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I've tried to install ubuntu on my pen drive several times and always get the same error during installation that says "Attempt to mount a filesystem with type ext4 at '/' failed", or something like it. I've tried to work around this problem for some time, tried all possible ways to install ubuntu and the result was always the same. I wnat to know if there's a way to just copy the files from a machine with ubuntu full installed to the removable device, and then make the device bootable. Like a direct install, copy the necessary files to pen drive and make it work. Is there any way to do that ? Any help would be appreciated

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  • Is USB big enough(20GBs or more)? Are you installing from a Ubuntu install USB, burned ISO to USB? Have you tried different USBs, one might be bad? Could use Clonezilla to copy to USB, if same size as your partition.
    – crip659
    Jul 8, 2020 at 22:01
  • Take a look at unetbootin with persistent storage. That's seemingly what you're looking for. It'll do it automagically with Ubuntu and only Ubuntu (and official Ubuntu flavors).
    – KGIII
    Jul 9, 2020 at 4:03
  • Are you running Ubuntu or some other Linux distro in some (other) computer or booted from a live USB drive or DVD disk? Or are you only running Windows or MacOS?
    – sudodus
    Jul 9, 2020 at 10:13

3 Answers 3

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It is not possible to do it the way you have tried and, no, it won't work to just copy files from a computer to a USB stick and make it work. There is a way to install Ubuntu (or whichever distribution you choose) but it is tricky. There is a recipe in the accepted answer on:

How to Create a Full Install of Ubuntu 20.04 to USB Device Step by Step

Be sure to follow it to the letter.

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Copy Ubuntu from Desktop to USB drive

It is quite easy to copy Ubuntu from your desktop computer to a USB drive, so that It boots both BIOS and UEFI modes.

  • Start by creating a Persistent USB using mkusb with default settings.

  • Delete partitions 4 and 5. Keep partition 1 if you want a Linux/Windows data partition.

  • Confirm that there is enough empty space on the USB for your desktop's Ubuntu system partition, (/). Shrink the NTFS partition if necessary.

  • Boot computer from a second Live USB.*

  • Open GParted, select the internal drive, right click the system partition and select copy.

  • Select the USB drive, right click the empty space and select paste.

  • Run GParted, when done copy grub.cfg from the new root partition /boot/grub/ to the Partition 2 /boot/grub/, overwriting the existing grub.cfg file.

  • If you plan on using the drive on your desktop. it is a good idea to use GParted to change the USB's UUID. GRUB and fstab UUIDs would also need to be updated.

*If you only have one USB, you can boot the mkusb install toram and then continue to delete it's partitions 4 and 5 and clone the desktop's system partition to it.

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Thanks everybody, sorry for my delay on answering. The problem really was the usb. O got a new one and things just worked out. I really appreciate the help =)

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