How to turn my internal HD into a bootable external HD?

[woodfire]

Hi, I just upgraded my laptop hard disk and put the replaced into an enclosure to make it an external HD. It has Windows 7 and Ubuntu 12.04 installed on two separate partitions. I am wondering if it is possible to make this external HD bootable while still keep the Ubuntu system - I can boot into Ubuntu from the external HD.

Thanks,

[HalfNote5]

Hi, I just upgraded my laptop hard disk and put the replaced into an enclosure to make it an external HD. It has Windows 7 and Ubuntu 12.04 installed on two separate partitions. I am wondering if it is possible to make this external HD bootable while still keep the Ubuntu system - I can boot into Ubuntu from the external HD.

Thanks,

You can, but only if your BIOS supports booting from USB devices (though most do these days).

You'll need to mark your Windows partition as an "active" partition in the Disk Manager under Windows but I'm unsure how that'll affect the preinstalled Ubuntu.

What you may have to do is re-install on the external disk.

Also, Windows may BOOT from a USB but it DOES NOT want to install to it. Ubuntu will - I've done it several times for various reasons.

[TheFu]

I would add that if the enclosure or PC connection is only USB2, then the performance will suffer, badly. It is good enough in a pinch/emergency, but not good enough for daily use, IMHO.

USB3 or eSATA would be as fast as an internal connection. eSATA behaves just like an internal SATA connection - highly recommended. eSATA rocks in the way that ssh, rsync, and fire rock.

I've had performance issues with USB3 devices - this could be settings or hardware problems or bus contention. I don't know, but when more than 3 requests are made to the same USB3 device, all the requests seem to get stuck for 20-30 seconds.

[woodfire]

Thanks a lot.

I know how to install Ubuntu onto external HD and boot from that. My question was how to avoid re-installation, and just use the pre-installed ubuntu system as it was on "internal hard disk". I tried to search on the forum but didn't really find a related thread.



You can, but only if your BIOS supports booting from USB devices (though most do these days).

You'll need to mark your Windows partition as an "active" partition in the Disk Manager under Windows but I'm unsure how that'll affect the preinstalled Ubuntu.

What you may have to do is re-install on the external disk.

Also, Windows may BOOT from a USB but it DOES NOT want to install to it. Ubuntu will - I've done it several times for various reasons.

[C.S.Cameron]

Have you tried booting Ubuntu from the external drive as is?
It should work.

[woodfire]

I tried but the hard disk is not bootable. I did some research but it seems that it requires formatting to make the external hard disk bootable- I don't want to format the whole disk and reinstall ubuntu over over again.

I believe there must be someone who can help me out from this forum. :popcorn:


Have you tried booting Ubuntu from the external drive as is?
It should work.

[oldfred]

As C.S.Cameron said, if it booted from the internal, it should boot from the external. But your BIOS does have to support booting from external drives.

To see what is where run the Bootinfo report:

Boot Repair:
https://help.ubuntu.com/community/Boot-Repair
You can repair many boot issues with this or 'Create BootInfo' report (Other Options) & post the link it creates, so we can see your exact configuration.

[woodfire]

unfortunately I had a problem with installation of boot-repair

sudo apt-get install -y boot-repair && boot-repair
Reading package lists... Done
Building dependency tree
Reading state information... Done
E: Unable to locate package boot-repair



As C.S.Cameron said, if it booted from the internal, it should boot from the external. But your BIOS does have to support booting from external drives.

To see what is where run the Bootinfo report:

Boot Repair:
https://help.ubuntu.com/community/Boot-Repair
You can repair many boot issues with this or 'Create BootInfo' report (Other Options) & post the link it creates, so we can see your exact configuration.

[oldfred]

Boot repair is not in the UBuntu repository. You have to add its repository before trtrying to install it.


sudo add-apt-repository ppa:yannubuntu/boot-repair && sudo apt-get update

[HalfNote5]

Also, as an added measure, maybe check the partition's boot flags using gparted.

Also, when you boot your machine, it might have USB boot capability, but it may not be ENABLED by default in the BIOS to use USB devices under normal boot sequence.

Try, instead, using your manual boot menu (usually either f12 or f9) on startup, and specifying your USB device.

Also, I have a few new Acers that I love very much, but their mistake in pre-loaded settings is frustrating: they have the f12 boot menu disabled, and you have to enable it in the BIOS and THEN use it. ; )

Cheers!

[woodfire]

I did run that line before, it was fine though.

Boot repair is not in the UBuntu repository. You have to add its repository before trtrying to install it.


sudo add-apt-repository ppa:yannubuntu/boot-repair && sudo apt-get update