Walter_Scott
April 5th, 2016, 03:23 AM
Hey folks,
I have an external hard drive, wanted to create something like a "ubuntu live usb"-partition. I found some solutions in the web, but i actually want to access "ubuntu live" via a grub entry, since i also want to install a working ubuntu version on that hard disk (and to be ambitious, i wanted to install also a win 7 recovery option, but this is not that important).
I have a partition table with MBR and the following partitions:
sdb1 420 GB NTFS, primary
sdb2 5 GB Ext4, primary boot
sdb3 25 GB NTFS, primary
sdb4 50 GB Ext4, primary
I tried to do it with the "Startup Disk Creator", but he does not recognize the partitions (and i put the "boot"-flag to sdb2 with GParted).
So my first question is, is there a way to put a live ubuntu on sdb2, a recovery windows on sdb3 and a running ubuntu on sdb4?
I did not find any answers to that, so I thought about the option of placing an ubuntu iso file in a ubuntu version on sdb4, and creating a grub entry pointing to that iso.
So I installed ubuntu 14.04. amd64 on sdb4 and installed also grub.
I followed instructions of this link:
http://www.howtogeek.com/196933/how-to-boot-linux-iso-images-directly-from-your-hard-drive/
in particular i added the following lines
menuentry “Ubuntu 14.04 ISO” {
set isofile=”/home/name/Downloads/ubuntu-14.04.1-desktop-amd64.iso”
loopback loop (hd1,4)$isofile
linux (loop)/casper/vmlinuz.efi boot=casper iso-scan/filename=${isofile} quiet splash
initrd (loop)/casper/initrd.lz
}
to the file /etc/grub.d/40_custom. I checked the locations of vmlnuz.efi and initrd.lz so these should be correct.
But when i run update-grub there comes an error message, saying that the syntax of these lines is incorrect.
I was thinking that maybe (hd1,4) is not correct, since its the entry of the grub on sdb, and this should be independent of the number if externals connected, so i took
(hd0,4) instead, and update-grub did not give me any errors. Than i tried to boot into the live usb partition,
and i got some errors:
/init:line 7: can't open /dev/sr0: No medium found
this line comes around 100 times. After 2 minutes he gives me some information about my hardware, and then he says
(initramfs) Unable to find a medium containing a live file system.
So
"Unable to find a medium containing a live file system", does this mean, the grub entry did not point correctly to the iso?
Or does it mean, that my computer did not manage to scan the external hard drive in a certain amount of time? I found some similar cases in the web, and some people wrote, that with more power (usb3.0) the problem did not appear. But this computer does not have a usb 3.0 port, and i would like to solve that independently of that.
Does the fact, that the iso file is placed in the end of my hard disk, influence my computer to find it? I didnt want to place the ubuntu system in the beginning, since i wanted to put there a ntfs partition for data, which is readable windows (i read that there are some problems, and windows does only recognize the first partition)
I read something about a boot partition, is this maybe going to solve this problem?
I know I could solve this situation by two usb sticks and a live cd. But i am curious about this, and i only have one usb stick, and i think this should be possible.
I have an external hard drive, wanted to create something like a "ubuntu live usb"-partition. I found some solutions in the web, but i actually want to access "ubuntu live" via a grub entry, since i also want to install a working ubuntu version on that hard disk (and to be ambitious, i wanted to install also a win 7 recovery option, but this is not that important).
I have a partition table with MBR and the following partitions:
sdb1 420 GB NTFS, primary
sdb2 5 GB Ext4, primary boot
sdb3 25 GB NTFS, primary
sdb4 50 GB Ext4, primary
I tried to do it with the "Startup Disk Creator", but he does not recognize the partitions (and i put the "boot"-flag to sdb2 with GParted).
So my first question is, is there a way to put a live ubuntu on sdb2, a recovery windows on sdb3 and a running ubuntu on sdb4?
I did not find any answers to that, so I thought about the option of placing an ubuntu iso file in a ubuntu version on sdb4, and creating a grub entry pointing to that iso.
So I installed ubuntu 14.04. amd64 on sdb4 and installed also grub.
I followed instructions of this link:
http://www.howtogeek.com/196933/how-to-boot-linux-iso-images-directly-from-your-hard-drive/
in particular i added the following lines
menuentry “Ubuntu 14.04 ISO” {
set isofile=”/home/name/Downloads/ubuntu-14.04.1-desktop-amd64.iso”
loopback loop (hd1,4)$isofile
linux (loop)/casper/vmlinuz.efi boot=casper iso-scan/filename=${isofile} quiet splash
initrd (loop)/casper/initrd.lz
}
to the file /etc/grub.d/40_custom. I checked the locations of vmlnuz.efi and initrd.lz so these should be correct.
But when i run update-grub there comes an error message, saying that the syntax of these lines is incorrect.
I was thinking that maybe (hd1,4) is not correct, since its the entry of the grub on sdb, and this should be independent of the number if externals connected, so i took
(hd0,4) instead, and update-grub did not give me any errors. Than i tried to boot into the live usb partition,
and i got some errors:
/init:line 7: can't open /dev/sr0: No medium found
this line comes around 100 times. After 2 minutes he gives me some information about my hardware, and then he says
(initramfs) Unable to find a medium containing a live file system.
So
"Unable to find a medium containing a live file system", does this mean, the grub entry did not point correctly to the iso?
Or does it mean, that my computer did not manage to scan the external hard drive in a certain amount of time? I found some similar cases in the web, and some people wrote, that with more power (usb3.0) the problem did not appear. But this computer does not have a usb 3.0 port, and i would like to solve that independently of that.
Does the fact, that the iso file is placed in the end of my hard disk, influence my computer to find it? I didnt want to place the ubuntu system in the beginning, since i wanted to put there a ntfs partition for data, which is readable windows (i read that there are some problems, and windows does only recognize the first partition)
I read something about a boot partition, is this maybe going to solve this problem?
I know I could solve this situation by two usb sticks and a live cd. But i am curious about this, and i only have one usb stick, and i think this should be possible.