ubuntu wont boot

[mackubex]

hi,
ive been using ubuntu as dual os on my laptop(dell) alongside windows last 6 months.

yest i deleted da ubuntu from my laptop nd installed it on a120GB external harddrive.

it works fine ...

but wen i transfer the harddrive to another laptop (toshiba) wen i try to boot into ubuntu ... after 5 mins da prog gives an error and says /boot wasnt found ...

ive made da followin partitions on da harddrive
/
/boot
swap
/home

also hv loaded GRUB onto da External hardrive ....

plz help .. i dont hv mobility this way !!!

im doin this coz im tryin to learn python so i need my comp system wid me at all times.. dont wanna carry my home comp everywhere !!!

[yancek]

There are several options when installing Grub. To the master boot record of the primary drive, to the master boot record of an external drive, to the root (system) partition of a drive, to a separate /boot partition on a drive. From the output you posted, it doesn't seem as though you have installed Grub to the master boot record of the external drive you are using.

Which release version of Ubuntu do you have?
What is the exact error message you get?

[mackubex]

There are several options when installing Grub. To the master boot record of the primary drive, to the master boot record of an external drive, to the root (system) partition of a drive, to a separate /boot partition on a drive. From the output you posted, it doesn't seem as though you have installed Grub to the master boot record of the external drive you are using.

Which release version of Ubuntu do you have?
What is the exact error message you get?

yes i hv loaded grub2 into the MBR of the external harddrive .........

coz that i where i assumed it was supposed to go .

when i boot ubuntu . i get the purple page .. with ubuntu on it .. and da 4 dots lightin up ... but it doesnt go any further than that ,,.

on pressing the enter or esc key it takes me to a command line screen layout .. where i am told a serious error has occured and ubuntu could not find da /boot

i am using ubuntu maverick : 10.04

the ubuntu however works fine wen i boot into it using the computer i used to create the external harddrive linux !!

[Toadbrooks]

yes i hv loaded grub2 into the MBR of the external harddrive .........

Even if you did create the MBR correctly, once you moved the disks around, you changed their identifiers. Say the external drive is sdc. Once you made it the primary drive, it became sda, but the MBR is still looking for ubuntu on sdc.

[mackubex]

so wot do i do now ??????????the ext drive is sdb ,,,, on my dell (da comp i used to install it)
also since i jus needed to use this linux to learn python ... the ext drive is partitioned into 2 drives ,....
the 1st one is ntfs formatted ,,,
the second one is wot ive used for ubuntu

[Toadbrooks]

I can't tell for sure what you want to do ...

You said you used one machine, presumably a desktop, to load ubuntu onto an external hard drive. Then you put the external hard drive into a laptop, yes?

So, why not put ubuntu on the laptop drive directly? You can't swap drives around and expect the boot process to search for and find where you moved the ubuntu drive to.

If you are missing a cdrom to install from, I suggest burning the installation set to a flash drive and installing that way. You can get instructions for building a bootable flash drive from the download page on the ubuntu web site.

[mackubex]

yes , i used a desktop ,(i purchased it from dell)
to load ubuntu into an external harddrive ...........coz if linux cud work from a flash drive .. it damn well cud work from an external harddrive .........

i dont want to put ubuntu into da laptop directly .. coz i dont travel wid da same laptop evrywhere.

i use a load of diff computers at work, etc .// so a common ubuntu bootin from an external harddrive seened like da most logical answer to my predicament ...........

in my line of work i hv to keep moving to diff office locations (depending on da need of each branch)

so i wud like to hv a single harddrive to boot ubuntu from wid all my personal settings ... nd also i need this so i can practice learnin python ......!!

[yancek]

Attach the external drive to the machine you used to install it.
Put your Ubuntu install CD in the drive and boot the computer from the CD.
Open a terminal and run this command to get drive/partition information: sudo fdisk -l (lower case Letter L)
Create a mount point for the /boot partition on the external.
Mount that partition.
Go to the /boot/grub directory and post the grub.cfg file here along with the fdisk -l output.
You probably need to change the entry in the grub.cfg file on the external.

[dolo724]

Try Unetbootin to install to the "Live USB". Don't use the Startup Disk creator inside of Ubuntu, it's not as flexible.

[Toadbrooks]

OK, I'm getting closer to understanding exactly what you are trying to accomplish, even if you haven't explained it completely or why you want things this way. (Indicentally, however sexy it may be to use ebonics, nerd-bonics, or whatever you call the argot, you might get quicker and more complete responses if you dropped it when asking for help.)

So, what I think I understand is that you want ubuntu on an external. If you boot your laptop without the external, it boots to something else. (Mac OS, BeOS, XP, Vista, Win7, what?) But if you connect the external, you want it to boot ubuntu. Is that more or less correct?

If so, you have to understand that the boot resides in the MBR of the primary drive, what would be called sda in Linux or C: in windows. When you connect the external, it's not the primary drive, so the boot you loaded with ubuntu isn't the one being executed when you reboot the machine. Worse, the Windows boot process (which I am assuming you use if you don't have the external connected) isn't smart enough to recognize a linux boot partition.

What you need is GRUB installed on the primary hard drive on your laptop. GRUB will play nice with Windoze, which means you can still have windows as the bootable OS on your primary drive. But GRUB will allow you to have as many bootable partitions as you want, so you create one on sdb (the external) which boot ubuntu. Then when you reboot your computer, GRUB will ask you which one you want to boot from. If you don't have the external connected, you just wait and the primary will be selected.