Ubuntu Installation :: Cannot Start Computer Without External Hard Drive Plugged In
Jan 12, 2010
I finally got my new internal hdd for my laptop. I plugged it in and installed windows 7 64 bit. Then I partitioned my external hdd (WD mybook 640gb), and installed ubuntu 9.1 on a 200gb partition of it. The problem is that I didn't unplug the internal hdd before I installed ubuntu. Now the computer will not start unless I have the external hard drive plugged in.
So what should I do so that I will be able to go into windows 7 normally if the external hdd is unplugged? I would also like to be able to use ubuntu when I plug in the external hdd. I wouldn't mind having to go to the boot menu and choosing the external hard drive every time I wanted to use ubuntu.
The reason I partitioned the external hard drive was because it has a lot more space than my 250gb internal hdd, and I also wanted to leave space open to use as was intended, to back up stuff.
However, now that I think about it, I wouldn't mind partitioning the internal hdd and just leaving the external blank (which I should have done in the first place).
I have spend way too much time on this and it still fails. I installed the debian 8.3.0 AMD64 CD1 iso image on an empty external USB 1TB Western digital My passport Ultra. I use the graphical install method and the installation process of Debian appears to go fine, except it informs me at one point I am missing some nonfree firmware for something with wifi, but that shouldn't relate to this.
*FYI I put GRUB on the external hdd, sdb in this case. *windows 7 is on the internal hard drive and I excluded it from the boot sequence * using laptop lenovo t410
I reboot my computer and it hangs with a flashing - in the upper right corner. Never even gets to GRUB. For awhile I thought I might have partitioned something wrong, but I am now convinced that isn't likely. I tried countless number of different partition configs. Separate /boot partition and I also tried using guided partitioning.
I mounted the partitions of the external hard drive using another OS and GRUB appears to be there. So it is there.
I know some Western digital hard drives have added priopertary firmware crap, so I tried installing on a external Seagate drive and it still hangs. I tried installing linux mint on the Western Digital drive and it works fine!
BIOS settings fine. USB settings fine. I tried booting via the boot menu and moving the USB HDD to the top of the list.
I also tried installing with Debian Live on a USB, but that actually has more problems for some reason. I can never get passed the partitioning phase because it fails to create /boot or /swap partitions saying something about how they are still in use and another thing about how the partition table hasn't been updated in the kernal yet.
It seems I might be having this same issue, not sure: [URL] ...
I had this corrupted external hdd and so I formatted the main partition on it on windows but messed up in the formatting and ended up having to format the entire thing. I got some weird message about it not being initialized (no not mounted) so I was in compmgmt.msc in windows and right clicked it in device manager and it asked for master boot or GUID I selected the latter and formatted. Worked fine and all for a bit but now it doesn't show up as a drive. I noticed when using compmgmt.msc it showed up that it had installed driver software and was being recognized but in the partition editing area there was nothing on this drive, reinstalling driver software doesn't seem to help. Also GParted wont load up when I have it plugged in and Disk Utility doesn't show it. I am requesting help to fix this problem within Ubuntu 10.10 somehow so I can use it properly.
I have installed ubuntu 10.10 on and external usb drive and now my computer which runs XP will not boot unless the external drive is connected and on. Can I by pass this situation or do I have to uninstall ubuntu altogether and start over?
I want to make my own raid array, that is essentially identical to one of those commercially available external raid drives.The only thing is, I want to do this by using a dedicated computer as the drive, and connecting it to another computer to use as the server. Is there some way to do this. Maybe make a sata port on the raid computer appear lixe a hard drive to the server. Or use a usb 'crossover' cable to connect the 2.Is this even possible, or should I just use the raid computer as the file server too?
if i use the safely remove option with disk utilty to power off a drive, is there any user friendly way to restart it (so the system sees it) without unplugging/plugging back in or restarting?
