Installing on an external Hard drive.

**killpotts** · 03-09-2009

Hey all, I am having troubles figuring out exactly how to install Ubuntu onto an external Hard drive. The internal Hard drive of this machine is pretty much dead. Ubuntu is capable of detecting it, but cannot mount it.

I have a 160 GB External, which is currently connected as "sdb1" and has one large partition on it.

The two partitions on the internal HD are listed as sda1, and sda2.

My problem happens on step 4 of Ubuntu 8.10 installation. It is only detecting the sda1 and sda2 to be partitioned ( which I know will not work, since that hard drive is busted. I have to wait until I get my new one in the mail, which I will likely just install windows XP on anyways. ) and does not detect the external drive as a possible selection ? Seems kind of odd since my external drive is the only one that I can mount and explore files on.

My questions are these:

1. Do I need to do something with sdb1 with Gparted ? All of the data on this external is backed up on a different drive, so I do not mind if it gets deleted. The only option I get ( as in, not disabled ) for sdb1 is "create partition table". Do I need to do something here ?

and

2. I tried this before with a different problem, namely Grub error 21. What can I do to prevent Grub from trying to default install to the main ( internal ) HD and instead pointing to sdb1 ? I really don't want to go through fixing Grub errors again, and would like Grub to just point to the external right away. ( Btw, the name for this external HD is "OMEGA_ZEN" )

**rokytnji** · 03-09-2009

1. Do I need to do something with sdb1 with Gparted ? All of the data on this external is backed up on a different drive, so I do not mind if it gets deleted. The only option I get ( as in, not disabled ) for sdb1 is "create partition table". Do I need to do something here ?

You need to flag your External Drive as a Bootable Partition. You'll probably have to unplug the trashed Hardrive because it probably is also flagged as a bootable partition and you'll get a conflict with it plugged in.

This tutorial might be of a great help to you also.

Ubuntu 8.04 USB Hard Drive or Flash Drive install | USB Pen Drive Linux

**killpotts** · 03-09-2009

I flagged the external Hard drive as "boot" in Gparted but it still won't show up at step 4. I'm getting the dead 80GB HD every time. The external hard drive is currently a fat32, Is there anything I can do in Gparted to change this ? I heard from somewhere else that I need to change it to ext3, is this correct ?

**killpotts** · 03-09-2009

Ok, new problem. I have gotten as far as changing the partition to ext3 in Gparted, and the install is now capable of seeing the external HD at step 4, but now it crashes at step 6 of the installation ( at the 5% mark ) and generates a crash report. I have absolutely no idea how to view the crash report. It just says "crash report detected, click on the notification icon to display details" but clicking on the notification icon instead just causes it to disappear with no kind of crash report being displayed.

Specifically, it says:

Code:

-Installing system-
"Partitions Formatting"

||||5%

creating ext3 file system for / in partition #1 of SCSI6 (0,0,0)

about 6 minutes later, it crashes. It seems to have done SOMETHING as when I open my external up in Gparted it now shows 2 additional partitions on the external drive: sdb2 ( extended ) and sdb5 ( linux swap )

*I believe SCSI6 is what it calls my external HD

Any ideas ?

**devils casper** · 03-09-2009

Boot up from Ubuntu LiveCD and execute this

Code:

sudo fdisk -l

Post output here.

* Its small L in fdisk -l.

Does your machine's BIOS support booting up from External Device? There is no need to set Boot Flag of any partition for Linux.

