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A link to the image of the error message is at the bottom of this post.

I installed Ubuntu (latest stable/long-term) from a USB drive (32GB) to a USB SSD drive (Sandisk Extreme 500GB). Upon rebooting, I get an error message "Ubuntu boot failed [ok]" with no other information. After hitting [ok], Windows 10 loads.

This is not a dual-boot, and I had the EFI/boot installed on the SSD only.

Partitions (external SSD):
- EFI: 550MB (primary)
- Ext4: / 100GB (primary)
- Swap: 8192MB (primary)
- [The rest will be for NTFS - which I will use for Backups from Windows]

Computer: Lenovo Ideapad 330S i5.

I redid the entire install, first disabling the boot flags on the Windows disk with GParted. The results are identical.

Where do I start debugging this?

https://i.stack.imgur.com/5wRyc.jpg

  • May be best to see details, use ppa version with your live installer (2nd option) or any working install, not older Boot-Repair ISO: Please copy & paste link to the Boot-info summary report ( do not post report), the auto fix sometimes can create more issues. https://help.ubuntu.com/community/Boot-Repair If this is an external drive, grub was probably installed to internal drive. You can either do a work around during install, reinstall grub manually or with Boot-Repair or chroot into install to repair. External drives only boot like installer from /EFI/Boot/bootx64.efi, a copy of shimx64 – oldfred Dec 28 '19 at 04:33
  • I did the workaround where you disable the boot flags in the internal Windows drive. That worked, as the Ubuntu installer didn't see /dev/sda (the Windows drive). It did give the option to install the EFI on /dev/sda, but I selected /dev/sdb, which is the external SSD drive Ubuntu was installed on. –  Dec 28 '19 at 06:10
  • I have tried all the suggested work arounds on hiding sda's ESP before install or on partitioning screen. But only one that worked for me was to use terminal to umount sda & mount sdb about at screen where you add name & password. Mount does not show sda as ESP until then. Posted work around to manually unmount & mount correct ESP during install https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/ubiquity/+bug/1396379 & https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/grub2/+bug/1229488 – oldfred Dec 28 '19 at 16:13

2 Answers2

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What kind of disk setting in your BIOS? If you need to choose between Legacy or UEFI. The UEFI need one first partition with at least 500MB to store secure boot information, if you book from UEFI, my suggestion is you install a Windows (7 or 10) first, let Windows do the partition itself, then it will have at least 4 partition to be created. After Windows installed and able to reboot, use your Ubuntu USB stick the 2nd booting time to start installing, choose use full disk and let Ubuntu to allocate partition for you. Good luck!

Xiaoqi Zhao
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  • This is not a dual boot install. The drive is supposed to be portable. At installation, I created a UEFI partition on the SSD (the installation required it). –  Dec 28 '19 at 02:19
  • Believe you'd searched lots of resources already, however, this KB ubuntuhandbook.org/index.php/2014/11/install-real-ubuntu-os-usb-drive/ maybe useful for you. – Xiaoqi Zhao Dec 28 '19 at 02:27
  • That's very similar to the newer guide, which is one of the resources I used. –  Dec 28 '19 at 03:11
  • Many new UEFI systems have an UEFI setting to turn off a drive. Mine says [disabled]. That should be the same as physically unplugging a drive. – oldfred Dec 28 '19 at 16:16
  • I didn't have that option. –  Dec 29 '19 at 00:39
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I removed the internal hard drive, and reinstalled Linux on the external SSD. Now it works. I re-installed the internal hard drive, and everything still works.

So, the published workaround where you disable the boot/EFI flags on the internal drive when installing to an external drive doesn't work, or it doesn't work on a Lenovo Ideapad 330S. (Here's the workaround: "It is almost the logical equivalent of physically disconnecting the internal drive" by Tim Richardson at https://askubuntu.com/a/1056079/152287 ; Also the accepted answer at Make external USB drive bootable )