Attempting frugal install onto usb external NTFS harddrive

[songdove]

Looking around the 'net to see what linux OS's can be installed to a folder of an existing external hard drive with data already on it, formatted to NTFS and UEFI as well.

I did the frugal install method, the drive is now bootable without destroying my data (yaaaa). I already have secure boot turned off in my ROG bios so I can dual boot to Linux Mint 20, but seeing if I can get an external hard drive set up with a bootable version of linux without destroying my data. If I can do this, I plan to ensure my favourite apps are installed, get them working the way they do on Mint, then attempt another upgrade of mint from 20 to 22, 20 to 21 was horrific and had to be rolled back, so before I try that again, which may mean a fresh install this time, I still want a working OS other than windows that I can use in the meantime.

I'm a former A+ certificed pc repair tech in the windows space, but endocryn and neurological health eventually meant not being able to handle the stress of the job anymore, so I don't troubleshoot computers much at all now, and it's been 3 or more years since I did. So I'd appreciate simple, straightforward instructions if and whenever possible.

My installation of Porteus 5 to the external drive went fine I thought. I booted to my bios, moved that drive to the top of the boot list, rebooted, and found myself stuck at a blank black screen, no blinking cursor, no error messages, nothing. The bios recognizes the drive as UEFI bootable, so the installation script ran fine as far as that step goes. But something else is either missing or needs editing.

I've been trying to run searches on the 'net to see if I can find helpful answers, but many of them are for older versions of Porteus, and for USB sticks rather than USB external hard drives. The official documentation says to do a frugal install on an external hard drive, which is done. While that documentation says I could do this to a subfolder on my drive, I put the folders in the root anyway. I read elsewhere where additional files in the root can mess with a boot up, so I moved those into other folders.

Besides disabling secure boot and either using f8 or moving the drive to the top of the boot order, is there anything else I should be doing to ensure my UEFI bootable USB external hard drive will boot to proteus?

[nanZor]

I would break the problem down to narrow the scope. Even though you don't intend to run from usb-stick, can you duplicate this blank screen problem with the simplest install onto a fat32 formatted stick, (simply copy all files over, and if necessary run the exe or shell script on the target drive) and booted that way to avoid any multiboot weirdness as a test?

If that screen problem still exists, then we can rule out the multiboot, and you can concentrate on hardware specific "cheatcodes" you may need to add to the APPEND line (like i915 reversal, etc etc). We aren't familiar with your hardware.

[Ed_P]

nanZor's suggestion is a good one.

As for the external USB hard drive: how big, what format, how many partitions? EFI requires FAT32 and for Porteus the EFI & boot folders need to be on it. I'm sure you know FAT32 only supports drives up to 32GB and Windows only supports single partition USB drives.

You should read the Porteus ISO's USB_INSTALLATION.txt file for more particulars.

[Otto]

Windows only supports single partition USB drives

Are you sure???

[Ed_P]

Are you sure???

In my day it was.