow I don't have a dvd device to do that.
So it consists of two steps:

1. Get everything ready on usb device:
a) Make a ntfs partition on the usb disk
b) Copy all of the data from installation dvd to the ntfs partition
c) Run the following command with a windows:

bootsect /mbr /nt60 e:

Suppose E is the partition number of the usb disk. You can find the bootsect.exe from the installation dvd.

2. Boot from the usb disk.
I have grub installed on the hard disk already. Once the grub menu is presented, press C into command mode, and input:

rootnoverify (hd2,0)
makeactive
chainloader +1
boot

hd2 is assumed that you have two built-in harddisks, so usb disk is the 3rd one(hd0, hd1, hd2).
And 0 is the first partition on the usb disk.

That's it. The system should boot from the usb disk soon.

Dual boot linux and osx on powermac with 2 disks

I have a powermac with osx installed. I don't want to resize the first disk to install linux, so another disk was installed and linux was installed there.

The second disk's partition type can be normal MBR and can be partitioned using fdisk.

The installation is as simple as it can be found on gentoo's handbook.

The tricky part is to install the yaboot.
I decide the install the yahoot on the first disk because it's apple partition type and it actually has enough free space to host a bootstrap patron:

/dev/sda
# type name length base ( size ) system
/dev/sda1 Apple_partition_map Apple 63 @ 1 ( 31.5k) Partition map
/dev/sda2 Apple_Free 262144 @ 64 (128.0M) Free space
/dev/sda3 Apple_HFS Untitled 700585936 @ 262208 (334.1G) HFS

Start mac-fdisk and using "b" to create a bootstrap partition:
The first block can be 64. Then it looks like this:

/dev/sda
# type name length base ( size ) system
/dev/sda1 Apple_partition_map Apple 63 @ 1 ( 31.5k) Partition map
/dev/sda2 Apple_Bootstrap bootstrap 1600 @ 64 (800.0k) NewWorld bootblock
/dev/sda3 Apple_Free 260544 @ 1664 (127.2M) Free space
/dev/sda4 Apple_HFS Untitled 700585936 @ 262208 (334.1G) HFS


The yaboot.conf needs to specify the second disk manually:

* Because the linux is installed on /dev/sdb1, we have to use ofpath to get the device path first:

# ofpath /dev/sdb
/ht@0,f2000000/pci@7/k2-sata-root@c/k2-sata@1/disk@0:

* Then in the yaboot.conf:
boot=/dev/sda2 # This is the bootstrap partition we created
# This is the disk and partition where linux is installed.
device=/ht@0,f2000000/pci@7/k2-sata-root@c/k2-sata@1/disk@0:
partition=1

Then use ybin to install yaboot.

Bingo!

Boot the powerpc with usb disk

1. Use Option-Command-o-f boot into open firmware

2. Use devalias to find device list

3. Enumerate the usb disk device number

dev usb0 ls
dev usb1 ls

4. Check whether the disk is readable

dir usb0/disk@1,\\:tbxi
dir usb0/disk@1,\\:tbxi
dir usb0/disk@1:1,\\:tbxi
dir usb0/disk@1:2,\\:tbxi
dir usb0/disk:2,\\:tbxi

5. Boot the system

boot usb0/disk@1,\\:tbxi

See also
http://en.gentoo-wiki.com/wiki/LiveUSB_on_PPC