I had installed Ubuntu 10.04 onto an external hard drive connected by USB to my laptop:
sdd partition Windoze still resides on the box's internal hard drive: sda2 partition
I also partitioned the internal hard drive so that I have a repository where my documents etc can be accessed by either linux or windoze: sda3 partition (FAT32) I'm assuming that Grub is on the external drive somewhere - as is probably now the Windoze MBR. I'd like to be able to give my wife the ability to start the box (and boot into Windoze) when the external drive is not attached (so that she doesn't have to take the latter with her when she needs to be mobile with the computer). What do I need to do to move grub and the MBR back onto the laptop's internal drive? Or, I suppose: What do I need to do to obtain the functionality that I'm looking for? I'm getting somewhat more comfortable with the command line but, I still need a bit of hand-holding
I would like to install Linux Ubuntu 11.04 on an external hard drive - its partitioned and ready for Linux.I've downloaded and burnt the .iso file to a DVD so its all good so far...First of all... is this possible without messing up my macbook? I don't particularly want to break into my macbook to disconnect the hard drive (I read on a tutorial for a previous version of Ubuntu that I'd have to do that... - does it still apply to 11.04?) - as it voids the warranty (I checked ).The reason I ask this is because I had a friend who partitioned their internal hard drive and installed Ubuntu on it. But after installation was complete they couldn't boot up Windows 7 or Ubuntu... and it resulted in them having to clean install Windows 7... - I don't want to end up in that situation
Second... If it is possible to install it without messing up my macbook... - Do I just follow the install instructions but just make sure that where possible I make sure that everything is installed on my external hard drive?...I really need someone to put my mind at rest that everything will run smoothly and that I'll be able to run Mac OS X as usual but also that I'll be able to boot from my external hard drive to run Ubuntu.
Because a lot of users are using laptops now, and many want externals hard drives for backups, is there a program in Ubuntu (cross-platform with Windows would be nice) that backs up files to an external hard drive when the external drive is plugged in or on a timely basis? All backup systems seem to have a timed system, but these systems have annoying pop ups if your backup location is non-existant (e.g. Deja Dup).
Use case 1: I plug in my external, the program recognizes that and starts a backup.
Use case 2: I leave my external in all day and every 6 hours, my laptop backs up my files to it.
i have installed fedora 14 with so many libraries ,development tools installed on my pc but i usually have to present some projects which can run on my system .........and can't be executed or compiled due to absence of libraries and tools there so, i there some way to so that i can use this current installation on my hard drive of my pc to some external media like external hard disk and plug and use that installation anywhere on any system..
I'm a newbie and can't get to linux on my external hard drive. I recently did a full install of Ubuntu 10.10 and am currenly running XP on my main drive. When I boot I can choose to go to my ext hard drive, which holds Ubuntu, but I'm stuck with a grub command line. What do I need to do to boot into Ubuntu from grub?
I was wondering if it were possible to run and boot Ubuntu off of an external hard drive, I have a Seagate Free Agent 1.5 Terabyte external hard drive, I formatted it to FAT32 but am willing to reformat if necessary. I just really want to be able to have Ubuntu to run off of an external hard drive.
I got a dell inspiron 1501 laptop with a 80Gb sata drive what is the best solution to add data storage space for someone that love to have multiples operating systems at hand Note: I use mostly linux so I won't need to change my laptop for many years maybe ...
I looked around on these forums and google and came to no solution so, I decided to make this thread. I'm using Windows XP and after I downloaded and tested out Ubuntu 9.10, I decided I'd like it as a second OS, can I install Ubuntu on my external hard drive (1TB)? would installing on an external hard drive take away the risks of losing data etc? If I installed Ubuntu on my external hard drive would it delete any files already on my hard drive?
is there a way to install Ubuntu -from- an external hard drive. For example, let's say, you have a complete Ubuntu system with everything (no need to download additional packages/softwrae/etc anymore) , but you can't use remastersys to create an ISO with it because it is way over 10GB in size. Much larger than any DVD you could burn that newly created ISO to.. (besides remastersys is limited to the size of a DVD-r anyways)
Maybe someone has tried this before? Someone has created a dedicated large hard drive that is essentially the same thing as a ubuntu installation usb flash drive, to boot from an then install Ubuntu onto another "new" hard drive? I think it would be nice to have a hard drive (external usb or even better, an internal hdd drive i could hot swap to each new computer I have that I wish to install it onto.. ) And I think it would be so much faster to install from a Sata internal HDD drive than a USB pendrive or a cd/dvd rom, right?
