9.10 will not install on USB Drive or upgrade from 9.04

[rymanj]

I have two external USB Drives, a 100GB one and a 120GB.

I run Ubuntu 9.04 with no fixed hard drives attached using the 100GB USB Drive.
I have no issues what so ever with this configuration.

When installing I simply had no fixed hard drives attached.
Plugged in the 100GB USB Drive. Booted from the Ubuntu 9.04 CD and pointed to the 100GB USB Drive to perform the install on. After install completed removed the Ubuntu 9.04 CD. Booted from the 100GB USB Drive and Ubuntu 9.04 was up and running.

Had been running Ubuntu 9.04 off the 100GB USB Drive for months with no fixed hard drives attached for months with no issues.

Then Ubuntu 9.10 was available. So I upgraded.
After upgrade completed when it booted all kinds of errors displayed and it would not function at all.
So I simply reinstalled from the Ubuntu 9.04 CD as described above. Was up and running on Ubuntu 9.04 again with no issues.

Then I went ahead and bought a 120GB USB Drive to experiment with Ubuntu 9.10.
Booted with the Ubuntu 9.10 CD and installed to the 120GB USB Drive with no fixed hard drives attached. During the install there are no issues.
But once I try to boot from the 120GB USB Drive with Ubuntu 9.10 once again all kinds of errors are displayed and it just won’t function.

Ubuntu 9.04 will run on a USB Drive with no fixed hard drives attached. (Been doing this for months) I have also done this with prior versions of Ubuntu.

So what is the difference between Ubuntu 9.04 and Ubuntu 9.10 that would cause this?

In the future when there is a new release of Ubuntu will it support run on a USB Drive with no fixed hard drives attached?

Or am I stuck with running Ubuntu 9.04 if I want to continue running Ubuntu on a USB Drive with no fixed hard drives attached?

BTW: My 100GB USB Drive still has Ubuntu 9.04 installed in it. My system is continuing to run like a champ with Ubuntu 9.04 with no fixed hard drives attached using the 100GB USB Drive.

Let me know if anybody has any ideas or suggestions and if anyone knows if a future version of Ubuntu will support what I am doing.

[dabl]

In thinking about the differences between 9.04 and 9.10 that might be relevant to booting, the first thing I think of is Grub 2. It's not obvious why Grub 2 would have trouble with a setup that was not a problem for legacy Grub but ... maybe.

There have also been some changes in the Linux boot process, designed to speed it up. I believe they fall under the term "evdev", but I'm not a computer scientist. Possibly the "speedup" has compromised the timing of things, via the USB interface, in a manner not observed on conventional internal hard drives. Just guessing here.

If I had that situation, I might try some experiments to see if I could learn more about the behavior on that USB drive:

- Grab a daily build image of Lucid, from here;

http://cdimage.ubuntu.com/daily-live/current/

Burn a Live CD, install on the USB hard drive, and see if things are any different.


- Boot a 9.04 Live CD (or any other Linux Live CD that uses legacy grub), and set up legacy grub on the USB hard drive, after 9.10 is installed:


grub> root (hdx,0)
grub> setup (hdx)
grub> quit

where "x" is the "hd_" number corresponding to the /dev/sd_ number of the USB drive on your working computer

[rymanj]

I attempted to use “Ubuntu 10.04 LTS (Lucid Lynx) Alpha 2” as described above.
Had the same results as with Ubuntu 9.10.

First it returns the splash screen followed by the below error with the # changing, many many times.

EXT4 – fserror (device sdb1): ext4_find_entry: reading directory #5118610 offset 0

There were some other similar errors and I could see it was failing exactly as prior so I just powered down.

Is the error message descriptive enough above to tell what is going on?
Can I provide any more information?

[rymanj]

There have been no more responces on this.

Where do I question if this is going to be addressed in "Ubuntu 10.04 LTS - the Lucid Lynx - released in April 2010 "?