Well I've read the manual for my motherboard and it had a lot to say about installing hardware, and just a bit at the end about BIOS and RAID. It did say that when it talks about BIOS it's referring to UEFI BIOS (is that the same as regular UEFI or is it a combination of the two?). Anyway, it mentioned the keys to press to get into the UEFI/BIOS, but nothing about a boot menu. It did mention a boot menu once, but it was referring to the one inside the UEFI settings, so it's really just talking about configuring which device to boot first (and it never gave me any options for external devices at all). Also, the manual makes no mention at all about either MBR or GPT, as far as I can tell.

What I'm saying is that you literally *can't* just write all 1's without erasing it, as you can only write 0's, not 1's.

If you want to write even *one* 1 into that area of memory, you need to do something like the folowing:
* Copy eve entire erase block somewhere (like in a RAM cache)
* Erase the entire erase block (hope there's no power outage right after this step)
* Restore from the copy, except don't put a 0 into that particular spot

Oh, you mean the only way to write a 1 anywhere is to erase? That's really weird!

Well, I got a late start today because I couldn't get the drives as early as I'd have liked, and then I still had to research a bunch of stuff, so I didn't want to get into installing really late in the day if I couldn't finish and had to leave stuff half-done, so I'll do it early tomorrow.

Actually, I've been thinking about it, and I have two questions which might really clear up some stuff:

- How is grub configured when an installer ISO is burned onto a USB stick? I can always run the installer without any difficulty, so if I configure my installed OS to be exactly the same in that way, then theoretically it should run just fine, right?

- Is it or is it not possible to boot from a USB drive that does not have any kind of boot loader installed, or anything on it other than an OS?

In addition to the previous post, I've been reading, and I saw that:

- It is possible to run Linux without a boot loader, because if it's the only OS on the drive then it should load by default, so that would mean that theoretically, all I have to do is get it to boot from USB and only have Linux on there, and that should work, right? Would it still need a MBR or GPT?

- I think I may have figured out why my GRUB on the HD doesn't recognize the USB drive, but I could use some verification if anyone knows for sure. Basically, when you install GRUB, it looks at all the drives and it finds every OS and adds it to the list at that time - not each time you boot! So if that's the case then that would mean that when I initially installed GRUB on my HD it didn't include the USB Linux because I hadn't even made that yet, and then when I installed the USB Linux it destroyed the GRUB on the HD, but then when I recreated that GRUB I guess I may not have had the USB Linux in the drive at the time (I know I booted with it in though, but maybe I took it out once I was running the HD Linux), so then it didn't add that, and never recognized it afterwards. Supposedly I can use sudo update-grub to have it rescan for every OS, so if I put it in the drive and do that, then I guess that should work, but I'm afraid that when I try to boot later without the USB in the drive then I might get an error. Anyway, I don't have time to test this until tomorrow. Would that cause an error/problem or not?

Like I said, best is Nixos or Guix. For example, they released 20.09 system now, all I had to do is add new url and run a command. And then it told me, I had to change 3 lines of text. And when it then attempted to calculate the evaluation (yes, a system is result of mathematical evaluation) - it found one core package to be broke - prior to downloading anything.

So I wasted a total of 1 minute to understand its a bit too early to fetch stuff, saving gigabytes of bandwith, time and chance to have half-broken system. And when they fix that package, the system will evaluate and upgrade itself without any interaction from my side. That kind of Linux is worth diving into, really. At least from my perspective.

Fill free to skip this post if you don't care though, as everything has its place and time. Best luck in your adventures.


PS, if you want to dig and get technical side, to get million of problems and thereof million points in knowledge, use LFS instead.

Hey OP, what seems to be the problem these days? ANd no, I haven't followed the last 42 pages, just curious.

1. You boot from a live USB to linux distro of choice in UEFI mode?
2. Properly partition an empty USB flash drive to use as Linux installation?
3. Properly install the linux distro, with custom partititons and boot loader pointing to EFI partition?
4. Properly setup BIOS to boot in UEFI mode from USB flash drive?

Which part breaks?

