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I installed Ubuntu on an external hard drive and have Windows on my internal hard drive. Everything works fine until I get up the next morning and all of the sudden I'm stuck on the grub command line and can't get into the menu. My external hard drive doesn't show up when typing ls in the command line, so I'm assuming that it can't find the files to load the menu.

modmonster2060
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  • Is this after full shutdown or sleep mode? Your external drive sounds like it does not wake back up. And you probably have grub in ESP on internal drive. Is system UEFI with UEFI installs? Do you have ESP - efi system partition on external drive? Lets see details, use ppa version with your live installer (2nd option) or any working install, not Boot-Repair ISO: Please copy & paste the pastebin link to the Boot-info summary report ( do not post report), do not run the auto fix till reviewed. https://help.ubuntu.com/community/Boot-Repair – oldfred May 10 '21 at 13:49
  • This is after a full shutdown. It's weird, because earlier I turned off the computer and turned it back on and it worked fine. I can confirm that grub is somewhat on my internal hard drive as well because it still shows up when the external hard drive is unplugged. It is a UEFI system, and there isn't a EFI system partition on the external drive. Here's the link to my boot report: https://paste.ubuntu.com/p/NSTVjXhvFQ/ – modmonster2060 May 11 '21 at 11:02
  • You have UEFI system with both Ubuntu & Windows in UEFI boot mode from ESP, sdb1. But you have old grub boot loaders in sdc & sdd's MBRs. Make sure never to boot in BIOS/CSM mode. Some drives are gpt & some MBR. Since UEFI system better to only use gpt. Add an ESP to external drive, copy /EFI/Boot & /EFI/ubuntu to ESP on external drive & set it as first in UEFI boot order and Windows second in boot order. https://askubuntu.com/questions/906857/installing-ubuntu-on-usb-and-booting-from-destop-with-uefi Also better to have main boot drive in SATA0, and then add drives in port order. – oldfred May 11 '21 at 14:14
  • One of these MBR drives was my flash drive that I was using to install Ubuntu and had plugged in for the live install. Do you know of a way to change a hard drive to GPT without losing the data on it, because if there isn't one then I'm kind of stuck. I also can't add an EFI partition because the disk isn't GPT. – modmonster2060 May 12 '21 at 11:29
  • You can add ESP to MBR. You can convert drive to gpt, but good backups required. And then all UUIDs & GUIDs will change. At minimum you have to reinstall grub. And any entry using UUID will have to be updated like fstab. Conversion better for data only drives, then then UUID mounts still require update. Converting to or from GPT - must have good backups. http://www.rodsbooks.com/gdisk/mbr2gpt.html I have made all larger flash drives as gpt and all new drives as gpt since about 2010. Only suggest MBR for internal drive where you have to boot Windows in BIOS mode. – oldfred May 12 '21 at 13:35

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