Need Help Installing Linux on an External SSD for My Old Laptop

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Asked By TechieTinkerer99 On

I'm using an old laptop with Windows 10 Pro and want to set up Linux on a bootable external SSD without touching my Windows installation. I've downloaded a few distros like Mint Cinnamon, Zorin, Fedora, and MX and made bootable USB drives. However, I'm hitting roadblocks! Fedora goes straight to grub rescue mode, Mint and Zorin create partitions but struggle with the EFI partition table (my laptop doesn't support UEFI), and MX only lets me allocate MB instead of GB for the partitions, which messes up my storage plans. It's been really frustrating, and I'm at a loss for what to try next. Has anyone successfully done this?

4 Answers

Answered By OldSchoolGamer01 On

I managed to install Mint on my external SSD! Here’s the process: During installation, make sure you boot the USB installer in UEFI mode if your system supports it, otherwise MBR/Legacy is the way to go. Disconnect your internal drive just to be safe. Use GParted to set up a new partition table, then let the installer handle the partitioning. Trying to do it manually can lead to issues.

Answered By HelpfulHacker77 On

I recently installed Mint on my external drive following this setup: 1. Confirmed non-UEFI using efibootmgr. 2. Made an MSDOS partition table through GParted. 3. Created four partitions for root, boot, swap, and home. 4. In the Mint installer, bypassed a few options, and during installation, I specified my drive for bootloader installation. After accepting warnings about no EFI partition, it went smoothly. Good luck!

Answered By SkepticalSam22 On

You might still have a shot at getting Grub to boot even if your laptop doesn't support UEFI. You could try creating a special 1MB partition for bios_grub if you're using GPT, but generally, if your disk is under 2.2TB, MBR is the way to go for non-UEFI systems.

Answered By LinuxAdventurer42 On

Hey, if your laptop truly doesn’t support UEFI, then you’ll want to stick with the MBR scheme for the partition table. You can check if the live installer is booted in UEFI mode or not, and if it created an EFI partition, then that's a sign it tried booting in that mode. I got Mint running on my SSD by ensuring I utilized the MBR table and followed the recommended partition setup.

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