Mainly part 1 and maybe a little bit of 4. Here's what's happening:

I have Windows 10 and Linux Mint both on my HD with GRUB to boot them. After that, I've tried installing Linux Mint onto a USB stick several times in various ways, and each time it will boot afterwards and initially work fine (except when I accidentally put it on a USB 2.0 stick and it was WAY too slow, and for some reason couldn't find my other drives, but I haven't tried again since then, so I hope putting it on USB 3.0 will fix all of that).

But the installation process ALWAYS corrupts the GRUB which is already on my HD. Then the HD Linux won't boot at all, unless I boot it through the GRUB on the USB stick, but the USB stick boots fine UNTIL I repair the GRUB on the HD, at which point the USB stick stops booting at all, no matter what I do. So it's a very weird catch-22, so that I can't have my cake and eat it too. I can either have a system that can boot from the HD GRUB or one that can boot from the USB GRUB, but evidently not both.

If I leave the GRUB on the HD broken then I could always boot from the USB to use the Linux on either the USB or on the HD (it gives me both options, and actually, that's the only way that I can boot back into the HD Linux to repair its GRUB), but I really don't want to leave it broken because then I'll have to use the USB stick every time I want to boot from the HD, and I just don't trust a broken GRUB!

Also, I don't seem to have an option for a boot menu so that I can manually force it to boot from USB, nor is there any option to prioritize USB booting before HD booting (if I could do that then I could just have it automatically boot from the USB whenever it's plugged in, and the HD when it's not, which is how I'd prefer it to work), so I always have to go into Windows, do an advanced restart and tell it to boot from the USB, but for some reason that doesn't work with my Linux installed on the USB, so it automatically just runs the HD GRUB instead (unless it's currently broken, in which case it does actually run the USB GRUB, but I don't see why it would automatically defer like that rather than just printing an error), but I don't know whether having to reboot from Windows has any effect on why it's not working.

In any case, I can always boot a USB of the installer and run in live mode, which really isn't good enough, but it proves that it's always possible for me to boot from a USB, but it needs to be the right thing on the USB, evidently. Do you know a way for me to set up GRUB on an installation of Mint on a USB to match the way GRUB on the installer works? It seems like it would boot a lot more reliably then, because it would essentially boot the same way that the installer does, right?

It's also very important to me that this is completely portable so that it can run on any computer, even if it doesn't already have a boot loader on its HD, so I must install it with a boot loader on the USB (and I'd really prefer it be BIOS and UEFI compatible). Do you know of anyone ever having installed Mint or any Linux on both a HD and a USB, each with its own boot loader, and being able to boot both on the same system? How is it done?!

I've tried practically EVERYTHING to fix these problems, and nothing has worked at all! I've installed it in various ways, with various options, with and without a boot loader, and overwriting the HD boot loader, etc. I've tried booting in BIOS/Legacy mode and in UEFI mode. I've even divided the USB drive into 3 partitions, made the first one for BIOS, the second one for UEFI and the third for Mint (to be fair, that was what I tried when I accidentally used USB 2.0, but I'll try it again with 3.0).

Do you have ANY ideas of how to fix this problem?! Because I'm losing my mind!

The real q here is wtheck he needs all this for
If it was for some specific purpose, then we could've helped him right away in like 4 posts
In case he's just dabbling playing around and generally getting his feet wet with linux and hasnct succeeeded.in 42 pages then he's clearly unable to follow instructions (like admittedely 99% users out there)
The thread should be locked regardless, it's gone offtopic probably from the second page. And confuses readers with it's insane content.

I do follow directions correctly, and what exactly is insane about trying to fix an error?! And no I'm not dabbling but I have a very specific purpose in which I need to be able to run Linux Mint on a portable USB stick! Is that so incredibly unheard of and unprecedented that it's somehow insane???

OMFG! I think I might have actually solved my problem, or at the very least, a big part of it! As it turns out, I was right about the HD GRUB not recognizing the USB Mint installation because it didn't know about it yet and hadn't been told. I was able to fix that with a grub-update! I had thought that it scans all partitions for an OS each time it runs, but evidently, it only scans when you do a grub-update, and you have to make sure the USB drive is plugged in during that time, but anyway, I can boot it now!

