Ubuntu – Can’t boot without Flash Drive plugged in

bootusb

I had Ubuntu 12.04 Beta installed on my computer. When 12.04 was finally released, I made a bootable USB Flash Drive using Startup Disk Creator.

Then I decided to check if this drive works properly and to reinstall the system on my desktop. I must add, my desktop behaves a bit strange when it comes to bootable USB's, it recognizes them as HDD.

In BIOS I changed priority of boot so USB Flash Drive (recognized as HDD) was first. Successfully booted, I installed Ubuntu. Everything worked fine, but…

Now I cannot boot from my real HDD. Every time I want to boot, I put the USB Flash Drive into my computer, boot, safely remove it and everything works.

What do I need to do to repair boot?

Best Answer

It looks like Grub got installed to the USB drive. Boot with the USB drive, open a terminal window by pressing Ctrl-Alt-T then run

sudo grub-install /dev/sdX

Where sdX is the drive you wish to boot from. That command will install GRUB to the MBR of the desired hard drive (sda,sdb,sdc,sdd), which should make it bootable. The commands sudo fdisk -l or lsblk should help you identify which drive you want.

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Install ntfs-3g

sudo apt-get install ntfs-3g ntfsprogs ntfstools

Type:

 su -i
 blkid

create a mountpoint

sudo mkdir /media/Data

Before editing /etc/fstab make a backup

sudo cp /etc/fstab /etc/fstab.orig

Type:

gksudo gedit /etc/fstab

add this line to the end of /etc/fstab:

UUID=EXAMPLE01422 /media/Data  ntfs-3g  defaults,windows_names,locale=en_US.utf8  0 0

Replace the UUID with the one relevant for your partition as shown in your blkid output.

You can fix windows partition through the following command:

sudo ntfsfix <partition>

ntfsfix is like chkdsk for windows machines

Update: If you get an error after runing sudo apt-get install ntfs-3g ntfsprogs ntfstools edit /etc/apt/sources.list

nano /etc/apt/sources.list

Add the following lines:

   #ntfs-3g & fuse-2.5 repository: 
   deb http://flomertens.keo.in/ubuntu/ dapper main 
   deb-src http://flomertens.keo.in/ubuntu/ dapper main 

   #Givre's repository (ntfs-3g & fuse 2.5.3) 

   deb http://givre.cabspace.com/ubuntu/ dapper main
   deb-src http://givre.cabspace.com/ubuntu/ dapper main

save and update

Best Answer

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