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I have an 1 TB external hard disk drive and was thinking if it was possible to install Ubuntu in it and transfer it from one PC to another.

After an extended search I can't decide if it is possible or not. I have found many articles that say yes and some that say that for some operating systems it can't be done as they restart the usb ports.

Furthermore I am thinking that if I install Ubuntu in it and I have that hard disk drive in one PC it will install drivers for that specific model so if I move it to another what happens with the drivers?

I am sure that there are other problems that I have not taken into account, so I would like to know if I can do it and if it is wise to do it.

Adam
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1 Answers1

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No problem whatsoever! (I've got a USB disk just like that but I've never tried anything but BIOS machines, as I rarely encounter UEFI machines and if I meet one, I put them in BIOS mode and revert back when I leave)

Procedure is exceedingly simple:

  1. Insert the HDD
  2. Boot the LiveCD
  3. Install like you would install any other machine and install grub, swap, / and /home on there
  4. Ensure fstab uses blkids
  5. Install as many applications as you want, but stay away from any proprietary modules (aka drivers), just standard Linux kernel modules... And these are extremely good at adapting to their environment! They're like mongrels: they'll eat anything, drink anything and ... well, whatever. ;c) It just works!

That's it!

A.B.
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Fabby
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