Installing on an USB hard drive

[icg837]

Hello.

I'm trying to install PCLinuxOS on an USB hard drive, but I don't know if that's possible. Because maybe the internal hard drive (on which is Windows Vista) will be affected.

[rubentje1991]

It won't, but you have to be a little carefully.....

Be sure you only format and install on that usb-harddrive,
and the most important thing...

AFTER the installation (the screen after the progress-bar of the installation), you have to choose where GRUB will be installed... (that's the menu where you can choose which OS you want to start).......
: put it on the USB-harddrive, and you'll have no problems...

[icg837]

Thanks so much, rubentje1991.

In fact, I've already thought that. But I was a little scared.

[Zero Angel]

Some distros work very good on USB harddrives. I'm a computer tech so sometimes when a client's OS is unusable, I can boot into my portable linux (using their computer, with my USB drive plugged in) to backup their files, remove persistent viruses, or recover their passwords and logins (via ophcrack or ntpass). The keyword here is a "persistent" live environment which gives you the option to save what you've done (e.g.: installation of new apps, desktop customization) to the live environment after every session.

Out of curiosity, will PCLOS installed on a portable drive (or thumbstick) be bootable from most PCs, or will it be customized to the hardware it was installed on?

[Old-Polack]

Some distros work very good on USB harddrives. I'm a computer tech so sometimes when a client's OS is unusable, I can boot into my portable linux (using their computer, with my USB drive plugged in) to backup their files, remove persistent viruses, or recover their passwords and logins (via ophcrack or ntpass). The keyword here is a "persistent" live environment which gives you the option to save what you've done (e.g.: installation of new apps, desktop customization) to the live environment after every session.

Out of curiosity, will PCLOS installed on a portable drive (or thumbstick) be bootable from most PCs, or will it be customized to the hardware it was installed on?

The actual keyword here is that the OP asked for a USB hard drive installation, not a liveUSB setup. My main installations are all on USB/E-SATA drives, and will boot from any computer that has USB booting capability. Depending on hardware present, some tweaking may be needed for changes in audio or Video cards, but most of the time this is done automatically.

The machine I'm currently running has no USB booting capability, but I have a boot partition on the internal drive, so by copying the /boot directory of each of the USB drives installed OS there, and proper stanzas in menu.lst, I am still able to boot each of those installations.

[blackpig]

This is strange, I got a thread on this subject ,Iv'e installed PCLOS on an external (usb) hard drive but I must be doing some of the settings wrong on installation as I can't get it to boot either from the main boot screen or using F12 get it to boot from USB  does Zero have the exact sequence for installing on usb connection?

[Zero Angel]

Negative. I used a different livedistro as my portable DE and that was quite a while ago.

However, to my knowledge PCLOS can use a persistent live environment but the instructions on the PCLOS wiki call for using a portable storage device in conjunction with a LiveCD. It should be possible to write the LiveCD to a partition on your portable HDD and make it bootable, then enable the persistence feature to allow you to save changes.

Perhaps by using software similar to UNetbootin

http://news.softpedia.com/news/How-to-Run-Linux-from-an-USB-Flash-Drive-93316.shtml

From there I would recommend creating another partition for the purposes of storing your files (so that way the stuff on your storage partition gets modified even if you dont save your live session upon shutdown). It is also advisable to make a swap partition (800MB is a good size) in case the PC you're running it on has a limited amount of RAM.

For permanent mounting of other partitions, see http://forum.faunos.com/viewtopic.php?id=421

[blackpig]

Hi Zero Angel,
                    Problem sorted, it was a BIOS problem, I remembered altering something in the BIOS whilst playing around with another distro.
Put the BIOS back to default and I now have a fully operating PCLOS on my external hard drive, in fact I'm using it now
Haven't yet tried booting from F12/USB that's the next step.

[Zero Angel]

Grats. I'm glad you found a simpler solution.

[blackpig]

Also works using F12/usb
I suppose in theory it should work on any computer with USB support

[icg837]

AFTER the installation (the screen after the progress-bar of the installation), you have to choose where GRUB will be installed... (that's the menu where you can choose which OS you want to start).......
: put it on the USB-harddrive, and you'll have no problems...

Exactly, what is the partition of my USB hard disk where I must install GRUB?

[blackpig]

Well  - if you only have PCLOS on your hard disc it should show up as sda1, your usb/ hard disc should show up as sdb1- thats where it goes

[Old-Polack]

AFTER the installation (the screen after the progress-bar of the installation), you have to choose where GRUB will be installed... (that's the menu where you can choose which OS you want to start).......
: put it on the USB-harddrive, and you'll have no problems...

Exactly, what is the partition of my USB hard disk where I must install GRUB?

Not a partition; on the MBR of the USB drive.

[Xyus]

It's funny that I find this thread less than a day after installing PCLOS in a USB Hard-drive.

It actually runs pretty well - It runs better in the USB Drive than Windows does in an internal drive, but no surprise there. I've been moving it back and forth between 3 computers all day, and have had no problems with that.

[blackpig]

As there seems to be a lot of interest in the forums on this subject perhaps somebody with more experience than me could set out a step by step installation and make it a "sticky"?