Installing Ubuntu from an external hard drive

If it is OK to overwrite the external drive, you can use several tools, that normally are used to work with USB pendrives, and make the external drive a live drive and it will be seen like it were a USB pendrive by the system.

• Start by backing up whatever data you want to keep from the external drive to another drive or to an internet cloud service.

• In Ubuntu: mkusb-dus might notice that it is a hard disk drive (or SSD), and ask if you really want to install into that drive. After confirming things will work the same way as if it were a USB pendrive.

  

  

• In Windows: After checking the md5sum you can clone the Ubuntu iso file with Win32 Disk Imager to the external drive.

  Check and double-check, that you have selected the correct target drive. Otherwise you might overwrite valuable data. Format the external drive with a file system, that Windows can see, for example NTFS, FAT 32 or exFAT. Use the available tools in Windows to identify and select the correct drive. See the following picture,

  

  You can also use Rufus. It can also find a hard disk drive (or SSD), as illustrated with the following picture.