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I have a laptop (HP ProBook 470 G3) with a 256 GB internal SSD. It has Windows 10 installed on it. I also have a external (USB) Seagate Expansion drive, which is 1 TB.

Due to the limited size of my SSD, I'd like to install Ubuntu on the Seagate. To be precise: on a partition of the Seagate. (Because I have a NTFS partition with about 600 GB of data on it, and I don't want to loose that).

So I downloaded the Ubuntu 16.04.03 LTS ISO and made a bootable USB-stick with Rufus. Booted into the stick and goed trough the installation process. So far so good. I've created three additional partitions and made one of them the swap and the other two ext4. (Mount point / and /home). I also set the boot loader to install on the Seagate, which is sda. (My SSD is sdb). The installation finished and said to me that it was time to reboot. So I removed the USB-stick and rebooted.

But... It gave me the following: 

error: unknown filesystem.
Entering rescue mode...
grub rescue> _

I have been troubleshooting for two days and I'm really getting tired of this :(

Google told me that i have to reset the root and prefix in the GRUB rescue mode, but whatever I try, it keeps saying 'unknown filesystem'.

However, what did work was booting the USB-stick and hit escape (or C) to give me the GRUB terminal from the stick's GRUB. Setting the root and prefix there, followed by:

insmod normal
nornal

resulted in a proper boot. So yes, I can boot into my Ubuntu, but this ofcourse isn't the way I want it to be. I've also done the thing above, followed by:

sudo grub-update
sudo grub-install /dev/sda

in the Ubuntu terminal, but rebooting, again, resulted in the GRUB rescue mode.

I also discovered that this might be GRUB legacy? Not sure if that's a problem.

So, what are your thoughts about this? I hope that I gave enough info, and I'm really looking forward on solving this issue.

Additional info:

fstab file:

# /etc/fstab: static file system information.
#
# Use 'blkid' to print the universally unique identifier for a
# device; this may be used with UUID= as a more robust way to name devices
# that works even if disks are added and removed. See fstab(5).
#
# <file system> <mount point>   <type>  <options>       <dump>  <pass>
# / was on /dev/sda2 during installation
UUID=8bc0d331-93d1-4376-a1f3-b2a8a51a45f3 /               ext4    errors=remount-ro 0       1
# /home was on /dev/sda4 during installation
UUID=591e8d9e-cfe7-46db-8244-8ce3e3955818 /home           ext4    defaults        0       2
# swap was on /dev/sda3 during installation
UUID=616e1dce-6463-4f1f-8b93-44ce26d1c790 none            swap    sw              0       0
matsn0w
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    Probably USB stick is disrupting the record scheme recorded in /etc/fstab. I suggest you follow my instructions in this issue: https://askubuntu.com/questions/947407/partial-upgrade-to-16-04-3-lts-error-cannot-create-wakeup – Redbob Aug 22 '17 at 15:08
  • Another option is to try to install the system according to the following link (and links from it), https://askubuntu.com/questions/786986/boot-ubuntu-from-external-drive/942312#942312 -- A crucial step is to disconnect/unplug the internal drive during the installation. It might be an alternative to disable it via a UEFI/BIOS menu. This is particularly important if you are booting in UEFI mode, but it helps also in BIOS (alias CSM alias legacy) mode. – sudodus Aug 22 '17 at 15:43
  • @Redbob, so my fstab file contains the following, how should I edit it properly? Added the fstab file contents to the original question. – matsn0w Aug 23 '17 at 13:57
  • aufs indicates that you have a live system (live-only or persistent live), not an installed system. See this link, http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=2230389 -- Is this what you are looking for? I think you want to create an installed system, but you have 'only' booted into the live system. – sudodus Aug 23 '17 at 14:02
  • I booted into the live system as @Redbob suggests in the post he mentioned. I'll try it via the Ubuntu installation. – matsn0w Aug 23 '17 at 14:10
  • You were right; but the UUID's are correct... Updated the question. – matsn0w Aug 23 '17 at 14:22
  • I would try with a fresh installation instead of tampering with a faulty system, and I suggest that you try according to https://askubuntu.com/questions/786986/boot-ubuntu-from-external-drive/942312#942312 – sudodus Aug 23 '17 at 15:12
  • I've installed it over for about five times I guess... The problem is that I have a laptop, so I can't remove the SSD. I also can't find a setting for that in the BIOS. Any ideas? – matsn0w Aug 23 '17 at 16:29
  • It is easy to remove the SSD/HDD in many laptops, but difficult in some of them. Are you sure that it is difficult in your laptop? HP Probook is a professional class computer, and it should be easy to remove/replace the SSD/HDD. – sudodus Aug 23 '17 at 18:14
  • I'll give it a try! – matsn0w Aug 24 '17 at 06:25
  • Okay, here's a new update: I opened the bottom of my laptop and successfully removed the SSD. (It's an M2). Reinstalled Ubuntu using my USB-stick and booted again to see te result. Sadly enough again the GRUB rescue screen with the 'unknown filesystem' error. BTW: I am getting the idea that Ubuntu installs the legacy GRUB, maybe that's a problem? Is there a way to install the new GRUB? – matsn0w Aug 24 '17 at 14:39
  • I suspect a problem with some hardware driver in your computer; 2. In BIOS mode alias legacy mode Ubuntu boots via grub-pc. Maybe this is what you mean by legacy grub. (Some people mean original grub, but current versions of Ubuntu are always using grub2 (the package grub-pc contains grub2). In UEFI mode Ubuntu boots via the EFI partition and uses the package grub-efi (which contains grub2 for UEFI). When booted from the DVD or USB drive, you can use the following command line to tell if you are running in BIOS or UEFI mode, test -d /sys/firmware/efi && echo efi || echo bios
    • – sudodus Aug 25 '17 at 06:55
  • You have a rather new computer, so it may work better with a newer kernel and newer hardware drivers. You can try Ubuntu 17.04 or even try the version that is developing, 'Artful Aardvark', that you can find via this link, http://iso.qa.ubuntu.com/qatracker/milestones/376/builds/155168/testcases -- You can also try an older, well debugged and tested version, Ubuntu 16.04.1 LTS via this link, https://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=2230389&p=13540865#post13540865 – sudodus Aug 25 '17 at 07:02
  • AskUbuntu is a question/answer web site, and it is not well suited for solving complicated problems, where you need a long discussion. Maybe you have better luck at the Ubuntu Forums, where several people can contribute with their experience in dialogue with you. So you might create a new thread for example in the forum for installation and upgrades, https://ubuntuforums.org/forumdisplay.php?f=333 – sudodus Aug 25 '17 at 07:27
  • I've just installed 17.04 but I get the same error. Thank you for your help and I'll give ubuntuforums a try. – matsn0w Aug 25 '17 at 13:58