[CoLoCo] Ubuntu Install ISO to External Hard Drive?

[TC]

This is how I set up my pendrives.

https://help.ubuntu.com/community/Installation/FromUSBStick

Ringo Kamens wrote:
> Jim Hutchinson wrote:
> 
>> On Mon, Jul 28, 2008 at 11:33 PM, Ringo Kamens <2600denver at gmail.com
>> <mailto:2600denver at gmail.com>> wrote:
> 
>>     -----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE-----
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> 
>>     I have a friend whose version of XP broke and I convinced him to switch
>>     to Ubuntu after this most recent crash. The problem is that his laptop's
>>     CD drive is totally ruined and as a result, I can't boot from the Ubuntu
>>     CD. I have all the ISOs on my computer, is there a way I can copy the
>>     data from them onto a partition on my external hard drive and boot from
>>     that? Any help would be appreciated, as I have to figure this out by
>>     tomorrow. An Ubuntu install is on the line ; )
> 
> 
>> I've never tried this but I think one approach would be to make a live
>> flash drive (http://www.pendrivelinux.com/) and then boot it and install
>> that way. One of my students last year put backtrack on a flash drive
>> and used it for a while. I know I've seen other discussions about this
>> too but I can't remember where. There may be a page on the wiki. The
>> other thing is that the computer will need to have the capability to
>> boot from usb. If it's newer it probably does. With dell press f12 to
>> see the boot options. Other computers will have a similar option.
> 
>> -- 
>> Jim (Ubuntu geek extraordinaire)
>> ----
>> Please avoid sending me Word or PowerPoint attachments.
>> See http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/no-word-attachments.html
> 
> I googled around for solutions before posting here and pendrivelinux did
> come up. The problem is that if I make a pen drive from my machine, it
> will be set up for my hardware, might have my logs or files or who knows
> what,  and then his computer might not work. Perhaps I'm
> mis-understanding the way it works? I thought I might just be able to do:
> $dd if=/file/ubuntu.iso of=/dev/sdb1
> but that didn't work because it wouldn't boot (all the files were there!
> and the boot flag was set!). Is there something obvious I'm missing like
> an MBR on the external hard drive? If so, is that jus a partition thing
> or do I need to use the whole hard drive?
> Thanks for your help,
> CRK
>