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I'd like to full install ubuntu to a 128gb usb3 thumb drive. I'd like to prevent any chance of me jacking up the main hard drive in the latop during installation.

Is there something I can do, like unmount the hard drive to prevent it from showing up in the installer when setting up partitions? Ideally I would physically disconnect the drive, but this is not an option.

I'd also like to guarantee that no boot loaders or anything are installed on the main hard disk. Basically, I want the ubuntu installer to think the drive doesn't even exist. Everything will be installed to the thumb drive and I'll use the bios boot sequence to choose to boot from the thumb drive or the hard disk.

Thanks!

Spyoptix
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1 Answers1

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I have to say that I would always prefer to leave the disks as they are seen by the system, choose Manual partitioning, and take care where I ask the installer to put GRUB (the system loader) and in what partitions to install the system.

However, the following procedure seems to work. Note that I have tested it only on a small virtual machine:

  1. Boot from the installation media.
  2. Choose "Try Ubuntu".
  3. Connect your USB thumb drive.
  4. Open GParted (dash button - applications lens - show all installed applications) and identify your hard disk and your USB thumb drive. Let's say that the hard disk is /dev/sda and the thumb drive is /dev/sdc. Close GParted.
  5. Open a terminal (right click on desktop, chose open terminal). In the terminal run the command sudo rm /dev/sda*, where /dev/sda is corresponds to the hard disk as identified in step 4. As far as Ubuntu knows, /dev/sda is gone.
  6. Optionally, open GParted again and notice that you can find only your USB thumb drive.
  7. Run the installer. To check that it sees only the USB thumb drive, choose Manual partitioning -- you can always go back to the type of installation screen if you want one of the automatic partitioning options.
AlexP
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