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I installed Ubuntu 21.10 on a USB HDD (Toshiba Canvio Basics 1TB)

I have also reinstalled grub in the ESP of the external drive with the following command to get a portable install of grub

grub-install --target=x86_64 --efi-directory=/boot/efi --bootloader=Ubuntu --removable

However the machine does not boot the OS on the external drive (afer selecting to boot from USB HDD). On one machine, a brief Reset system is displayed; on another, nothing can be seen before the reboot.

The disk is fine but during the fail boot, it emits a clank noise... quite scary.

This kind of installation works fine when using another USB HDD (another brand)

So what is wrong with the Toshiba Canvio Basics USB HDD ? Is it Ubuntu ?

solsTiCe
  • 9,231
  • If the disk is making strange noises, can you check the SMART status of the disk to make sure the disk isn't bad? You can follow these steps on a live CD to check the disk. If your disk is bad... then you should probably just replace it. – cocomac Dec 27 '21 at 17:40
  • It's brand new, and it seems fine so far. No badblocks detected with a sweep, and smart self short test is OK – solsTiCe Dec 27 '21 at 18:14
  • Are any files in your external disk's EFI partition? From your runnig Ubuntu system on which you ran the grub-install, did you change the /boot/efi mount to the extenal disk's EFI? I think the --efi-directory should also point to the (mounted) root location e.g. /mnt/xxx/boot/grub. Maybe also add --uefi-secure-boot so shimx64.efi gets installed too (was a bug on this for a removable -- f ixed?). – ubfan1 Dec 27 '21 at 22:40
  • I tried again, and it worked. same ubuntu version 21.10. But now, it is my desktop install (not on the usb hdd), that can't boot. It is the internal HDD that makes the noise and shuts down, and the PC restarts without even starting the OS. I got it fxied now, but I still don't know what happened – solsTiCe Mar 18 '22 at 12:42

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