25.04 won't boot

Pre-Release Discussion
1

Grub installed with default parameters doesn’t detect my external hard drive, which contains my copy of Ubuntu.

I’m using the latest version of Ubuntu (prerelease version)

I’m getting a device not found error, ls in Grub rescue isn’t showing partitions in my external drive.

I got grub to work with some manually loaded modules, although keyboard wasn’t working and I broke it again by reinstalling Grub.

I don’t remember the parameters I used, it’s something I got from Chatgpt which wasn’t recorded.

Here are pics of my external drive Https://ibb.co/LrGt3c8 Https://ibb.co/nf5BkLb Https://ibb.co/wcQRX8Y

2

P.ease give us all the details you can as so far we have little to help us help you.
What exact pre-release version did you install?
I assume you mean 25.04 which is still nearly 4 months away from release so not a good choice if you’re new to Ubunth or Linux.
I always recommend users choose the latest LTS version which is 24.04.
What hardware are you using?
What other OS is on the computer?

1 Like
3

Welcome to Ubuntu Discourse :slight_smile:

Use a live USB and boot the computer in Try Ubuntu mode.

Then run the summary report for boot info script and post the pastebin link back here for review.

Do not try and repair until someone has looked at the results and can advise you on the next steps.

4

@ajgreeny
1: The latest version, 25.04
2: I’ve already mentioned that I’ve got Grub 2 and given info for the external hard drive. However, I’ll give a screenshot from Windows System Information: https://ibb.co/N1jkTwC
3: I’m duel booting Windows 10 and Ubuntu.

5

Summary report:
https://paste.ubuntu.com/p/VYV632CNbk/

6

It’s not particularly the external disk that is important.
It’s more likely to be the motherboard and the version of Ubuntu.
According to your screenshot of the Windows System Summary, your PC is a 2010 model (Legacy only) with BIOS version 2/13/2010

I would suggest that you avoid the 25.04 development versions for the moment and try a lighter flavour such as Lubuntu or Xubuntu 24.04

7

As posted above, better to use a light weight flavor with very old systems. Particularly if you have 4GB of RAM or less.

Light weight flavors:
Lubuntu, Xubuntu, Ubuntu MATE, Budgie
Flavors of Ubuntu only come with three years of supported life (five years applies to Ubuntu Desktop, Ubuntu Server but not flavors)
I use Kubuntu, more of a mid weight flavor that has worked on both very old & new systems for me.

You seem to be using a live installer of Mint, but have plucky installed. Best to use live installer for system you have installed. If you want Mint, please use Mint forums as we do not know what changes they have made to the Ubuntu they are using.

Older versions of grub, and possibly external drives may have an issue with boot files too far into drive. Issue was old BIOS could not see beyond a certain point. Some suggest a separate /boot at beginning of drive, but you can just have a smaller 40 to 60GB / (root) at beginning of drive and use rest of drive as /home or data partition(s). If using standard Ubuntu with snap apps, best to have a larger / as snaps can grow a lot.

8

I have this problem solved: https://www.linuxquestions.org/questions/linux-desktop-74/i-don't-understand-how-to-boot-with-both-external-drives-connected-4175745567/