Need advice: Should I install a bootloader for my external SSD?

Ojciec_Mateusz · June 24, 2023, 1:13pm

I’m planning to install Endeavour OS on my external SSD, but I’m unsure about whether I should install a bootloader on it. Currently, I have Windows as my main operating system, and I want to avoid any potential complications or issues that may arise.

Another consideration is that I won’t always have the external SSD connected, so it’s important for me to have the option to boot into Windows even when the drive is not plugged in.

I would greatly appreciate any guidance or recommendations on how to proceed with this installation. Thank you in advance!

swh · June 24, 2023, 1:20pm

Unfortunately i am not able to help you further, but basically i welcome you to the forum and the wonderfull Community

pebcak · June 24, 2023, 1:47pm

Is this a UEFI or Legacy/MBR system?

Are you going to use the whole of the external disk for EnOS?

Also, if you already have the EnOS live usb, please boot it up, pluggin your external drive and post the output of the following commands

sudo parted -l
efibootmgr

Copy the terminal output and paste it in your reply, highlight it and press Ctlr-E to format.

Ojciec_Mateusz · June 24, 2023, 1:59pm

I use UEFI and I’m going to use whole drive for Endeavour os.

boxer · June 24, 2023, 2:00pm

Are you using bios boot option like F8, F12, Esc or Alt to boot from different harddrives? If so then you can safely install bootloader on an external drive. It will not intefere with the internal efi boot drive(windows) but it may have a windows boot option when you boot from the external drive depending on your setup. It can be removed later on. This will not show when you unplug the external drive and your computer will boot from the internal drive as normal.

I have 3 EFI systems on this computer ( Imac) , EOS, Kali and Archcraft. Kali is on an external ssd drive wich I plug in everytime i want to use it. EOS on internal M.2 nvme and Archcraft on internal ssd. I just use Alt to choose from where I want to boot. But I also have EOS as default boot drive if I dont want to choose drives to boot from.

Think of it as booting from a live usb.

pebcak · June 24, 2023, 2:02pm

You can then use the automatic install in the installer, choose Grub and make sure to point the installer to the right disk.

Ojciec_Mateusz · June 24, 2023, 2:02pm

Thanks that helped me

Ojciec_Mateusz · June 24, 2023, 2:53pm

I have actually one more problem. I can’t connect to wifi. I see avaible networks that I can connect to but after I put in password it wont connect me.

I ran

ip link

and saw that my network adapter is down.
So I tried running

ip link set wlan0 up

but it didnt work.
When I tried to install Arch I ran into the same problem.
Can somebody help?

petsam · June 26, 2023, 11:45am

There is also nvram (UEFI menu) setting. Until recently, Calamares replaced the main disk default boot entry with the installing OS option. This is physically existing on the internal drive. Unless EnOS installer is bypassing this behavior with some workaround, when the external is disconnected on boot, there may be an issue, depending on UEFI Vendor’s implementation.

I am not aware if this was fixed upstream Calamares. Does anyone know?