mtrog007 Posted June 25, 2008 Share Posted June 25, 2008 I know this seems like a stupid question, but I was reading multiple guides on how to do it, and some of them recommended removing the hard drive to prevent accidental overwriting of the drive. What should I do? Anyone have a full proof guide on how to do this? I recently bought a 1TB western digital essential edition external hard drive, so I think I have enough room Oh, and is there a way to store music and regular crapola on there also? I want to use it for running the occasional linux, but also backup/storage. Does that mean I'll have to partition the drive? Any help appreciated, Thanks. Link to comment https://www.insanelymac.com/forum/topic/112589-does-anyone-know-how-to-install-linux-on-an-external-hard-drive/ Share on other sites More sharing options...
mtrog007 Posted June 27, 2008 Author Share Posted June 27, 2008 Does anyone know? Link to comment https://www.insanelymac.com/forum/topic/112589-does-anyone-know-how-to-install-linux-on-an-external-hard-drive/#findComment-798963 Share on other sites More sharing options...
BigPimpin Posted June 27, 2008 Share Posted June 27, 2008 Fool proof. Link to comment https://www.insanelymac.com/forum/topic/112589-does-anyone-know-how-to-install-linux-on-an-external-hard-drive/#findComment-798970 Share on other sites More sharing options...
mtrog007 Posted June 28, 2008 Author Share Posted June 28, 2008 That doesn't tell me much Link to comment https://www.insanelymac.com/forum/topic/112589-does-anyone-know-how-to-install-linux-on-an-external-hard-drive/#findComment-799686 Share on other sites More sharing options...
gygabyte666 Posted July 1, 2008 Share Posted July 1, 2008 I know this seems like a stupid question, but I was reading multiple guides on how to do it, and some of them recommended removing the hard drive to prevent accidental overwriting of the drive. What should I do? Anyone have a full proof guide on how to do this? I recently bought a 1TB western digital essential edition external hard drive, so I think I have enough room Oh, and is there a way to store music and regular crapola on there also? I want to use it for running the occasional linux, but also backup/storage. Does that mean I'll have to partition the drive? Any help appreciated, Thanks. If all you are trying to do is get Linux installed on the external HDD then you must make sure that you have at least 3 partitions (1 OSX, 1 Linux, 1 XP) I have experiemented with this not only on my OSX86 computers, but my original macs as well. The order for doing this kind of thing is very tricky and works differently for each computer but i have figured out a way to get it to work with just about any computer most of the time. I have only fully tested this on internal HDDs, i have tested on externals too but not this in depth, in theory this should work fine regardless as to which way you do it but just to be safe don't blame me if something bites the big one. You should consider not installing Linux at all if you only occassionally want it on there, it's easier to use the live cd, but if you insist, read on. If you wish to have music and such on there as well then you have to have four partitions! Make sure your partitions are set properly and are currently blank, I recommend using the osx86 leopard disc for this as it makes everything much easier. they must be in this order: 1: OSX86 Leopard -- HFS+ 2: Linux (Ubuntu, etc.) -- FAT32/HFS+ <--gets formatted later on anyway 3: XP (Pro, Home, MCE) -- FAT32/16 <---gets formatted to NTFS later After you have done this and everything is set up correctly, be sure you read this next part 8 times if you have to just be sure you understand it! YOU MUST INSTALL ALL OSs IN THIS EXACT ORDER! 1- Install osx86 leopard first! that way you have the bootloader installed (10.5.1 or later only) 2- Install Linux second! it has its own bootloader and will be cranky unless it is installed next. 3- NO MATTER WHAT, INSTALL ANY WINDOWS OS LAST! This is very important, as windows has the ability to {censored} up all of your hard work. You must install this last.* *As you install windows it will warn you that it must set the active partition (osx86) inactive so that it can boot normally and install correctly, all you have to do to fix this is run CMD (command prompt) and run these commands: <:\ diskpart <:\ list disk <:\ select disk # (replace # with the number for your external HDD) <:\ list partitions <:\ select partition # (replace # with your osx86 partition on external HDD) then use the help command to figure out what command makes it active, i forget which one it is but you can't miss it if you just type "help" it should pop up. after you set osx86 as active again restart and everything should be working great. hopefully this helps! remember i have only tested this thoroughly on internal HDDs, so your on your own if things don't work right. Good luck Link to comment https://www.insanelymac.com/forum/topic/112589-does-anyone-know-how-to-install-linux-on-an-external-hard-drive/#findComment-803343 Share on other sites More sharing options...
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