Of course, that still doesn't prove that it can boot directly from the USB itself even on a computer without GRUB installed on the HD, but if my theory that it was interfering with the other GRUB is correct then it should work, so I just need to test it on such a computer.

Unfortunately, despite the verbose response from you, I didn't really get answers to all my questions.

You never specified how you installed the distro, which path did you take - UEFI or BIOS legacy - and where did you install the bootloader during your installation to a USB pen drive, for example. At least, I did not notice this info in your response.

So if you please, please provide more info and answer these questions as specifically as you can. I have expanded on them this time, in the hopes of clarifying the situation more:

1. You boot from a live USB to linux distro of choice in UEFI mode?
So this is just for the installation of a distro, and specifically want to determine whether you are using UEFI mode (probably in all very modern setups) or the BIOS legacy mode(easily done as a mistake due to wrong BIOS settings). Note that when you make the live USB for the distro, and burn the ISO to a bootable USB drive, the status of whether your system is currently in UEFI mode or not matters.

2. Properly partition an empty USB flash drive to use as Linux installation?
How did you partition the pen drive? Which filesystems, how big, what did you set them up as? I'm specifically looking not only for a home drive and a root drive (no need for a swap partition in this setup if you have enough RAM and want to play it risky) but most importantly a FAT32 ESP partition for a system wide bootloader. If you have Windows and UEFI boot mode on, you will already have a ESP partition where your bootloader is. If you make it here or allow the installer to do it automatically, things will break. The tricky part is that the USB pen drive is only there when you attach it - so by default it is unplugged and something else has to take care of the ESP and bootloader(this would be Windows in your setup, or possibly Mint and Grub if you set it up that way). I think this is where things get tricky and things break.

3. Properly install the linux distro, with custom partititons and boot loader pointing to EFI partition?
This is actually directly related to 2., but further emphasises how you installed linux and which partititions you used.

4. Properly setup BIOS to boot in UEFI mode from USB flash drive?
This is completely OS independent but crucially important. You need to go into your BIOS settings and disable CSM/legacy options, and most likely disable Fast boot and Secure boot if things aren't working. Furthermore, since you have a Win10 partition, you need to disable the Windows Fast Startup feature in Windows, but you've probably done that to get a dual boot working in the first place. Ok. In that tremendously long sentence that lasted an entire paragraph, I got that you need to set this up in the BIOS. It's easy and simple and has actually nothing to do with Linux or any OS dependence. The instructions for entering and changing BIOS settings varies by firmware owner, but it's almost always like pressing F12 or Del at bootup and then going into Boot order/priority/preferences/settings. You just put USB drives first, or as an override I think. So unless the PC is already configured in the BIOS to be able to boot from USB pen drives, this won't work. It will just ignore the USB pen drive when booting up. I know that many office laptops disable this as a security measure in bigger firms. If the IT guys need to, they will just enable it themselves. For everything else, it will work if the USB is bootable though. Just an FYI. Ok so here I read that you have in fact tried UEFI and BIOS legacy modes, but I'm still unclear where you set up the bootloader and the ESP partition is located for the UEFI setup, so please clarify. I'm not really surprised - your user case is unorthodox and kinda weird (dual boot windows10+mint plus an additional boot and install from USB pen drive) but I don't see how it should not be possible. Think about it, all of the live USB linux distro installers have this setup. You can plug it in, boot from it, and you have a mostly running Linux distro. So it shouldn't be too hard to make it permanent (touch wood).

Alright, sorry. I guess I misunderstood your questions and you just wanted to know which of the 4 was the problem.

I've tried it in both UEFI and BIOS/Legacy mode and got the same results. I had no idea that it mattered how I boot when I create the installer, but to answer that question, I was in UEFI mode at that time. By the way, why does it matter which mode I'm ever in? I thought that the BIOS and UEFI were just things to get everything running in the first place, and once that's settled and the boot loader does its thing, the OS takes it from there and software just runs with the same instructions on the same processor regardless.

