Creating an Ubuntu Live USB drive used to be much easier.
By Koalemos
@Asylum (47893)
Manchester, England
February 15, 2017 8:53am CST
I have put Ubuntu onto a flash drive several times in the past, which is very simple under Windows. Since the flash drive needs to be formatted in FAT32 it will only support a maximum file size of 4 GB. With the storage area being a single casper-rw file this makes 4 Gb or 8 Gb flash drives most practical.
Recently I bought a 8 Gb USB3 drive, but apparently USB3 is not suitable for Live boot drives, so it ran extremely slow. 8 Gb USB2 flash drives were only available in sets of 3, so I decided to use a 64 Gb drive instead. Of course in order to use the space fully it required installing under Linux to allow me to format in Ext 2 and Ext 3.
Using the Startup Disk Creator resulted in the use of only a few Gb, so I realised that I needed to install directly. However, installing Ubuntu on the flash drive would have placed GRUB2 bootloader on my hard drive, which I did not want.
Eventually I ended up disconnecting both of my hard drives while I installed Ubuntu on the flash drive then reconnecting them. Oh well, it may have been laborious but I do have 45 Gb storage on the drive now.
12 people like this
12 responses
@Asylum (47893)
• Manchester, England
19 Feb 17
@rebelann You can use a USB2 device in a USB3 port and also a USB3 device in a USB2 port, but they will always run at the slower speed. The problem with the USB3 flash drive is that they are not compatible with live boot installations.
1 person likes this
holy cow 
@BelleStarr (61463)
• United States
23 Feb 17
You are speaking a language I don't understand and that is fine with me. I have never done any of this and probably never will. lol
1 person likes this
@Asylum (47893)
• Manchester, England
24 Feb 17
@BelleStarr It is not as technical as it may sound.
1 person likes this
@BelleStarr (61463)
• United States
24 Feb 17
@Asylum Okee Dokee but since I have never had one and don't even know what it is, likely won't be doing it. You are way too technically advanced for me lol
1 person likes this
@amadeo (111937)
• United States
15 Feb 17
@Asylum I have been hearing different stories on this.Someone say they have a disc you can wipe it out.
Or go to my hard drive and just delete what you need.I am in process or thinking of a new computer and do not want my information when I get rid of it.Thank you. I will talk to someone on this.
1 person likes this
@Asylum (47893)
• Manchester, England
16 Feb 17
@garymarsh6 That is simply a matter of interest. If you like something it becomes easy to understand.
@garymarsh6 (23998)
• United Kingdom
16 Feb 17
@Asylum I am shocked. It is too far over my head to make any sense of this. It is like you are talking in tongues. I used to love anything to do with technical stuff but these days I just don't get it. I guess its an age thing Barry. You are very clever at this sort of stuff whereas I am as daft as a brush.
1 person likes this
@fishtiger58 (29819)
• Momence, Illinois
15 Feb 17
I'm pretty sure I didn't understand one word of your post lol. I have ubuntu and windows on my computer and can go back and forth. I have had ubuntu for about 3 months now and the more I use it the less I want to use windows.
1 person likes this
@Asylum (47893)
• Manchester, England
15 Feb 17
That is because you are running a dual boot between Windows and Ubuntu. It is GRUB2 that presents you with the menu to select which operating system you want.
In my case I have installed Ubuntu onto a flash drive, which you may know as a thumbdrive. This allows me to boot from the flash drive on any computer, irrespective of what is loaded on the computer. It will even work on a computer with no hard drive. This is why I did not want GRUB2 to be installed on my computer's hard drive.
1 person likes this
@Asylum (47893)
• Manchester, England
18 Feb 17
@fishtiger58 That is possibly for installing Ubuntu only and without persistent storage.
1 person likes this
@fishtiger58 (29819)
• Momence, Illinois
18 Feb 17
@Asylum I do believe I still have ubuntu on a flash drive that's how my kid downloaded it on my computer or at least I think that's what he did.
1 person likes this
@topffer (42155)
• France
15 Feb 17
I do a bit differently : I create two partitions on the flash drive, 1 4GB FAT32 one with Grub4Dos which can be used as a normal flash drive to exchange data with Windows computers, and a second one formatted in Ext2 (Ext 3 and 4 are killing flash drives quickly due to intensive write) with the Linux to boot. I always did it through a Linux laptop, not with a startup disk, but I do not understand why this one wants to install a bootloader on your hard drive when you ask it to create a bootable flash drive
.
.1 person likes this
@Letranknight2015 (52665)
• Philippines
16 Feb 17
I missed using Ubuntu software but it was made on my mom's laptop that broke last year.
1 person likes this
@Jeanniemaries (8237)
• United States
19 Feb 17
This is why it took hours for me to fix my computer. I have absolutely no idea what you said in your post.
1 person likes this
