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Yesterday I installed Ubuntu from a USB flash drive. Now, when I turn on my notebook, it displays only _. When insert the USB drive it's ok.

I tried changing BIOS settings: some booting options, but it didn't help.

What should I do to make it possible to run without the USB flash drive?

Thanks in advance :)


Thanks but it didn't work properly. Boot Repair wrote "EFI detected. Please check the options." I don't know if it's important... after command

sudo fdisk /dev/sda

it answered:

Command (m for help): m
Command action
   a   toggle a bootable flag
   b   edit bsd disklabel
   c   toggle the dos compatibility flag
   d   delete a partition
   l   list known partition types
   m   print this menu
   n   add a new partition
   o   create a new empty DOS partition table
   p   print the partition table
   q   quit without saving changes
   s   create a new empty Sun disklabel
   t   change a partition's system id
   u   change display/entry units
   v   verify the partition table
   w   write table to disk and exit
   x   extra functionality (experts only)

Command (m for help):

So I chose sda. Then it said something like

if any problems - http://paste.ubuntu.com/1027567/ or [email protected] or my favourite discuss forum.

Then:

You can now reboot your computer. Please do not forget to make your BIOS boot on sda disk!

What has happened? what should I do? it again wasn't able to run without USB. Thank you

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  • This may sound strange, but are you 100% sure you haven't installed Ubuntu onto the flashdrive instead of the HDD? Jun 7, 2012 at 8:29
  • Have you tried sudo update-grub, after booting with your USB drive in place? What does it return as output?
    – david6
    Jun 14, 2012 at 10:10

4 Answers 4

0

Try the "ATA disk" option of Boot-Repair: http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=1998257

0

If in your BIOS, /dev/sda is selected as the first boot disk, do:

  1. Boot from your USB.
  2. Open a terminal, and execute the command

    sudo grub-update
    grub-install /dev/sda
    
  3. Reboot.
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  • 1
    Before running the grub-install command, you first need to confirm sda is the hard deive and not another drive such as the flash drive you're booting from at that point.
    – gertvdijk
    Oct 17, 2013 at 11:06
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fdisk can't repair GRUB, it was suggested only to help you choose the right drive. The Boot-Repair utility wants you to check its settings and enable correct repair options. It could do this automatically, but it's safer (in theory!) to allow this choice to the user.

So, assuming you have UEFI instead of BIOS, you have first to create an EFI partition then select it in Boot-Repair:

Refer to this guide if you have other problems.

0

It sounds like you have the MBR installed onto the wrong disk.

Boot into your installation (with the USB stick in place).

Once you have done that, connect to the internet and open a terminal.

Enter the following lines seperately into the terminal:

sudo add-apt-repository ppa:yannubuntu/boot-repair && sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get install -y boot-repair && boot-repair

Once these actions have completed (following the in-terminal instructions) the "Boot Repair" application will open.

In this windows click "Advanced options"

Then click "GRUB location"

Choose "Place GRUB into:

In the drop down box opposite the last selection choose your HDD rather than your USB drive. On my computer my HDD is named "sda" and the USB drive "sdb" but these may be the other way around for you, or even different things if you have an unusual drive set up.

I would suggest checking which is which is which by running this command in the terminal:

sudo fdisk /dev/sda

Here you will be able to see the size of each disk, and presuming they are not of equal size you will then be able to determine which is which.

Once you know the identity of each disk, choose your HDD for GRUB to be placed onto.

Then hit "Apply" at the bottom and wait for everything to complete.

Restart you computer and you should be able to boot without the USB drive.

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