Installation on USB to Avoid Dead Hard Drive

[yizrahomme]

Hi,
I have a Toshiba NB200 on which the hard drive is dead. The other week, I went camping with my monstruous Toshiba Satellite whatever, and although it was a great use, the weight put me off.

So I considered buying a new hard drive for the little NB200, and then had the 'bright idea' of using a USB version of Linux. All I want the netbook for is to write a blog, and that can be done in vim, using persistent mode on the USB stick with, say 500 MB reserved for files, right?

I got the i386 ISO of Xubuntu, and used the Universal USB Installer on my office Windows laptop. Creation of the stick went well, and when I boot the aforementioned work laptop off it, it goes to the Ubuntu Live, with the option of 'trying Ubuntu', or 'installing Ubuntu'.

When I try the same boot on my netbook, I get the blue Ubuntu screen for ages, and when I hit ESC, it reveals 'can't umount /cdrom: device busy'.

But there isn't a CDROM drive on that netbook.

Anyone got an idea as to how I can get it to boot off the stick?

Thanks.

[PowerBarry43]

Hi.

I'm pretty sure this is a bug with the image you have.

here's an enormous thread on the problem:
http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=1443231&page=18

post 176 lists a solution.

From what I read, the gist is this. Download and install ubuntu minimal to the usb stick.

https://help.ubuntu.com/community/Installation/MinimalCD

This will be a full install not a liveusb so make sure when installing you put the bootloader on the usb stick too.

Build your image from there starting with.


sudo apt-get install ubuntu-desktop

Hope this helps!

Barry

[yizrahomme]

Hi.

I'm pretty sure this is a bug with the image you have.

here's an enormous thread on the problem:
http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=1443231&page=18

post 176 lists a solution.

From what I read, the gist is this. Download and install ubuntu minimal to the usb stick.

https://help.ubuntu.com/community/Installation/MinimalCD

This will be a full install not a liveusb so make sure when installing you put the bootloader on the usb stick too.

Build your image from there starting with.


sudo apt-get install ubuntu-desktop

Hope this helps!

Barry

Hi there,
Thank you very much for this, I'm about to try your solution.

Just one note: I'm not trying to 'install' the OS to a hard drive, as the hard drive on that netbook is dead. I want to keep it on the USB stick.

Off to try now ...

[yizrahomme]

Hi.

I'm pretty sure this is a bug with the image you have.

here's an enormous thread on the problem:
http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=1443231&page=18

post 176 lists a solution.

From what I read, the gist is this. Download and install ubuntu minimal to the usb stick.

https://help.ubuntu.com/community/Installation/MinimalCD

This will be a full install not a liveusb so make sure when installing you put the bootloader on the usb stick too.

Build your image from there starting with.


sudo apt-get install ubuntu-desktop

Hope this helps!

OK, well I think the problem is with the netbook, rather than with the image or the USB stick.

I just tried with Fedora 18 (or is it 1.8..?), and on the netbook, had a similar error about I/O. On my office laptop, it booted with no problem.

Too bad. Looks like the hard drive of the netbook will be getting acquainted with the business end of a Philips screwdriver this evening, before going to the big trash can in the sky.

Thanks anyway.

[yizrahomme]

Right, well another update. I got the hard drive compartment open (even though I basically had to rip it off, since I had no screwdriver that would fit), and after removing the hard drive, the image suddenly started to work.

All I have to do now is duct tape a piece of stiff card over the WLAN adaptor, and I have a working Linux netbook. :)