linux OS from usb with external hard drive?
Wednesday, December 8th, 2010 at
21:13
I am going to install Ubuntu to a USB. And I am having a hard time partitioning my hard drive without losing any information on it.
So I was wondering. Can I install Ubuntu to a USB and have an external hard drive instead of an internal one? And if I can, how would I go about doing that?
Tagged with: external hard drive • hard time
Filed under: Linux
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I am not clear if you are referring to a usb flash drive or a usb external hard drive.
Yes you can install ubuntu to any external drive (flash or external hard drive) and keep all of the files and programs that you install with ubuntu on that drive (if it is large enough). You have to be sure that the ubuntu drive has persistence. Persistence means anything you add/change remains after a reboot.
If you are using an external usb hard drive you won’t need the link, just install it and store you ubuntu files there. You will have to work around the issue of the bootloader. If you are now using a windows bootloader on the computer you will have to edit it to add ubuntu. You can install the ubuntu bootloader to the internal computer hard drive and use it to boot windows but if you try to boot the computer without the usb external drive you will get an error until you plug in the usb drive.
We need more info for a complete solution.
You are making a mess out of your computer. Use that external drive to back up your personal files, then wipe out your internal hard drive and install fresh.
If you absolutely insist on doing it the way you described, then yes it is possible. You’ll need to use a program like unetbootin in order to make a bootable flash drive but after that its just a matter of mounting your external for use.