I've been using Ubuntu for a few weeks now, and I like it a lot, but when I used the automatic partitioning tool on my portable hard drive (where I was installing it, it was my first time) I accidentally allotted half of the 640 GB to Ubuntu. Much more than it needs, it's unable to be accessed by Windows now. (I wanted around 40 GB for Ubuntu. Still more than it needs, but not too cluttered.)
However, I can't figure out how to erase the partition from the drive. I tried going in with the Windows Vista Drive Manager (or whatever it's called, the one that lets you manage partitions) and couldn't erase the partition. (I don't think I'd have any problems converting the partition back and combining the pieces again after doing so to work from scratch.) Does anybody have any idea how to do this so I can reinstall Ubuntu properly?
Oh, and GRUB is on the portable as well, so I won't have trouble with Windows booting up afterward, it's the main booter. (When the portable HD isn't plugged in, my laptop just boots Windows without asking about Ubuntu.)
I have a Windows machine and a Linux machine with currently no hard drive. I have 250 GB external USB hard drive that I use on Windows with about 50GB of files on it. I want to install Ubuntu on it and share between Windows and Linux. I have Ubuntu on a CD that allows me to run Linux on the Linux machine. When I try to install Ubuntu on the external hard drive (from the Linux machine) it indicates that it will allocate about 98 GB for Ubuntu and 150 GB for files (with 50 GB of existing files). Then it says something about partitioning something (I think) that might take a long time. Does this mean that Ubuntu will take up all the free space on the hard drive? Does it also mean that when I connect the hard drive to the Windows machine, it will see two partitions when previously there was only one?
I have downloaded UBUNTU 10.04 and saved to external hard drive since I have no CD drive in my note book. I want to install it from external hard drive what is the command and how can I install it.
I tried to do this and something went wrong, and caused so much trouble that I decided I didn't want to do it at all. Then I changed my mind today, and decided I'll try again even after all that happened.
and i put grub on the one what was mounted to /boot.
but my problem is when i restart my computer it just starts up windows.
my external hard drive is on, i have it set to boot from removable storage or something like ehtat first. i forget what i just know that booting from my internal hard drive is set to last so it should boot from the external.
I originally had windows vista on my pc and then I installed ubuntu on a partition, then I decided that I wanted ubuntu to be installed on my external hard drive so that it can be run on any computer, so I installed linux on my external hard drive then I deleted the linux partitions on my internal hard drive, then to further complicate thing I decided that I wanted grub un-installed because it ran slow when reading off of a external hard drive and just use dell's normal boot selector so I inserted my vista cd and ran /fixmbr and /fixboot which deleted GRUB and returned the default booting into vista, now my problem is that when I try to run linux by using dell's boot devices options It won't run and says that 'there is no boot manager installed'. Is it possible to have ubuntu on a external hard drive so that it can be booted from any computer? if so, how can I do it?
my problem here in not 'how to install ubuntu on an external HDD' but the thing is that after installation,i play around a bit in ubuntu(install on my external HDD). ok,so the external HDD is connected through usb. My problem is ,is it safe to install ubuntu on it? As i am using an external HDD from : Western Digital Element 500GB, so when i shutdown ubuntu ,i hear(from the external HDD) a sound like a sudden stop,for example,when you are playing a movie from it then ,you just unplug it.It not the sound when you make a safe remove,then unplug it. i am worried as it may cause some problem to my external HDD over time. So ,tell me,do you think i can go on with this?
