how to install linux on an external hard drive

In Windows: After checking the md5sum you can clone the Ubuntu iso file with Win32 Disk Imager to the external drive.Ĭheck and double-check, that you have selected the correct target drive. After confirming things will work the same way as if it were a USB pendrive. In Ubuntu: mkusb-dus might notice that it is a hard disk drive (or SSD), and ask if you really want to install into that drive. Start by backing up whatever data you want to keep from the external drive to another drive or to an internet cloud service. This process can be done in two ways Using a third-party tool like Gparted or during the installation process.If it is OK to overwrite the external drive, you can use several tools, that normally are used to work with USB pendrives, and make the external drive a live drive and it will be seen like it were a USB pendrive by the system. Now that we have a bootable USB drive, we need to partition our second USB drive for installation purposes. If you are on a Windows system, use applications like PowerISO, YUMI, etc. If you are on a Linux system, you can use Etcher, Startup Disk Creator, or the MultiBootUSB utility. Once you have downloaded the Linux Mint ISO file on your computer, we need to create a bootable USB drive.

Linux Mint ISO that can be downloaded here.

Another USB drive which we will use as our bootable Linux mint media.

A 4GB size or more USB drive where we will install our Linux mint system.

Install updatable Linux Mint on a USB drive Requirements Instead of creating a bootable Linux Mint USB drive, we will install the Linux Mint system on a USB drive as we would do on a Hard drive, which means the Linux Mint will be updatable just like it would on a regular PC installation. However, that is very different from what we will do in this tutorial.

Previously, we had written posts on how to use a Live Linux USB drive and even how to create a bootable Linux USB drive with Etcher.

Have you ever fancied having a portable Linux Mint system fully installed on a USB drive ready to use on any random computer? If the answer is ‘Yes ,’ then read this complete guide on installing a complete Linux Mint System on a USB drive.

How to install linux on an external hard drive