12 replies to this topic

[RonNYC]

I downloaded UNetBootin and used it to install Ubuntu 9.04 on my Seagate Freeagent 500gB USB Drive. My laptop is an HP G60-230us running Vista Home Premium. So, the install went OK, including writing the boot loader onto the USB drive. BUT, when I reboot the laptop, hit esc and get into the bios menu, press F9 for the loader section, I do see the Freeagent drive but when I select it (up and down arrows, then press Enter), I’m back into Windows. Any idea why or what I can do about it? I’ve tried the Seagate forums and also the HP forums, but nothing.

Any help is greatly appreciated
RON

[was_jaclaz]

How was the external USB disk partitioned/formatted?
By which program?
How many partitions?
Which size each?
Primaries/Exetended?
Which filesystems used?

jaclaz

[RonNYC]

When I used UNetBootin, nothing asked about partitioning the USB drive. There is nothing about this. This does strike me as odd...but I don't know what to do about it.

RON

[was_jaclaz]

When I used UNetBootin, nothing asked about partitioning the USB drive. There is nothing about this. This does strike me as odd...but I don't know what to do about it.

RON

Maybe then the problem is with the original partitioning/formattign the disk came with, possibly a whole BIG partition?

Was the drive bootable BEFORE using UNETBOOTIN?

jaclaz

[Brito]

Here's two quick questions:

• Have you already tried to boot the external drive from another computer?
• Have you already tried to boot the external drive from exactly the same USB port where you initially installed Ubuntu?

The first question should help to diagnose if the drive is booting correctly or not from another machine and the second question because I've noticed that once you install to a specific USB port, the drive will only be recognized from this port.

Let's see how this works.

Good luck.

[RonNYC]

Maybe then the problem is with the original partitioning/formattign the disk came with, possibly a whole BIG partition?

Was the drive bootable BEFORE using UNETBOOTIN?

jaclaz

Good question. I wouldn't know as I got it just as a storage device and only later decided to put Ubuntu on it. I didn't do anything to it, so it is one big partition. I don't think I have any USB disk partitioning application. I just wish there were some kind of guide for this. I can't be the only one, right?

RON

[RonNYC]

Here's two quick questions:

• Have you already tried to boot the external drive from another computer?
• Have you already tried to boot the external drive from exactly the same USB port where you initially installed Ubuntu?

The first question should help to diagnose if the drive is booting correctly or not from another machine and the second question because I've noticed that once you install to a specific USB port, the drive will only be recognized from this port.

Let's see how this works.

Good luck.

Good question. So I'll plug the drive into my XP desktop and see if it shows up.

[was_jaclaz]

Yes, it is very possible that the drive was originally partitioned/formatted with:

• a MBR containing ONLY DATA (and NO booting CODE)
• a whole, big (I would call it enormous in this case ) partition

1. above obviously needs to be corrected, while 2. though NOT, NOT, NOT advised may be possible.

I wonder which filesystem was used for the one and only BIG partition, if NTFS, UBUNTU won't work on it, if EXT2/EXT3 FS, Windows won't like it much (unless you add the appropriate drivers) and FAT32 is more or less a suicide on such a big partition,

I guess it's time to start from scratch.

What is your "main" OS (the one installed on your internal HD)?

Windows XP or Vista or what?

jaclaz

[RonNYC]

Yes, it is very possible that the drive was originally partitioned/formatted with:

• a MBR containing ONLY DATA (and NO booting CODE)
• a whole, big (I would call it enormous in this case ) partition

1. above obviously needs to be corrected, while 2. though NOT, NOT, NOT advised may be possible.

I wonder which filesystem was used for the one and only BIG partition, if NTFS, UBUNTU won't work on it, if EXT2/EXT3 FS, Windows won't like it much (unless you add the appropriate drivers) and FAT32 is more or less a suicide on such a big partition,

I guess it's time to start from scratch.

What is your "main" OS (the one installed on your internal HD)?

Windows XP or Vista or what?

jaclaz

First of all, a big thanks for taking this much time with me. What seems sort of odd is that unetbootin seemed to work so well with this USB drive. But if this drive doesn't cut it, I am totally open to advise what to do differently.

The laptop's OS is Vista Home Premium.
The USB is NTFS and it is one big partition.
The USB's partition app will let me choose exFat. There is also a choice for an msdos boot up disk, but it's greyed out.

A couple of questions: Is it odd or uncommon to have a Vista laptop with a USB drive running Ubuntu? Should I instead be looked at Wubi (which I think runs as a Windows app, right?)? What I wanted to do was have a dual boot computer so I could learn Linux, set up a linux-based local website, work with Java web services locally here, etc. I thought the USB drive would be ideal and easier. Wow! Not the case.

I did move the drive to my desktop, running XP SP2, and rebooted it. It did appear in the boot device list but again, was not bootable.

I could reformat the drive, or just delete everything from it and start anew, or...something else? What do other people use when they use a Vista-based laptop with a USB drive running Ubuntu? Or is that an outlier?

RON

[RonNYC]

One more note, perhaps of use, perhaps note. I downloaded Wubi a few days about. My USB name is now "Install Ubuntu". When I run Wubi, it requests I put the ISO cd in the CD drive and reboot into it. Well, the drive does show up on the boot device list, but again, when I select it I'm back into Vista.

[was_jaclaz]

You are missing some "basics".

A disk can be perfectly accessible and have a fully working filesystem without necessarily being bootable.

Simply FORGET about ex-FAT, currently and AFAIK is NOT a bootable filesystem.

I frankly doubt that Ubuntu can be installed on a NTFS filesystem.

It is simply CRAZY to have one 500 Gb single partition (if not for storage/backup purposes, and even then it is NOT "practical").