I have an external hard drive connected to my iMac. I have installed Ubuntu on unallocated space on my external, the first time I chose to put the bootloader on the external but when I booted up the computer and held the Option key it didn't recognize an OS to boot from.I am currently reinstalling Ubuntu but placing the bootloader on the internal hard drive hoping that the Mac boot menu will recognize an OS to boot from.
I tried doing a search and couldn't find anything relatively recent on the topic so here is my question.
I am fairly new to the linux world and am in the process of trying out a couple different distributions. I am doing this by installing them to an external hard drive. This allows me to test them out without affecting my main system in any way. I have already tried openSUSE and it installed with no problems. I am trying to install Ubuntu, however when the installation tries to install GRUB2 it fails asking me for a different location to install it to.
When installing I unhook all drives from the computer except for the dvd drive, usb drive I'm installing from, and the external hard drive I am trying to install Ubuntu to. I'm not sure what else may be of use.
I disconnect my internal Windows hard drive first. Then run the installer from the Desktop CD. Everything works great.This is approximately the steps I take: I reboot, everything is good. I reconnect my internal hard drive, boot to Windows, reboot back to Kubuntu, everything is still good. I run updates and follow the instructions of the Comprehensive Multimedia & Video Howto. I reboot again, still no problems. At this point, I figure everything is OK and I have no worries. I boot to Windows and do some work in that environment. The next time I boot to the external Kubuntu hard drive, I get the following errors:
Begin: Starting AppArmor profiles ... mount: mounting /sys on /root/sys failed: No such file or directory mount: mounting /dev on /root/dev failed: No such file or directory
My original intention was to install a distribution of Ubuntu onto an external hard drive so i can use it on different computers. I first downloaded and burned a copy of Ubuntu 10.10 and booted my Acer laptop to it. I then plugged in my external hard drive and tried to install ubuntu onto it by partitioning the external hard drive. After I did that, I booted from the external hard drive on my laptop and it ran the new distribution i created. However, when I tried to boot it from a different computer it said something like "partition not found." So the next time I tried to install ubuntu onto the external hard drive with out partitioning it, using the entire drive. This is what started to cause problems.
Now when I start up my laptop without the external hard drive plugged in i get "error: no such device: xxxx..... grub rescue>. When I start it up with the hard drive plugged in a grub comes up with the new installation, my old ubuntu installation, and my old windows vista.
I have got a 1TB USB hard drive, which I partitioned to be 500GB NTFS and on the other half I installed Debian 8.1.0. During graphical install I selected to install the bootloader not to the MBR but also to the external drive. After completing the installation I wanted to boot into Debian, but it just started Windows, which is installed on my internal. Even after choosing the USB drive in the boot menu, Windows booted. I later installed the bootloader to my internal, then I could boot into both Debian and Windows, but only if my hard drive was plugged in.
I have a 2TB external Hard drive that nonetheless is being used for booting Debian off of. I have downloaded the "debian-8.3.0-amd64-netinst.iso" and have extracted it to my external hard drive. The letter assigned to this drive is "I". When I shut it down and enter the boot settings, it asks me for a name and a path for a new boot option. I have tried many different paths including:
I renamed the original Debian download (debian-8.3.0-amd64-netinst.iso) to "debian" so I didn't have to type the long file name into the path. When I type in "I:debian.iso" as the path and restart it pops up with a grub prompt, in my mind that tells me that some part of the debian.iso file is corrupted.
Specs: Dual Core i5-3317U, 1.7 GHz, Turbo boosted 8GB RAM 1TB Internal Memory 64-bit OS and processor Windows 8.1 Default OS
I have Ubuntu/Vista dual boot desktop with Single HDD (200GB) that i cloned to an external USB HDD (320GB) using clonezilla. My intention is to use the external HDD as a backup to up running in case my 3 year old desktop HDD fails. To make sure the clone is good to use if need, i connected external HDD to USB port and tried boot from it but got "Error 18". I tried to Google got some infoDid a fdisk -lu and got the following.
Code: Disk /dev/sda: 200.0 GB, 200049647616 bytes 255 heads, 63 sectors/track, 24321 cylinders, total 390721968 sectors
