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Due to various reason, I have been in need to install Ubuntu on a thumb drive. I have been trying for the last few days or so to install Ubuntu (Not the "LIVE CD" ) on a flashdrive. Everytime I try to boot, I get either a) an error from my computer's bios saying that it is not a bootable drive; b) a frozen purple or black screen; c) I get to the GRUB menu and when I try to get to login, it freezes midway; or d) I login and the entire thing freezes for what feels like an eternity only to eventually get up and come back after a minute and find the thing is back at the login screen.

I have reinstalled Ubuntu various ways; I have attempted repairing the installs; I have looked high and low. I don't know what is happening. Can someone please help me! I am very new to Linux, and I am completely lost as to what is going on. Here are some technical specs of what I use:

  • 64GB flashdrive (USB 2.0)
  • Dell Optiplex 990
    • i7 2600
    • 8GB RAM
    • AMD RADEON HD 6***(No idea what it is after that)

Please help. I'm begging.

K7AAY
  • 17,705
A Kam
  • 11

1 Answers1

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Ordinarily, USB drives are formatted with FAT32, but when Windows formats a USB FlashDrive for FAT32, it imposes a 32GB maximum volume size. If you download and install the Rufus app then download the Ubuntu image with it and remake the LiveUSB with Rufus, you can specify ExFAT (see below) which allows you full use of that 64GB flash drive, following the specs for FAT32, and boot from it as a FAT32 drive with no problem. Once that's done, then install full Ubuntu over the Ubuntu LiveUSB image.

Also, make sure Secure Boot is turned OFF and ?HCI/xHCI is ON in the Dell BIOS/Firmware setup. Here are explicit instructions for creating a full Ubuntu install to USB.

Note: As a comment on this answer, Akeo, author of the superb Rufus Open Source LiveUSB creator, noted choosing ExFAT in Rufus formats the flash drive as 'Large FAT32' following the original FAT32 specs which do not have the Microsoft-imposed 32 GB limit. See first comment, below.

K7AAY
  • 17,705