Building a Pi which boots from hard disk

⇐ Notes

Download SD card image

Download Raspbian Buster image from raspberry.org

Burn to SD card using Etcher

Create a file on the /boot partition called ssh

$ echo "" > ssh

Boot Pi from SD card with hard drive attached

Login with ssh (NB : need to identify IP address)

Create a new user and change password of root account

$ sudo /usr/sbin/useradd --groups sudo,ssh --shell /bin/bash -m ch

$ sudo passwd ch

$ sudo passed root

Login with new account

If successful set pi account password

$ sudo passwd pi

enable vnc

$ sudo raspi-config

Option 3: Boot options

B1: Desktop/Cli

B3: Desktop (no auto login)

Option 5: Interfacing options

P3: VNC

Option 7: Advanced

A5: Resolution

select a resolution - I selected highest

Reboot

ssh to Pi and update and install emacs to have an editor I can remember the command of

$ sudo apt-get update

$ sudo apt-get upgrade

$ sudo apt-get install emacs

Login with VNC (or connect keyboard and monitor)

Burn image to harddrive

From the menu select

Raspberry menu --> Accessories --> SD Card Copier

Select source and target

ensure 'New Partition UUIDs' is checked

Note new partition ID for sda2

$ sudo blkid

Edit files

$ sudo cp /boot/cmdline.txt /boot/cmdline_SDcard.txt

$ sudo cp /boot/cmdline.txt /boot/cmdline_harddisk.txt

$ sudo emacs /boot/cmdline_harddisk.txt

and change the entry 'root=PARTUUID=xxxxxxxx-02' to have the new partition ID, e.g. 'root=PARTUUID=405052aa-02'

$ sudo cp /boot/cmdline_harddisk.txt /boot/cmdline.txt

Reboot

Hopefully Pi has booted from hard drive

Check by running

$ df

which should show / mounted on dev/root with the size of the disk

Note that /boot seems to be the boot partition on hard drive and not that on SD card which is the cmdline.txt was read from

Finish configuring

$ sudo raspi-config

Networking

set host name

set wifi config

Localisation options

Change locale and add the en_GB_ and en_US_ options

Change timezone

Change wifi country