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I'm trying to install Ubuntu onto a USB stick, and I've done it at least thrice in the past, and I've always had to give it 3-4 tries to install it.

The problem is that in most cases, the installer throws up this error: “the grub efi amd 64 signed package failed to install into target /. Without the grub loader the installed system will not boot”?

I'm following instructions given [here][1]. I'm choosing the right device to install the OS, and the right device to install the bootloader --infact, the screen which asks me to choose the partitions only shows one device, which is my USB (since I don't have an internal hard disk on my laptop).

I've tried to install Ubuntu 4 times already (usually, the error would throw up the first couple of times and run successfully on the third), and it's still not happening.

I first thought it's because I'm installing the bootloader onto the wrong option. For example, when I get to the partition selection screen, which looks something like this, I've tried almost all combinations of the OS and bootloader installation (the image for representative purpose, I make the partition before installing).

There seems to be no pattern here. Sometimes the bootloader installs perfectly, sometimes it just doesn't.

WorldGov
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    Ubuntu's grub only installs to ESP on sda. So if your sda drive is not gpt with and ESP (FAT32 with boot flag) it will not install. You must partition external drive in advance and include an ESP on external to copy files from internal to external. Details: https://askubuntu.com/questions/786986/boot-ubuntu-from-external-drive/942312#942312 & https://askubuntu.com/questions/906857/installing-ubuntu-on-usb-and-booting-from-destop-with-uefi & https://askubuntu.com/questions/559007/is-it-still-possible-to-install-ubuntu-to-an-external-harddrive-with-uefi – oldfred Feb 10 '18 at 15:11

1 Answers1

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you need to make ESP partition for UEFI install. during partitioning Hard drive on install, it's seen as EFI "System Partition" beside "use as" combo-box. Use 100-500 MB approx. for the partition depending on your needs.

if you're using dual boot, one ESP partition for each Hard drive should be enough, as you can mix it with windows EFI partition(leave the windows EFI partition unchanged).

Jastria Rahmat
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