Your best option is:
check your Vista Registry and if the "boundaries" fix is not there, do it.


Reference is here:
http://www.911cd.net...showtopic=21186
http://www.911cd.net...o...21186&st=18

Then use Vista's Diskpart or Disk Management, and partition the disk as follows:
1) Primary FAT16 partition slightly less than 1 Gb (advised) or a little less than 2 Gb (if you want to keep compatibility with DOS 6.22 and before) or FAT32 around 4 Gb (if all you need is compatibility with DOS 7.x/8 or FreeDOS)
2) Extended partition for the rest of the disk
3) Inside Extended:
any number of partitions (at least two) of a DECENT size (anything between 20 and 80 Gb is "decent") of which at least one not formatted (to be formatted later with a native linux Filesystem, such as Ext2FS or Ext3FS) or formatted as FAT32 (for a number of reasons partitions bigger than 32 Gb as FAT32 are not a great idea)

Be careful to NOT have one of the above partitions spanning over the LBA-28/48 bit addressing boundary, i.e 128 GiB / 137 GB:
http://www.pcguide.c...izeGB128-c.html
(better be safe than sorry )

You can make anything starting immediately before that limit a big NTFS volume, though it is still advised to create more partitions, in order to keep the single size of the partition "manageable" i.e. being able to be copied/defragged/repaired/full formatted in a "decent" time.

Before you make the first objection:

Look, I cannot re-partition the USB drive, as I already have a lot of DATA on it....

I will tell you two things, one to the only scope of complying with Rule #12:
http://www.boot-land...?act=boardrules

You see why having more partitions is handy?


And the other one is actually serious.

Before doing anything else, make sure to BACKUP your DATA and check/double check and triple check your drive, there are a few models of Seagate drives (sometimes used in those external Seagate cases) that are showing some dramatical failures, if it's a Barracuda 7200.11 or also 7200.10, check it with the Seagate tools:
http://seagate.custk...f...&NewLang=en

Some reference:
http://www.msfn.org/...howtopic=128807
http://www.msfn.org/...howtopic=133387

I don't want to alarm you , but as said, better be safe than sorry.



jaclaz

[RonNYC]

You are missing some "basics".

A disk can be perfectly accessible and have a fully working filesystem without necessarily being bootable.

Simply FORGET about ex-FAT, currently and AFAIK is NOT a bootable filesystem.

I frankly doubt that Ubuntu can be installed on a NTFS filesystem.

It is simply CRAZY to have one 500 Gb single partition (if not for storage/backup purposes, and even then it is NOT "practical").

Your best option is:
check your Vista Registry and if the "boundaries" fix is not there, do it.


Reference is here:
http://www.911cd.net...showtopic=21186
http://www.911cd.net...o...21186&st=18

Then use Vista's Diskpart or Disk Management, and partition the disk as follows:
1) Primary FAT16 partition slightly less than 1 Gb (advised) or a little less than 2 Gb (if you want to keep compatibility with DOS 6.22 and before) or FAT32 around 4 Gb (if all you need is compatibility with DOS 7.x/8 or FreeDOS)
2) Extended partition for the rest of the disk
3) Inside Extended:
any number of partitions (at least two) of a DECENT size (anything between 20 and 80 Gb is "decent") of which at least one not formatted (to be formatted later with a native linux Filesystem, such as Ext2FS or Ext3FS) or formatted as FAT32 (for a number of reasons partitions bigger than 32 Gb as FAT32 are not a great idea)

Be careful to NOT have one of the above partitions spanning over the LBA-28/48 bit addressing boundary, i.e 128 GiB / 137 GB:
http://www.pcguide.c...izeGB128-c.html
(better be safe than sorry )

You can make anything starting immediately before that limit a big NTFS volume, though it is still advised to create more partitions, in order to keep the single size of the partition "manageable" i.e. being able to be copied/defragged/repaired/full formatted in a "decent" time.

Before you make the first objection:


I will tell you two things, one to the only scope of complying with Rule #12:
http://www.boot-land...?act=boardrules

You see why having more partitions is handy?


And the other one is actually serious.

Before doing anything else, make sure to BACKUP your DATA and check/double check and triple check your drive, there are a few models of Seagate drives (sometimes used in those external Seagate cases) that are showing some dramatical failures, if it's a Barracuda 7200.11 or also 7200.10, check it with the Seagate tools:
http://seagate.custk...f...&NewLang=en

Some reference:
http://www.msfn.org/...howtopic=128807
http://www.msfn.org/...howtopic=133387

I don't want to alarm you , but as said, better be safe than sorry.



jaclaz

This is quite a bit to absorb! First of all, the USB device was purchased for file storage only, I have lots of image files, so for me it's just one big file system. Meaning, partitioning it is perfectly ok. In fact, I've already wiped out most of the files. I figured this would probably be necessary.

The firmware of 01.3.2 and is up to date. Again, this is sort of a play toy device. I have several other USB drives, so if something goes wrong, no big deal, at least yet!

But, I'm thinking, after reading everything you wrote, that I will probably have to find another way to do things. I'm a developer, but I don't usually fool around with hardware and am afraid I will completely hose my laptop.

What surprises me is that this is so difficult. Nothing about this was indicated on the UNetbootin documentation.

RON

[was_jaclaz]

What surprises me is that this is so difficult. Nothing about this was indicated on the UNetbootin documentation.

RON

Well, Unetbootin is a tool to easen the installing process, but it has some prerequisites, among which is that the drive should be bootable (and apparently formatted as FAT32):
http://unetbootin.wi...forge.net/guide

Possibly "my way" to partition is a bit complex, but it is the one that over the years proved to be the most "safe" and "compatible" with anything, some reference:
http://www.boot-land...?...=5274&st=31



jaclaz