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I have been "trying" Ubuntu on a USB drive. I did some work today. Shut down the laptop. started it again (directing the boot to the USB drive so Ubuntu loaded up), but none of my saved text (.odt) or a few downloaded .pdf files can be found.

Did I create a virtual desktop and documents folder when running Ubuntu from my USB? Were these files deleted when the computer was shut down.

Searches for them on the heard drive 9PC) and on the USB do not turn up the files.

Suggestions?

Thanks

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3 Answers 3

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Yes unfortunately you are right. The files were deleted when you shut down the laptop.
Depending on how you set up your live usb stick there is no persistence file where your work is stored.
When booting from live stick Ubuntu essentialy loads itself into your RAM in order to run and doesn't really use the usb stick anymore.
When you shut down your pc the RAM is deleted.

To avoid this in the future follow this guide to install the live system onto your usb stick again: http://www.ubuntu.com/download/desktop/create-a-usb-stick-on-windows
In the last frame there you see a little slider at the bottom of the window titled
"Step 4: Set a persistent file size for storing changes. (optional)"
Use this slider to allocate persistent memory for the live stick.

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I don't think the files are going to be saved when you are just "trying it out", I think you need to install it ( Given you like ubuntu).

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When you created your bootable usb stick you were probably asked if you wanted to have a dedicated space to store the files and settings of your Ubuntu Live session (you also had to specify the size).

If you did not set such a dedicated space, then your files and settings are not stored.

If you did, then they are stored in a file called casper.rw and should be accessed by Ubuntu Live transparently.

See this.

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