Can you install linux on an external hard drive

To run Ubuntu, boot the computer with the USB plugged in. The boot menu on the usb will show you both Ubuntu on the external drive and Windows on the internal drive. Windows 10 along with versions of 8 and 8.

However, you can do this without needing an Enterprise edition of Windows. The computer will boot so you can see the Post Screen. Insert your external drive that you are going to install Kali on to such as my 1TB USB3 drive into a machine, along with the installation media you just created. When we install Ubuntu This will prevent you from overwriting the master boot record on your hard drive.

If you do this by accident, it's easily fixed. You should still be booted from your Ubuntu Installation media thumb drive. Close GParted and then double click on the Install Ubuntu Choose your language settings, and optionally install third-party drivers.

Go ahead now and install Ubuntu As previously mentioned, the Ubuntu If so, there are two remaining tasks. First, we need to correctly install the Grub bootloader onto the boot partition of our external portable drive - turning it into a truly portable installation. You can check to see if any of this applies to you by rebooting your computer WITH the new external drive plugged in - but selecting your computers primary disk not the external disk to boot from. Replace the 'uuid of your media' text below with the uuid in your system.

Save and close the file. Next we load efivars. And now after all that, we're ready to install Grub. As Nicholas Dionysopoulos says in his excellent post " When you have an external drive it is critical that you use the —removable option in the last step. Normally this not supposed to be used for permanently installed Operating Systems. Reboot and choose your Windows installation to boot. I now have a confession to make. I must have tried four or five different methods for removing the Grub dual boot configuration from my Windows 10 machine, including creating a full recovery media thumb drive and booting from it in recovery mode and attempting several commands I'd seen documented elsewhere.

If anyone knows of the correct way to do this, please leave a comment below! Reboot your computer again, and your Windows installation should 'just start' as before - without any prompts from Grub or any sign of 'dual boot'.

Can't you just disable the internal hardrive when installing ubuntu to avoid it installing grub on the main hardrive? Hi Steve, yes that's an option if it can be done easily, either in BIOS or by unplugging the drive - but I believe you still need the special 'removable' option set when installing Grub. I've just updated the post. Yes thx that -B worked well. Did all the steps from E again and got it now. Hi, thank you for your awesome tutorial.

I just want to ask and confirm that is it the same for the non-UEFI system? I have followed exactly each step except that I have installed Ubuntu Also, when I try to boot on the external ssd, I end up in the same grub window as on the thumb drive: it does not boot on my ubuntu sessions freshly created.

There's no harm in assigning a drive letter to it, and then checking to see of the EFI directory exists - in which case it absolutely is the ESP partition. Also even with the portable driving containing Grub, it will still boot to a Grub menu first - although it's Grub from the portable drive, and not the system drive. Thanks for a great guide! Hi Itamar. I suspect this can be made to work, since most systems will still boot from an MBR disk I believe, although I might be wrong. Firstly, thanks for this.

I'm not the most tech savvy person, but I can follow a guide like a pro. I've seem to hit a wall though. Section D, double clicking on fat32 and selecting, use as efi partition isnt an option. I went back into gparted, deleted and recreated, changed the flags, etc etc. Still nothing. Others would be our USB and hard drive. You can easily find your external drive by checking the size. There is no need to change the size.

Set your location and then enter your name, device name, and set password to begin installation on an external drive. Now, you can remove the bootable USB because that is no required. Reboot your device and again enter in the BIOS. Select the storage drive that contains the Ubuntu from the boot menu of the system. Having Ubuntu on an external device has a number of advantages. First, it saves a lot of your internal storage, and there are fewer chances of it messing up with the other files.

Second, you will no longer be limited to the storage size of your internal hard drive. This write-up covers a complete procedure of installing Ubuntu on an external hard disk in three steps. Ubuntu from an external hard drive can be booted from the BIOS menu.