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    Moving existing installation to USB drive?

    Discussion in 'Linux Compatibility and Software' started by fafler, Sep 2, 2009.

  1. fafler

    fafler Notebook Enthusiast

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    How can i move an existing Ubuntu 8.10 installation from a internal SATA drive to a USB flash drive?

    I want to do this to save battery and produce less heat on my laptop by using the SATA drive for data i rarely use and store / on the flash drive. Right now i'm going to use a 8 gb Kingston drive for testing, but if stability and performance is good enough i'll consider something like this og this.
     
    fafler, Sep 2, 2009
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  2. archer7

    archer7 Notebook Evangelist

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    Even if you move all the files over to the USB, some things need to be changed: The mappings in /etc/fstab have to be edited, for one. Grub needs a way to find the drive at boottime; there might be an elegant to make that happen, but nothing comes to my mind.

    Yours seems to be a very reasonable idea, so I'm sure it's been documented by someone online, or at least pieces of it. Either way, I would suggest just doing a clean install into the USB drive, and then moving your home (/home/$USER) directory to it afterwards. That way, your user settings will be preserved.
     
    archer7, Sep 2, 2009
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  3. fafler

    fafler Notebook Enthusiast

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    I know how to make grub work on USB, but i'm unsure about what i should do with the initrd. I'm too lazy to do a clean install.

    BTW, i'm using encrypted LVM for /. Guess it won't make things more simple.
     
    fafler, Sep 2, 2009
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  4. archer7

    archer7 Notebook Evangelist

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    I'm not sure how Ubuntu's initrd works, but I don't think you need to modify it -- just move it along with the kernel. I'm pretty sure we can assume the USB is detected already.
     
    archer7, Sep 2, 2009
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