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I have an old, beat up laptop. the screen was removed, and it can be connected to an external monitor. However, the hard drive died a long time ago, and I recently acquired a blank 80gb hardrive. I would like to boot from this hardrive and be able to see what I am doing. Is there a way to have the hard drive set up such that the computer will boot from it and connect to the external monitor so I can see what is going on? I am capable of moving files to and from the hard drive using my working laptop. As far as I know, the motherboard, processor, etc. from the beat up laptop still work, and it was purchased back in 2012, so it's old but mostly compatible with newer tech. Is there anything I can do here, or is it kind of a lot cause?

Edit: since the problem isn't exactly clear, let me try again:

I have a laptop that I use regularly and has windows 7 installed. I have another laptop that I haven't used since its hard drive failed, but i just got a new hard drive that has literally nothing on it other than that it has been partitioned into two drives. I want to see if I can run Ubuntu using the old laptop. The old laptop does not have a monitor of its own but can be connected to an external monitor via vga cable. When the old laptop starts up, it does not communicate with the external monitor, so I cannot see any of the bios options. Is there a way to install ubuntu on the new hard drive so that when I plug it into the old laptops hard drive slot, ubuntu boots on the old laptop hardware, and connects the computer to the external monitor? If so, how do I do it considering I cannot actually see the bios options when I turn on the laptop? How do I do this without messing with any of my current laptop's options/drives/operating system? I do not want Ubuntu on my current laptop, just on the old one.

Edit: thanks for the help everyone, I was able to install it on the hard drive by loading it from a flash drive and installing to the hard drive via usb cable. it is mostly working now.

Edit: I should note that the wireless wasn't working and I couldn't figure out why, but then I remembered that the wireless antennae is housed in the laptop screen. I found an antennae and connected it, and now it is working properly.

Edit: also note I had to carefully drag the installation window from where the system thought there was another monitor, and when it was loaded had to change settings so that it would use the external exclusively.

Turtle
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2 Answers2

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It should work fine to install Ubuntu on a laptop with an external monitor. To install Ubuntu you should:

  1. Burn Ubuntu on a flashdrive or DVD
  2. Insert flashdrive or DVD into laptop with external monitor connected.
  3. Turn on computer and boot into flashdrive or DVD. Your bios will most likely boot into it automatically, but you may need to use the boot menu.
  4. Choose "Try Ubuntu without installing" and then click on the Install Ubuntu icon on the desktop.
  5. Configure your Ubuntu install with the GUI.

If you get stuck this may prove useful.

cubecubed
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If you can't boot from a USB, but can still boot from your internal hard drive, you can employ some sort of "trickery" to get this working. Ideally, you have a Linux computer already at the ready, but you can apply similar steps on a Windows one.

Essentially, we're going to burn the ISO to your hard drive, and then boot from it, copy everything over to RAM, and then install to that hard drive.

You will need a SATA sled, and a computer with at least 4GB of RAM to pull this off.

  1. Download the Ubuntu ISO that you want to install to your machine.
  2. Connect your new hard drive to your computer through a USB/SATA sled (something like this).
  3. Burn the ISO to the new hard drive. On Linux, you'd use dd if=/path/to/iso.iso of=/dev/sdXY, (replace XY with your drive's identifier, found with lsblk and/or blkid). However, on Windows, you should try using Rufus and seeing if it detects your external drive. If not, you may need to find another program than can burn ISOs to USB drives.
  4. Actually burn the image to your new hard drive. When this is done, insert it into the hard drive bay of your old computer.
  5. Boot up your computer, and stop at the boot screen. You'll need to boot the disk to RAM, follow this post to see how to do that.

DO NOT CANCEL OR POWER DOWN YOUR COMPUTER FROM HERE ON OUT!
You will have to restart this entire procedure if you do.

  1. When you've booted up to the desktop in Try Ubuntu mode, be sure to open gparted and wipe your current hard drive clean.
  2. Open the Ubuntu Installer and install Ubuntu to your cleaned hard drive as normal.
  3. Boot up your fresh version of Ubuntu!
Kaz Wolfe
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