usb external hard drive

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madman

93 posts

Master Geek
Inactive user

#14998 30-Jul-2007 15:47

hi,

I have an external usb hard drive and was wondering if anyone has successfully installed and booted up a *nix operating system on one? I have managed to install FreeBSD but am unable to boot it up for some reason, when i tried installing linux my hard drive didnt even show up. Any ideas would be great

thanks!

barf

643 posts

Ultimate Geek

#80424 30-Jul-2007 17:23

The BIOS needs to feature booting from USB disk, the distro's should handle the rest. Works in Ubuntu and there are numerous mini-distros designed for such a purpose.

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madman

93 posts

Master Geek
Inactive user

#80428 30-Jul-2007 17:38

barf: The BIOS needs to feature booting from USB disk, the distro's should handle the rest. Works in Ubuntu and there are numerous mini-distros designed for such a purpose.

ahh ok.. The bios option is changed but I havn't yet tried with ubuntu but ill give it a go tonight. Does it matter if the hard drive has another non-linux partition on it?

barf

643 posts

Ultimate Geek

#80431 30-Jul-2007 17:47

no it shouldn't, modern distros like Fedora Core and Ubuntu use GUID label for booting (an ID unique to HDD serial number), so changing disk configuration in your PC shouldn't even matter but your milage may vary.

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madman

93 posts

Master Geek
Inactive user

#80434 30-Jul-2007 18:01

oh ok, awesome. Thanks very much

madman

93 posts

Master Geek
Inactive user

#80604 31-Jul-2007 16:48

tried installing Ubuntu but when I boot up the cd and my usb hard drive is plugged in I get this error - udevd-event[2991]:wait_for_sysfs:waiting for '/sys/devices/pci0000:00/0000:00:1d.7/usb/5-1/5-1:1.0/host2/target2:0:0/2:0:0:0/ioerr_cnt' failed - When i disconnect it and try again it goes through the normal linux start up which is fine, comes up with a blue screen and a mouse pointer and hangs on that. I waited about 30 minutes and got no where.. any ideas?

thanks

Alex

barf

643 posts

Ultimate Geek

#80759 1-Aug-2007 17:48

so Ubuntu won't start even when the usb disk is disconnected?
what are your system specs? which Ubuntu version?

http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=80811
have a skim over that guide, it's not perfectly straightforward unfortunately.

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madman

93 posts

Master Geek
Inactive user

#80760 1-Aug-2007 17:51

Yes, weird aye? I'm currently using a Dell Inspiron 2200. Ubuntu verson 7.04. Could it be my laptop?

barf

643 posts

Ultimate Geek

#80874 2-Aug-2007 14:08

it's more likley Ubuntu is at fault than your laptop. it is apparently supported https://wiki.ubuntu.com/HardwareSupportMachinesLaptopsDell

can you try using 6.10 as the official site suggests? it is possible to upgrade to 7.04 once 6.10 is installed.

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