I've tried partitioning a couple of ways. One way was to not partition it at all so there was one partition by default, and I installed Linux onto that. More recently I tried making 3 partitions: 2 MB for BIOS, 200 MB for UEFI and the rest for Mint (and there was a 1 MB padding at the beginning before the first partition). I was following these instructions and checked all the boxes that it said:

https://forums.linuxmint.com/viewtopic.php?p=1590473#p1590473

It had me make a GPT, which as far as I can tell has something to do with ESP as well. Are you implying that the GPT/ESP (or whatever it's called) partition will automatically have GRUB installed onto it without me telling it to install? Does that mean that I should disable the GRUB install (by using Ubiquity -b) so that the installer doesn't automatically put an extra GRUB because there'd already be one there in the 200 MB UEFI partition? Also, when you talk about "things breaking", if you're referring to the GRUB on the HD being corrupted and needing to be repaired, that's really the least of my worries. I'm much more concerned with being able to boot from the USB drive even after the GRUB on the HD has been repaired (which I sort of can now, at least in some cases, but I'm not sure that it's completely fixed my problem - see post 341).

I think I probably answered most of that by now - see above. As far as the boot loader pointing to an EFI partition, I've never been able to control the boot loader beyond where I install it, but not what it references (though with the grub-update that I ran, I think I was able to change that - again, see post 341).

Here's one point that doesn't seem to work. My BIOS/UEFI doesn't seem to give me ANY option to choose whether I can boot from USB or not, nor to change the boot order of my devices. It allows me to boot manually into Windows or Linux on the HD, but it doesn't list any Linux installation on a USB. Also, I have no way of accessing a boot menu (I even read the manual for my motherboard and it doesn't mention that at all, except in reference to the boot options within UEFI, which like I said, are extremely limited and don't mention anything about USB).

So whenever I want to boot from a USB stick, I must first go into Windows, restart in advanced mode, and select boot from USB, which allows me to boot the live installer, but not my installed Mint on USB - though I now seem to be able to do that since I ran update-grub, but only because it's still booting through the GRUB on the HD (I refer you again to post 341).

Well, the sentence may have been long, but I don't think it was run-on ;). Anyway, I've been saying that I did exactly what you described, and there's NO option or any mention of anything having to do with USB at all in that entire list. In fact, it doesn't even give me the option to boot from CD/DVD. I don't remember specifically what it said or what the options were, but believe me that I looked in every nook and cranny, and couldn't find any mention of that stuff at all. My motherboard is by a company called Republic of Gamers, by the way, so I don't know if you happen to have any experience with their hardware.

Yes, I realize that part, but that can generally be fixed, and there's always the Windows advanced startup (I assume there's something similar in MacOS, right?). My main concern when I said that is that I want to make sure it's compatible with any computer regardless of whether it's using Legacy BIOS or UEFI, because it may need to run on some slightly old computers (from sometime around 2012 or so).

I think I said it above in this post, but to restate it, I put BIOS on the 2 MB partition at the beginning, UEFI on the 200 MB partition just after it, and Linux Mint on the third partition after that, all on the USB drive. I suppose it installed GRUB wherever it does by default, given that I told it to install onto that drive (it was like sdb or something, but I didn't specify a partition like sdb1, because I've read that I shouldn't). In any case, I was following the instructions given here:

https://forums.linuxmint.com/viewtopic.php?p=1590473#p1590473

Right, that's what I thought! But is it really that unusual? I mean a lot of people dual boot Linux and Windows on two partitions of the same HD, and a lot of people install and run Linux from a USB stick, so what's so unusual about doing all three?

That's not a company, that's an ASUS brand and I have a damn hard time believing they wouldn't let you set boot priority. And by the way, I also have an ASUS ROG motherboard (C6H), which lets me set boot priority just fine.. and it does have a boot menu too.

I hear you well. The q stands - what exactly for? There's no shortage of ready made live distros out there.
I didn't say that at all. Since I wasn't even sure what you're up to I couldn't have said that.
This still stands though, bc 18 pages with posts frequently spanning half a page are certainly not needed for this simple feat. As you've ritghly implied it's not insane nor even unheard of. Far from that obviously.


lol