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If I removed the SSD (or hard drive) from the laptop, and then plugged in the Xubuntu 20.04 LTS non-persistent Live USB and turned on the computer, would I be able to boot into it normally?

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  • Yes, only the changes or the work done will not be saved.
    – kyodake
    Nov 17, 2020 at 23:15
  • Ah OK. But if it's a non-persistent live USB, wouldn't it not be saved regardless?
    – JJrussel
    Nov 17, 2020 at 23:31
  • A "USB with persistent storage" has the normal (no permanent changes) Live USB boot partition, where all the system stuff is stored, read-only, PLUS (this is the "persistent" part) a second disk partition that can be mounted "read/write". Preserving system changes on this writable partition is left up to you.
    – waltinator
    Nov 17, 2020 at 23:56
  • It should work on most computers. Would check that in bios booting from USB is enabled first, a few will have this setting disabled.
    – crip659
    Nov 18, 2020 at 0:09

1 Answer 1

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Computer with Only a Live USB and No HDD

Programs like Etcher, Win32DiskImager, dd, Gnome-Disks and Startup Disk Creator, create a USB with a ISO9660 read only operating system.

However, since 19.10, these programs do produce a inactive persistent partition named writable.

The drive will be persistent if while booting Shift is pressed, then Escape, F6 and Escape again, then a space is typed followed by persistent.

The drive will be booted persistent every time this procedure is followed while booting and will see the data that was there the last persistent boot.

The session will not be persistent if this procedure is not followed.

A writable partition on a ISO9660 drive can be changed to a NTFS data partition by running sudo mkfs.ntfs -f -L data /dev/sdx3 from a second Live USB or while booted toram. x3 is the drive and writable partition of the ISO9660 drive.

To answer the main question, an internal drive is not required when booting from a Live, (non-persistent) USB or from a persistent one.

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