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I have been trying from last few days to create a Portable OS. My reasons being

  1. Avoiding Dual Boot
  2. To make the OS like Plug and Play

Before trying on External SSD as they are costly, I first tried installing OS on a 32 GB Sandisk Flashdrive which is working very smoothly. Hence I removed all the boot options other than my current windows and I tried installing on my SSD.

I bought Sandisk Extreme and Samsung T5 but Ubuntu Installation didn’t go through as planned. On both the drives it went Straight up to the GRUB Command Line. This feels like the BLUE SCREEN OF DEATH FOR UBUNTU. I must have tried installing more than 10 times, with the help of Answers on Internet.

How To Rescue Non Booting Grub2

I went through step by step as shown in this link. Even in my case I can see content only in (hd0, 1)/ . But I can see only 1 folder which is efi/. I cannot see any other folders that are shown in the link. Same answer is posted everywhere.

Folders - lost+found/ bin/ boot/ cdrom/ dev/ etc/ home/ lib/ lib64/ media/ mnt/ opt/ proc/ root/ run/ sbin/ srv/ sys/ tmp/ usr/ var/ vmlinuz vmlinuz.old initrd.img initrd.img.old

None of these folders are visible for me.

Let me Tell you my Ubuntu installation process.

  1. Opened the Try and Install Ubuntu
  2. Went through the initial installation process
  3. Clicked on Something Else
  4. 16GB for Swap (logical and end of the storage)
  5. Rest for primary, ext4 and root as “/“ partition
  6. Next , Next ....

This is what I followed.

I have reached the CONCLUSION that Ubuntu cannot be installed in an External SSD I HOPE IT”S NOT TRUE AND THERE SHOULD BE A WAY AROUND. It worked perfectly well in PenDrive. I could just plug the pendrive(INSTALLED OS AND NOT THE BOOTABLE) and start using Ubuntu.

I chose SSD because it is more durable as well as faster than a hdd.

I am open to any Suggestions to Improve my above long Question with Explanation if it’s not Understandable.

Please Let me know if any more details are required from my side.

enter image description here GRUB command line

karel
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Anurag P
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    If your Full install flash drive is working as you want, you could try unplugging your internal drive and then clone the flash drive to SSD using sudo dd if=/dev/sdx of=/dev/sdy. – C.S.Cameron Jan 16 '19 at 05:37
  • Thanks @C.S.Cameron, I will try this, keep you posted. – Anurag P Jan 16 '19 at 11:35
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    The issue is Ubiquity installer. Grub will install to external drives. I have external SSD and am surprised how fast it is, expected USB3 port to slow it more. It is almost as fast as internal SSD. You have to partition in advance and include ESP on external drive. Ubuntu Installer uses wrong bootloader location for USB/sdb UEFI installs https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/ubiquity/+bug/1173457 Posted work around to manually unmount & mount correct ESP during install https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/ubiquity/+bug/1396379 External drives only boot from /EFI/Boot/bootx64.efi. – oldfred Jan 21 '20 at 14:31
  • @oldfred Thanks alot, I will try to follow the steps. Do you think we can make more like plug and play type? For example, installing GRUB on external SSD. So that when external ssd is not connected to my laptop, I will just directly get in Windows. and if i connect SSD I will get GRUB menu to switch to Ubuntu. This will also make sure that I can use this portable SSD on ANY laptop and since GRUB is on SSD, I can directly connect to ubuntu. Is this possible? – Anurag P Jan 25 '20 at 01:57
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    If you have Ubuntu installed to ESP on external drive, you can often set that as first in boot order and then Windows as second. But you then do not use an ubuntu entry that is in the ESP on hard drive that boots external drive. – oldfred Jan 25 '20 at 03:38
  • This link describes how to install Ubuntu into an external drive. – sudodus Aug 14 '21 at 20:11

1 Answers1

0

From SUSE [1]

Method 1:

  1. Insert the Linux OS install CD/DVD
  2. Reboot the computer
  3. Enter the "Setup Menu"
  4. Disable the internal hard drive
  5. Save settings and exit
  6. The computer will reboot so you can see the POST screen
  7. Push the appropriate key (F12 for Dell Laptops) to bring up the "One Time Boot Menu"
  8. Select boot from CD/DVD
  9. Install Linux OS (Follow your normal install procedure)
  10. The only device that should appear is the external USB drive

Note: Since the internal hard drive is disabled the Linux OS will have no choice, it will install all of the required components for the external USB drive to become a bootable device.

When the install has completed:

  1. Remove the Linux OS install CD/DVD
  2. Reboot the computer
  3. Enter the "Setup Menu"
  4. Enable the internal hard drive
  5. Change the boot order to resemble
    a. USB device
    b. Internal hard drive
    c. CD/DVD
  6. Save settings and exit
  7. The computer will reboot so you can see the POST screen (Let the system boot as normal)

The machine will boot into your newly installed Linux OS and will have no knowledge or connection to the OS that is installed on the computer's internal hard drive.

Method 2:

  1. Insert the Linux OS install CD/DVD
  2. Shut down the computer
  3. Remove the internal hard drive
  4. Start the computer
  5. The computer will boot so you can see the POST screen
  6. Push the appropriate key (F12 for Dell Laptops) to bring up the "One Time Boot Menu"
  7. Select boot from CD/DVD
  8. Install Linux OS (Follow your normal install procedure)
  9. The only device that should appear is the external USB drive

Note: Since the internal hard drive was physically removed the Linux OS will have no choice, it will install all of the required components for the external USB drive to become a bootable device.

When the install has completed:

  1. Remove the Linux OS install CD/DVD
  2. Shut down the computer
  3. Install internal hard drive
  4. Enter the "Setup Menu"
  5. Change the boot order to resemble
    a. USB device
    b. Internal hard drive
    c. CD/DVD
  6. Save settings and exit
  7. The computer will reboot so you can see the POST screen (Let the system boot as normal)

The machine will boot into your newly installed Linux OS and will have no knowledge or connection to the OS that is installed on the computer's internal hard drive.

karel
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Carlos Dagorret
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