Ubuntu 13.10 FlashDrive Install Issues

[trever2]

Hello all, I am 2 days new to this community and could use a lot of help figuring out how to install Ubuntu to my flash drive. I'll do my best to explain everything, and please be simple with terms since I am new. I'd rather know why something works/ doesn't work instead of just being told how to do it.

From the Beginning:
Okay, so my laptop's hard drive recently died =( so I decided that in the meantime until i can pick up another one, I'd just install ubuntu on to a flash drive. So I went on my desktop, downloaded bootice to partition my flash drive. I made two partitions because that's what it said I needed, so the first one was 2gb big for my 13.10iso file that I downloaded, and was fat32 I believe. The second one had the remaining 30gb and I ended up making it ext4.

After putting the iso on to my flash drive, I stuck it into my laptop, and began the process. Grub booted up, and I clicked install. The installation process began and everything was going fine. As I said, I had the one partition that was 30gb and ext4, and so this is where I installed the program. It took rather longer to finish installing, so I took a quick nap, and when I woke up, it said installation complete, restart. So i clicked restart, and then the screen went black and nothing happened. I decided to reboot the laptop, and when I did it jumped right into the grub. From here, it still had the 4 default options as before, run without install, install, defective, and the third one that is slipping my mind. Either way though, I was not sure if this was right because I thought it would have booted straight to the installed OS or at least given me an option on the grub.

From this point, I restarted and went to my bios and and chose which item to boot from. There were three listed. Two were the USB, i'm assuming because I had two partitions? I'm not sure. And then the last was what I believe to be individual files on the USB? But anyway, the first one would bring me back to the grub where I was confused, the second would open the files and no matter which file I chose, it would either: not work, give me a black screen,or connect me to the grub. The third option would seem like it tried to boot an OS but a message on a whole black screen would pop up saying "no OS found, please install boot disk to continue. Press any button to continue." and whatever button I pressed would just present the same message, so I'd have to shut off my computer.

If anyone could help point me to where I went wrong and how to fix it, that would be great. I've tried some other tutorials with unmounting and mounting and stuff like that, but didn't really understand what I was doing. I've tried reinstalling grub I believe, but when I typed the command in the terminal, it would say command not found.

Currently, I am on the "use without install" option, which runs just fine, except that every time I come on it's just default and doesn't save any of my changes, wireless, passwords, files, etc.

Any amount of help would be appreciated. Thanks in advance.

[Frogs Hair]

​Moved Ubuntu +1

[coldraven]

You cannot "just put" the .iso file onto your USB memory stick, it has to be made bootable.
In Ubuntu you can use "Startup Disk Creator" or on Mac/Windows/Linux you can use Unetbootin.
http://unetbootin.sourceforge.net/
Just today I installed 13.10 from a 1GB SD card, very handy if your PC has a card reader.
Make sure that when booting that you do not have any other USB cards/sticks or drives attached other than the one you're trying to boot from, it will probably fail to "see" the correct one.

[hansdown]

Welcome to the forum, trever2.

Could you please post which version of ubuntu you are using?

If the live usb is working, you should find

parted, or gparted

and take a look at your hd, to see what partions are present.

[cariboo]

Depending on how big your flash drive is, you can also install Ubuntu on it, just like you would a regular hard drive install.To do this you would need to boot from the the iso either a DVD or another flash drive, then choose the flash drive to install to.

[trever2]

I'm sorry, I forgot to mention that I did use the startup disk creator. It extracted and all of that, and then I disconnected. If it was that anyway, wouldn't that have caused a problem right at the beginning?

And i'm not sure what else past 13.10 to say about the version I'm going with. I believe it said amd64 something or another along with it. I figured that one would work for my system since it's amd cpu 64-bit? and where do i go to see the parted or gparted?

As for devices that are showing up, there is only the 30gb partition present, which is /dev/sda2, whereas /dev/sda1 is the 2gb of fat32 that I installed the iso onto

My partition tool says Gparted i believe.

[hansdown]

And i'm not sure what else past 13.10 to say about the version I'm going with. I believe it said amd64 something or another along with it. I figured that one would work for my system since it's amd cpu 64-bit?

My bad.

Sometimes I don't see the forest because of all the darn trees.

I apologize in advance, but there is one thing I'm a bit thick on:

Are you attempting to install on the same HD, that you stated is failing, or did you install a new one?

[trever2]

No, I am trying to install all of it to a usb flash drive for now until I get another hard drive.

[hansdown]

Currently, I am on the "use without install" option, which runs just fine, except that every time I come on it's just default and doesn't save any of my changes, wireless, passwords, files, etc.

O.K.

To make it pesistant, I would advise using

unetbootin

as opposed to startup disk creator

http://unetbootin.sourceforge.net/

[skidschool]

I installed the 12.04 updates this morning & lost my Wireless & Graphic drivers, I had to reinstall 12.01 to get back online. I've been using Ubuntu for 5 or 6 years on 3 laptops & never had any issues. Will this be an issue with 13.01 ??