Full Ubuntu USB Boot Drive Installation Not Working

Question

For the past couple of weeks, I have been trying to make a full installation of Ubuntu 20.04 LTS on my 64 GB USB 3.1 but it hasn't been working. Initially, I successfully installed it on a 32 GB USB 2.0 but it was too slow so I decided to install it on my USB 3.1 by following the same steps. When I did this, at the end it said successfully installed, but when I go to my BIOS, the boot drive isn't showing up there. This didn't happen with the first USB. I tried it multiple times, but none worked.

Here are the steps I followed for installation:

1. Partitioned my USB into two; one 32 GB FAT32 partition and one 25.7 GB FAT32 partition (the remainder)
2. Installed a Live version of Ubuntu 20.04 LTS on a USB using Rufus and an ISO file
3. Booted from the Ubuntu Live USB and clicked Install Ubuntu 20.04 LTS
4. Selected the language and location
5. Selected "Something else" as the installation option
6. Formatted the 32GB FAT32 partition as an ext4 partition and mounted it with /
7. Started the installation

For some reason, each time I tried installing it, the installation process took over 5 hours, so I just left it to install overnight.

The device I am using to install Ubuntu on the USB with is the HP Envy laptop.

Answer 1

Install Ubuntu from a Pre-built Image File.

Here is a simple method that should not take more than a half hour and should work on any Intel computer with the right spec's.

If working in Windows:

• Download Image File: dd_unb_ubuntu-20.04_15GB_2020-06-26.img.xz from mkusb Index of /isos/linux-tools/uefi-n-bios at https://phillw.net/isos/linux-tools/uefi-n-bios/?C=M;O=D Download Link: https://phillw.net/isos/linux-tools/uefi-n-bios/dd_unb_ubuntu-20.04_15GB_2020-06-26.img.xz Link to MD5SUM's: https://phillw.net/isos/linux-tools/uefi-n-bios/md5sum.txt.asc

• Download Rufus*: https://github.com/pbatard/rufus/releases/download/v3.11/rufus-3.11.exe

• Etcher may also be used to flash the image: https://www.balena.io/etcher/

• Double click Rufus .exe file.

• Select USB drive as Target drive in Rufus.

• Select above Image File in Rufus.

• Click Rufus start button.

• Wait for flashing to complete... Done.

• Password is "changeme", change it

The USB drive should boot on almost any modern X86-64 computer.

Thanks to sudodus for the image file.

In Windows it may be necessary to install 7Zip before proceeding. Rufus and Etcher will use it when working with the .xz image: https://www.7-zip.org/a/7z1900-x64.exe

If working in Ubuntu: you can use mkusb, Disks or Etcher to flash the USB drive. P7zip may be needed to extract the image.