Comments on: A much easier way to install Ubuntu on a USB device (Stick or HD)!

By: David

David — Fri, 28 Oct 2011 13:20:13 +0000

This looks just great. But we are now on Ubuntu Oneiric (11.10). Do you have an updated version of this, which takes acount of the foibles of this new distro?

By: Guest

Guest — Wed, 04 May 2011 15:37:39 +0000

The location and manner of menu.lst has changed as far as I can tell.

The following documentation gives more info on how to set up a custom doc entry:

https://help.ubuntu.com/community/Grub2#Custom%20Menu%20Entries

By: Tom

Tom — Sun, 03 Apr 2011 07:27:40 +0000

The new versions of ubuntu uses the new GRUB2. you will not find menu.lst. GRUB2 changed everything around. i tried many fixes on the internet and none of them worked for my usb hdd..Tho..Pclinuxos worked the first time..go figure…Perhaps it can be added to the install progams so the installer will know its a usb hdd and configure it correctly…time will tell..very good info in usb hdd installs..works on older versions..thanks..

By: xsd

xsd — Tue, 02 Nov 2010 12:05:03 +0000

Nice tut!
May I ask some question? How to print your guide to a pdf file? I use Ubuntu and cuppdf.
Thank you!

By: Mattia

Mattia — Fri, 15 Oct 2010 14:32:43 +0000

Sorry but i’m new in Linux and i don’t understand how to open The menu.lst from The terminal… Thank you

By: Kevin

Kevin — Tue, 22 Jun 2010 06:54:15 +0000

Oh, and I’m also using Lucid Lynx (10.04)

By: Kevin

Kevin — Tue, 22 Jun 2010 06:53:51 +0000

Hey,

I’m new to Linux and am trying Ubuntu, and I love it! I was able to install it to my USB, but only a trial version which doesn’t keep changes after rebooting. I’m also using an 8GB flash drive.

Is this tutorial explaining how to make a FULLY OPERATION Ubuntu on my flash drive? Because I need that.

By: Karolinger

Karolinger — Sat, 20 Feb 2010 21:51:01 +0000

I successfully installed Ubuntu 9.10 to my usb flash drive cd without changing anything afterwards by disconnecting my hard disk drive before booting from the live cd and starting the installation. I did manually made partitions in different sizes for boot, root, swap and home because my usb flash drive isn’t very large (16 GB). After the installation finished I just reconnected my HD drive. But, of course if you don’t want or can’t open/close your computer’s case and manually handle HD connections, this an excellent and simple tutorial.

By: Zurab

Zurab — Sat, 09 Jan 2010 21:57:42 +0000

hi!

My internal hdd has been spoilt, and before I get new one I decided to install my ubuntu 9.10 on my toshiba 400gb external usb hdd. So, i have many information on that and diceded to make one additional ext4 partition and one swap partition(also there is main ntfs part of hdd). I have installed ubuntu like you are saying with one exception, I did it on the second free partition with ext4 file system. After rebooting it does not loads, while bios supports usb booting. so I am following next steps until i need to open menu.lst file and there is a problem, there is no such file at all. not in the cd and not on the hdd. what should I do? I am looking for solution for several days and nothing helps. please sugest something that might work?

If it has any minning(i do not know exactly) I have AMD triple-core proccesor.

By: skipx

skipx — Fri, 01 Jan 2010 15:27:44 +0000

So what to do now with Karmic Koala? Are there no solutions?
Best,
Bart

By: BodybuilderJason1987

BodybuilderJason1987 — Tue, 15 Dec 2009 21:00:46 +0000

Thanks! I have been searching for this information all day now. My computer is not running like it should and I need to figure out how to fix it quickly. I have bookmarked your post so others can find it to on reddit.

By: Luís

Luís — Wed, 18 Nov 2009 11:22:40 +0000

Hi again,

I managed to install Ubuntu to an USB disk folloing this tutorial, but with Jakalope (9.04). This tutorial doesn’t work for Koala (9.10).

With Jakalope the menu.lst file doesn’t need to be updated, only the device.map, changing the hd0 entry to the usb disk (e.g. sdb or sdc).

This tutorial will also work if the instalation is made to a specific disk partition, without using the whole disk.

Regards.

