Arch Linux

Hurricane

Member

Registered: 2012-10-18

Posts: 77

Installing onto a portable hard drive

It used to be that when I would install Ubuntu onto my flash drive (not a persistent iso boot I'm talking about actually installing it on there) that when I would try to boot the computer without having the flash drive inserted in the usb slot on boot I wouldn't be able to boot at all. I haven't tried this in a long time (over four years) so it has probably changed, but I'm looking into doing it now with an Ubuntu based distro. Let's say I have a portable hard-drive assigned /dev/sdb. If I was to try installing linux on it directly instead of just making a persistently bootable Live USB, would I lose the grub installation that I set up with my arch linux installation onto my /dev/sda?

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Computers are extra dumb, which is why it takes extra smart people to make them work.

TheSaint

Member

From: my computer

Registered: 2007-08-19

Posts: 1,532

Re: Installing onto a portable hard drive

You boot sequence it should be chosen by BIOS option.
Each disk MBR contains its own pointer to the bootloader. Unless using EFI which is slightly different, but does similar result.

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do it good first, it will be faster than do it twice the saint

graysky

Wiki Maintainer

From: :wq

Registered: 2008-12-01

Posts: 10,688

Website

Re: Installing onto a portable hard drive

No, grub can exist on /dev/sda and /dev/sdb too.  Like the prev poster said, it depends on which drive is assigned as the bootable one (ie the first one) in your BIOS or by the order you specific in the EFI boot priority.

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Hurricane

Member

Registered: 2012-10-18

Posts: 77

Re: Installing onto a portable hard drive

Thanks guys.

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Computers are extra dumb, which is why it takes extra smart people to make them work.