Full install of Ubuntu on a USB drive

I am aware the topic has been raised however I do not find a solution.

I am following this guide:

http://www.fernhilllinuxproject.com/guidesandhowtos/installubuntutousbdrive.html I am on a Sony Vaio F series.

On my other flash drive I have the same Ubuntu flavor installed(16.04) and it runs with persistence. From there I installed Ubuntu on the other drive.

Installation goes through on a 32GB Kingston Flash drive , however it does not boot.

I managed to boot 1 time, but it does not boot anymore and crashes next time. Can anybody suggest a Windows installer to make a full ubuntu install on a usb drive? Thanks.

Solution 1:

You Can do a Full install to USB drive from Windows using Virtual Box.

From Windows install VirtualBox if you do not already have it, There are lots of instructions for this elsewhere.

Start VBox and make a new Ubuntu machine.

Start the Ubuntu machine and point it at the Ubuntu iso file.

When the process gets to the Try/Install window select "Try".

Plug in your USB and confirm it is visible to VBox.

Select the Install Ubuntu icon on the desktop.

When you get to partitioning select "Something else"

Select the USB as target for the install.

Continue the installation as normal until complete.

I have tried this with the latest versions of Ubuntu and VirtualBox. (and with previous versions of each.

Sudodus, (mkusb), has been doing some work on installing Ubuntu to USB from Windows. A Preliminary test version is here: https://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=1958073&p=13578487#post13578487 The test version installs a Persistent Live version to USB using image Writer, however a Full install version is possible.

Ubuntu also offers image files of Server but not Desktop.