By: Luís

Luís — Mon, 16 Nov 2009 17:08:58 +0000

Hi,

This tutorial looks good, but it is not working for me, there’s no menu.lst file in the /grub/boot directory. Actually there’s no file menu.* there. Possibly because of this, the disk I formatted following this tutorial failed to boot.

Another thing I note is that line 11 on the second part will only work if there’s a single hdd beyond the usb disk.

Regards.

By: Abhigyan

Abhigyan — Tue, 30 Jun 2009 23:08:09 +0000

Just installed Jaunty Jackalope and it happened without any hiccups. I didn’t get any Grub related issues on my first boot from my USB HDD.

By: Antonio

Antonio — Tue, 19 May 2009 06:59:28 +0000

I installed Kubuntu Jaunty yesterday on a 320GB USB HD. In accordance with suggestions from other guides found on-line, before starting I physically removed the internal HD, in order not to risk anything on the existing Windows XP (that I can’t touch).

I just followed the normal installation steps as per your guide but in step 9 I deviated from your suggestion and selected manual partition (the disk was seen as /dev/sda). I partitioned in the following way:

A) 30GB ext4 for “/”
B) 160 GB ext4 for “/home” (I find very useful a separate /home partition)
C) 2GB for swap
D) 120 GB Fat32.

Please note that I went through step12 but the installer by itself proposed already Grub on /dev/sda. Very smart !!

Once the installation was complete I rebooted and all was perfect. No need of any manual editing of any file (no tricks necessary). Grub already perfect…

Finally I reinstalled the internal HD and verified that:

1. if boot without connecting the USB disk, Windows XP starts, untouched, exactly as before

2. if boot with the USB connected my Kubuntu starts perfectly.

Thanks

By: re3e

re3e — Wed, 06 May 2009 03:00:53 +0000

well tried on 2 keys a 16Gb and a 4Gb kinsgston traveller , 16G crashes in the setup (same on 2 diff keys of the same 16Gb model ) but is flawless on the 4Gb , not even a grub mod needed , setup was done with jaunty and intrepid

By: Jaystone

Jaystone — Thu, 30 Apr 2009 01:56:44 +0000

Dude! you are a freakin genius. I’ve been trying to figure this out for two days. I’ve tried evrybody on the internets hairbrained ideas. I knew I just needed to edit the grub config files. I just couldnt figure out exactly how. Now I can run Ubuntu 9.04 on my work laptop and bypass all their encryption, monitoring and protection bs, without changing one bit on the hard drive. Thanks

By: joey_oggie

joey_oggie — Wed, 01 Apr 2009 22:00:50 +0000

I followed everything quite good untill the 6th step. I don’t have a “root” line.

QUOTE
title ….
uuid ….
kernel ….
initrd ….
quiet ….

title ….
uuid ….
kernel ….
initrd ….

title ….
uuid ….
kernel ….
quiet ….
/QUOTE
I am using Ubuntu 8.10 btw.

By: snipercup

snipercup — Mon, 23 Feb 2009 18:36:27 +0000

Hi,

Same as martin benson, i installed easy peasy (eeebuntu) on a packerd bell easynote PB47R01086. Its based on ubuntu 8.10 (other than what was used in this tutorial) and doesnt use the root reference. It just has a UUID=r2329jf92-4f42f-g35gr-34tg5-4g4324ffdg name for the harddisk.

I get the following:
title easy peasy 1.0, kernel 2.6.27-8-eeepc
uuid r2329jf92-4f42f-g35gr-34tg5-4g4324ffdg
kernel /boot/vmlinuz-2.6.27-8-eeepc root=UUID=r2329jf92-4f42f-g35gr-34tg5-4g4324ffdg RO quiet single
initrd /boot/initrd.img-2.6.27-8-eeepc
quiet

im testing it out right now, i already installed it on my eeepc900 (where im typing this from) and i like it.

By: Martin Benson

Martin Benson — Thu, 12 Feb 2009 18:24:18 +0000

Just to let you know I used these instructions to install eeebuntu (NBR) on a usb hard drive attached to an Aspire One. It just worked, straight out of the box. Didn't even need the magic tricks from steps 7 to 12 at the end. I've changed the boot order to boot off the USB disk first. So now, if I have the USB disk plugged in, it gives me a menu to boot either eeebuntu or the standard linpus; if I don't have it plugged in, it just boots normally. Great!