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77 lines
4.3 KiB
Plaintext
77 lines
4.3 KiB
Plaintext
Episode: 817
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Title: HPR0817: Installing Linux and Windows 7 to a USB Hard Drive
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Source: https://hub.hackerpublicradio.org/ccdn.php?filename=/eps/hpr0817/hpr0817.mp3
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Transcribed: 2025-10-08 02:59:49
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---
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Hello there, my name is OkonDK, and today on HBR I'm going to talk about installing
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an operating system to an external USB hard drive.
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I have a Dell Mini 10V network with a 16GB solid state drive.
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It's great for most things, but I'm the kind of guy who always does too much with it.
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Recently, I've needed to use it as my main work PC, while my desktop is in disposed.
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I've needed more than 16GB for my system, so I investigate running from an external
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USB hard drive.
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It works wonderfully, and has also given me the chance to do a bit of distro hopping.
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I partitioned by 500GB external drive to give myself a 100GB OS partition.
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You don't need to use your entire external drive.
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Most stock systems won't exceed 10GB, 100GB should give you more than enough room for
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apps and your data.
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I generally use Ubuntu, and it's installed always great for this type of install.
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Follow the install wizard as usual, and select manual partitioning.
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Click your new partition, and click change.
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Selecting your preferred file system, checking the format box, and selecting the mount point
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as root.
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Next select the location of the bootloader as the MBR of the external drive, not the MBR
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of the local drive or the first partition.
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This will prevent you from messing up your primary bootloader.
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What you need to do after installation is to set the BIOS to boot from the external
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drive.
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If you have trouble with booting from the external drive, or you prefer not to have to change
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your BIOS every time, just boot back into a primary OS and run the command update dash
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grub and as root.
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It should find the new OS on the external drive and update your local grub menu with an
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option to boot to it.
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You can even move between PCs with this drive, as the Linux hardware detection is very
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robust.
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The only problem you might have is if you need a proprietary graphics driver, in which
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case you only need to install it and reboot.
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It is also possible to run Windows 7 externally, but it is not made as easy.
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You'll need an existing Windows 7 install to run a script, which uses the Windows deployment
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tools to flash the initial setup onto the drive.
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Once booted, it will set up the system according to your hardware.
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If you wanted to move between machines with this drive, you need to run a command which
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resets the setup before you shut down and move the drive.
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One issue is that of the page file, which is the equivalent of swap space on Linux.
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Doing anything on Windows on my netbook slows to a crawl without a page file, and Windows
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can't use a USB drive for it.
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At first I tried reformiting my swap partition on the local drive to NTFS, which seemed to
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work, and I could set up a swap file on that partition for my Linux system.
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However, in the end, I just got sick of how sluggish Windows is on the network hardware.
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I have not tried the developer release of Windows 8 in this fashion yet, but from what
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I've seen, I doubt I'd get any benefit over using a VM.
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I hope this has been interesting to you, and that it might encourage you to do a bit
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of distro helping or alpha testing yourself.
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I'll note the relevant links on the show notes, along with ways to contact me, but very
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quickly.
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OrconDK is spelled AUKNDK.
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My email is OrconDK at OrconDK.com.
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My Twitter and Identical accounts are both OrconDK, and on Google class, you'll find my profile
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at gplus.to slash orconDK.
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Finally, my blog is www.orconDK.com.
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This is my first HBR episode, but I have ideas for a few more.
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Let me know what you think.
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You have been listening to HackerPublic Radio at HackerPublicRadio.org.
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We are a community podcast network that releases shows every weekday Monday through Friday.
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Today's show, like all our shows, was contributed by a HBR listener by yourself.
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If you ever consider recording a podcast, then visit our website to find out how easy
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it really is.
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HackerPublic Radio was founded by the Digital.Pound and New Phenomenical and Computer
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Club.
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HBR is funded by the binary revolution at binref.com, or binref projects are crowd-responsive
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share and like.
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