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How to keep grub with external hard drive?

ng flag

I have a dual boot (W10 + Ubuntu 20.04) made with an external SSD when I want to boot on windows in a "normal config" I do nothing and windows is starting normally.

When I want to boot ubuntu I connect my external SSD through USB and I go in the advanced restart windows option and select my external hardrive then when my system is restarting I have the grub and I select ubuntu so It boots.

When I have finished to play with ubuntu I want to I shutdown my system, disconnect my SSD with Ubuntu and when my system is starting I still have the grub but there is nothing in it. It is just a window with the text "GRUB" and a cli like this :

GRUB

>

And I have to type

exit

each time my system is starting up. To make this stop I need to change my boot menu options and we are going back to the first step.

So my question is : Is there a mean to have a "correct" grub menu each time I start my system even if my ssd is not connected ?

cc flag
See launchpad bug 1396379, and do add yourself to the "Does this affect me?" list. Several workarounds are mentioned in the bug, but the problem is that the Ubuntu installer put the EFI grub bootloaders on the "Windows" disk, with the rest of grub's files on the SSD (ignoring your input for a bootloader location).
oldfred avatar
cn flag
You need to use gparted to shink a partition on external drive and create a new ESP - efi system partition. Then edit fstab with new UUID and reinstall grub from your install. Once you know that works, you can remove the /EFI/ubuntu folder in your internal drive's ESP. https://askubuntu.com/questions/1250199/move-bootloader-or-remove-efi-partition-in-second-drive. Or copy /EFI/Boot & /EFI/ubuntu to external drive's ESP. https://askubuntu.com/questions/1001426/how-to-remove-separate-boot-partition-on-uefi-system Note that external drives boot using /EFI/Boot from UEFI menu, not an "ubuntu".
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