installing second o.s. on external hard drive

[Liam Proven]

On 8 February 2014 16:56, Gary Kirkpatrick <garyartista at gmail.com> wrote:
> I've got a laptop on which I am using an external hard drive with 13.10 on
> it.  Any reason I can not install another operating system on that hard
> drive, or write over the one that is there?  I thought I'd check out ubuntu
> 14.04.  Seems to work just fine from the usb.


Should work.

Beware, though:

If you install Linux to your external drive, the copy of GRUB
installed in your internal drive's bootsector will point to config
files on the external drive. This means that without that external
drive connected, you won't be able to boot. That can be a serious
problem.

Also, on some PCs, it might be tied to the particular USB port that
you were using.

How to get round this:

* install OS on external drive
* use new GRUB to boot OS on internal drive
* reinstall the GRUB of the OS on your internal drive.

If you do this, you will of course end up with entries for the
removable drive that won't work if it's not connected. Indeed if it's
not connected and you update Linux on the internal drive, the entries
for the external drive's copy will be removed.

Alternative: carefully tell the copy on the external drive to install
GRUB into the bootsector of the external drive. Then, use your
firmware boot menu to pick which to load, rather than GRUB.



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