Installing Ubuntu 10.10 64bit on usb WD hd

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Hello,
i’M considering installing ubuntu 10.10 on a WD usb drive??
http://www.pendrivelinux.com/installing-ubuntu-to-a-usb-hard-drive/
From the above URL they suggest ((( disconnecting ))) All other hard drives????

I sure hope there’s an easier way? I sure don’t want to try and open this win 7 box and mess something up?? ME doing anything inside would be an accident waiting to happen!!
Is – or could it be as simple as installing from the live CD into my external HD???

I understand the reason for disconnecting sata HD so ubuntu won’t go to C drive, but it shouldn’t when in Gparted I have my usb drive highlighted and the only one available???
Any help/info. is appreciated.
John in Dallas

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I understand the reason for disconnecting sata HD so ubuntu won’t go to C drive, but it shouldn’t when in Gparted I have my usb drive highlighted and the only one available???
Any help/info. is appreciated.

John,
Hello… I use (sometimes) Linux Mint “Isadora” on it’s own internal HD. I can’t answer your question about “Ubuntu” but…. When i installed Mint it wanted to make itself the “Big Dog” (default OS ) the only way around for me was to power down and unplug all HD’s except the one that i wanted to install mint on , and “boot ” from the CD.(left it no choice) Afterwords i installed EasyBCD NeoSmart v-2.0 (free)http://neosmart.net/dl.php?id=1 ( on my “default” OS) and then i could select whichever OS that i wanted to be the “default” (also assign drive names and letters) Just be careful …if not offered where “Ubuntu” wants to install to. :cheers: Regards Fred

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My daughter attempted to install Ubuntu on a external drive and she thought she had made the correct partitioning selection. She ended up with Ubuntu on the external drive and her main drive was wiped, reformatted, and Grub loaded on it. She was not happy. So it is way to easy to make a mistake. I’ve installed various flavors of Linux numerous times and even I unplug the other drives because I just don’t trust the partitioning built into the installer.

Also, there is the boot sector issue. By unplugging the C: drive, Ubuntu will not overwrite the boot sector on that drive. That does mean you will have to go into the BIOS and change the boot order to boot into Ubuntu. But once you do, and run update-grub, you should then have a Grub menu that lets you choose between Win 7 and Ubuntu. And if your Ubuntu disk ever goes south, just change the BIOS back to using the C: drive boot sector and you are back on Win 7 in no time.

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Hello – All,
Solved the problem!! Virtual Box!! Works flawlessly !! Now I have all my windows things, on the same drive as Ubuntu….Hate dual booting, anyway…I tried VB on earlier versions, didn’t work…The latest version 4.00??? works like a charm!!
The best way to try other OS’s and NOT corrupt windows. Can get my pass words stored in roboform on win 7 and import them into last pass ( new p.w. mgr for xmarks ) everything simply WORKS!! A happy win7 and Ubuntu camper!
Thanks / John in Dallas

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Hello – All,
Solved the problem!! Virtual Box!! Works flawlessly !! Now I have all my windows things, on the same drive as Ubuntu….Hate dual booting, anyway…I tried VB on earlier versions, didn’t work…The latest version 4.00??? works like a charm!!
The best way to try other OS’s and NOT corrupt windows. Can get my pass words stored in roboform on win 7 and import them into last pass ( new p.w. mgr for xmarks ) everything simply WORKS!! A happy win7 and Ubuntu camper!
Thanks / John in Dallas

Not to burst your bubble, but VBox doesn’t let the Guest OS access your hardware directly. My PC has a Nvidia video card, but my Guest OS ( Ubuntu ), wasn’t displaying at full res. Normally I’d just update the video driver. Not with VBox. It emulates something very generic.

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VBox doesn’t let the Guest OS access your hardware directly.

That’s true, which does somewhat limit the eye candy. I have Ubuntu 10.10 installed in Visrtual box on all 3 of my PCs. In addition I dual boot with Win7/Ubuntu on my laptop. I don’t see that much difference between the user interface when running physically or running within VirtualBox.

My PC has a Nvidia video card, but my Guest OS ( Ubuntu ), wasn’t displaying at full res.

Have you installed the VirtualBox Guest Additions? Until you do so, you are stuck with a limited range of display sizes. But with Guest Additions installed, you can drag the VirtualBox window edges to increase the client OSes (Ubuntu in this case) screen resolution. The Ubuntu client I am running right now in VirtualBox has a screen resoltuon of 1707×994. Weird, huh?

I have to admit that I don’t like this quite as much as the way VMWare Server worked – the VMWare Server virtual display allowed a large number of display resolutions which were based on the hosts display resolution. I wish that VirtualBox would show the clients screen resolution while I dragged the window edges – then I would have half a chance to get the 1680×1050 resolution I prefer.

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Not to burst your bubble, but VBox doesn’t let the Guest OS access your hardware directly. My PC has a Nvidia video card, but my Guest OS ( Ubuntu ), wasn’t displaying at full res. Normally I’d just update the video driver. Not with VBox. It emulates something very generic.

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Hello – JM,
That may be, but I did upgrade my Nvidia card, seems to work OK…I have all compiz functions I want..Guest Additions does make a difference, though…Didn’t look right until I installed them…For Ubuntu and pass words….SXIPPER…great utility….Just works and will import roboform files….

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I used the Universal USB Installer (see http://bit.ly/d9EtZP ) when installing Ub10.10 to a stick. I disconnected the external drive to be on the safe side but needn’t have worried.

HTH,

Roger

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Another possible option for a dual boot setup is with Wubi.
It does a much better job of partitioning a hard drive than regular Ubuntu. It will let you select the drive you want to install it on.
What may be a downside is that the max partition size is 30 GB.

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I have also found wubi to be successful. I followed the wizard and allowed Ubuntu to be installed within the C drive. The default size suggested by the installer is 17GB but I only used 8GB as all data is on the D partition. The 8GB was also the defauilt size when I experimented, successfully, with Ubuntu inside Virtualbox.
The D partition holds the data and is accessible from Windows 7 and Ubuntu Lucid.

Brian

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