**killpotts** · 03-09-2009

Here are the results of fdisk

Code:

Disk /dev/sda: 80.0 GB, 80026361856 bytes
255 heads, 63 sectors/track, 9729 cylinders
Units = cylinders of 16065 * 512 = 8225280 bytes
Disk identifier: 0x3c9e3c9d

   Device Boot      Start         End      Blocks   Id  System
/dev/sda1   *         767        9729    71995297+   7  HPFS/NTFS
/dev/sda2               1         766     6152863+   b  W95 FAT32

Partition table entries are not in disk order

Disk /dev/sdb: 160.0 GB, 160041885696 bytes
255 heads, 63 sectors/track, 19457 cylinders
Units = cylinders of 16065 * 512 = 8225280 bytes
Disk identifier: 0x000065c7

   Device Boot      Start         End      Blocks   Id  System
/dev/sdb1               1       18702   150223783+  83  Linux
/dev/sdb2           18703       19457     6064537+   5  Extended
/dev/sdb5           18703       19457     6064506   82  Linux swap / Solaris

And yes, this machine supports USB ( External device ) booting

**devils casper** · 03-10-2009

First of all, I would suggest you not to waste Harddisk space. 10-15GB is enough for Ubuntu.
Boot up from Ubuntu LiveCD and open GParted Partition Manager. Delete all partitions of /dev/sdb disk and create new.

/dev/sdb1 - Primary - NTFS for data sharing.
/dev/sdb2 - Extended Partition
/dev/sdb5 - Logical Partition, ext3, 10-15GB
/dev/sdb6 - Logical, SWAP, 512MB

You can create 15 Partitions.

Disable Internal Harddisk in BIOS before starting Ubuntu Installation. Start installation and select Manual Partitioning in Partition Section. Assign / mount point to ext3 partition. Installer will detect SWAP itself.

Do let us know how it goes. Good Luck !!

**killpotts** · 03-10-2009

Unfortunatly, despite that fact that I went into advanced and made sure GRUB was to be installed on the external, it still failed anywayy and I get a Grub error 21 when I attempt to boot from USB ( go figure. )

So....Grub 21 again ! Hooray !

So now I am back in the live CD trying to figure out how to fix grub.

This is what I tried:

Code:

ubuntu@ubuntu:~$ sudo -s
root@ubuntu:~# fdisk -l

Disk /dev/sda: 80.0 GB, 80026361856 bytes
255 heads, 63 sectors/track, 9729 cylinders
Units = cylinders of 16065 * 512 = 8225280 bytes
Disk identifier: 0x3c9e3c9d

   Device Boot      Start         End      Blocks   Id  System
/dev/sda1   *         767        9729    71995297+   7  HPFS/NTFS
/dev/sda2               1         766     6152863+   b  W95 FAT32

Partition table entries are not in disk order

Disk /dev/sdb: 160.0 GB, 160041885696 bytes
255 heads, 63 sectors/track, 19457 cylinders
Units = cylinders of 16065 * 512 = 8225280 bytes
Disk identifier: 0x000065c7

   Device Boot      Start         End      Blocks   Id  System
/dev/sdb1   *           1         305     2449881   83  Linux
/dev/sdb2             306       19457   153838440    5  Extended
/dev/sdb5           17901       19457    12506571   82  Linux swap / Solaris
/dev/sdb6             306       17180   135548374+  83  Linux
/dev/sdb7           17181       17900     5783368+  82  Linux swap / Solaris

Partition table entries are not in disk order
root@ubuntu:~# grub-install /dev/sdb1
Probing devices to guess BIOS drives. This may take a long time.
Could not find device for /boot: Not found or not a block device.

Not sure what I can do next to fix Grub.

Anything that can be done from the live CD ?

**devils casper** · 03-11-2009

Didn't you install Linux in existing Linux partitions? You have 2 set of Linux partitions ( / and SWAP ) now.

Anyways, try to re-install GRUB. Open Terminal and execute this

Code:

sudo grub

You will get a grub prompt, grub>
Execute this:

Code:

find /boot/grub/stage1

If you get "Error 15: File not found", try the following:

Code:

find /grub/stage1

Using this information, set the root device (fill in X,Y with whatever the find command returned):

Code:

root (hdX,Y)
setup (hd0)
quit

Reboot machine. Grub should be installed

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