Ubuntu 9.10 on USB stick: No operating system found

Hi all,

I was planning on starting my Linux era with Ubuntu 9.10. Installed it from CD on an 8GB USB drive. Set BIOS to boot from said USB drive before built-in hard drive.

If I switch on computer (acer Aspire laptop), it will ignore USB drive and boot Win Vista from hard disk.

If I force computer to try and boot from USB via the BIOS boot menu, it says: No Operating System found. Why? How can I convince it that there actually is an operating system installed?

I consciously did not install grub boot manager because when I tried Ubuntu installation + grub yesterday, nothing booted anymore: Grub said NO SUCH DRIVE and I couldn't even boot windows anymore without some hassle.

Will I forever be unable to run Ubuntu on this computer? Anything I can do?

Thanks in advance for your help.

Sounds like the USB drive isn't properly set up, or your laptop isn't capable (unlikely, as you've got Vista on it).
What process did you use to set it up?
You need syslinux (or equivalent) installed on the usb drive to make it bootable (not grub)

Use Unetbootin to install a bootable Live istall of Ubuntu. It's really easy to use:

http://unetbootin.sourceforge.net/

Just delete whatever you have already put on the USB and do it the easy way.;)

.

Seems there is a problem with the dist. At least i havent found a solution to the same problem. And there is some other threads reporting same problem in different ways

there is no usb-creator.exe on the 9.10 x64 disk and it seams the problems applies also if you try to use unetbootin

But still no explanation if this is a user (you, me and her rest) error or a ubuntu error (embarasing then)

threads:

http://ubuntu-ky.ubuntuforums.org/sh....php?t=1317008
http://ubuntu-ky.ubuntuforums.org/ne...te=1&p=8255508
http://ubuntu-ky.ubuntuforums.org/sh....php?t=1310707
http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?p=8257120
http://newyork.ubuntuforums.org/show....php?t=1313987

I used the USB drive fresh out of the box, let it be formatted with both kinds of Linux file systems by the Ubuntu installation.

As was suggested in Reply #4 maybe I’ll wait for a next distribution or else try unetbootin.

Thanks for all your replies thus far!

the only version I've sucessfully been able to make a USB-flash startup from is Intrepid Ibex. In Intrepid the application was working correctly. All other attempts result with the same isssue of "No OS found" or a blinking cursor.

What finally worked was installing grub on the same USB drive as Ubuntu. If the USB stick is connected, now Grub will ask me whether I want to boot Vista or Ubuntu. (Of the two identical Vista choices one works, one doesn’t.)

If the drive is not connected, my notebook will start Vista same way it always did.

Before I could attempt to install Ubuntu on the USB drive again, I had to reformat it using G-Parted, though.

Now my only remaining problem is that Ubuntu won’t accept the user password I’m sure is the same I set during installation...

Thanks again for all your tips, appreciate it.

Happy to hear that the grub boot works.

For the password, you could change it using a live CD - look up info on the passwd command, and possibly use something like vipwd (my knowledge may be somewhat dated here, and different tools recommended).

Guide to creating a Llive USB:
http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=1193680

Known Issues
The 9.10 CDs and DVDs are missing the usb-creator.exe program. To install to a flash drive from a disk image on Windows, use the incredibly easy process described at:
http://www.pendrivelinux.com/create-...sb-in-windows/
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