Tried to install Mint to a Flash Drive. Now I can't boot from the main hard disk

Question

all. I'm kind of new to Linux and I need some help. I wanted to install a Linux distro to a flash drive so that I can have a portable OS with all my settings, programs, etc. wherever I go. So I fired up a Linux Mint Live CD and installed Mint to the flash drive, and this seems to work OK. But now, whenever I try to boot up my system normally without the flash drive plugged in, it doesn't seem to work. It basically hangs for a bit, and then I get the following prompt:

error: no such device: (some long hex val)
grub rescue>

However, when I try powering my system up when the USB is plugged into the computer, it gives me an option between using the OS installed on my USB and the OS installed on my HD. Selecting the latter, everything loads up just fine. I'm guessing that installing Mint to the flash drive somehow messed with my native Grub installation, but, again, I'm kind of new to Linux, so I'm not sure exactly why. Any help is greatly appreciated.

Answer 1

you should have made a /boot partition on the local HD

Answer 2

OK, I've fixed the issue as follows (with the help of the tutorial here: http://community.linuxmint.com/tutorial/view/245):

1) Fire up the Linux Mint Live CD.

2) We want to mount the partition we installed Mint to. I didn't know the name of this partition, so I opened up Terminal, then typed in "sudo fdisk -l" to print out a list of partitions. Turns out, for me, this was /dev/sda1, but this might differ for you.

3) We mount the appropriate partition using "sudo mount /dev/sdXY /mnt". Again, for me, this was partition sda1.

4) Next, we reinstall grub on the mounted partition: "sudo grub-install --root-directory /mnt/ /dev/sda". Note the lack of the trailing "1" at the end of the drive name.

That's it. Then reboot, and everything should be working again.

Also, I've discovered a tool that helps install Linux on USB drives for you (UNetbootin). This seems like a much better option, since you can run this directly within your current install of Windows or Linux, and you don't run the risk of accidentally modifying your boot loader installation in the process.