Ubuntu installation on USB pen drive- Error 17: cannot mount selected partition

September 5, 2008 4:58 pm

I was able to install the latest Ubuntu on a 8GB USB stick drive following these simple instructions. Unfortunately, the instructions there are not complete.

After I attempted to boot into Ubuntu off the USB stick by changing the boot order (hit the F12 key at boot), I saw the Ubuntu boot menu. After selecting Ubuntu and starting it, I got this error:

“Error 17: cannot mount selected partition”

To fix this at the boot menu, edit the first line for the Ubuntu boot by pressing ‘e’, then press ‘e’ at the line “root (hd1,0)” and change it to “root (hd0,0)”. After changing the line, click ‘b’ to start the boot. It should start up Ubuntu off the USB flash drive.

To make this change permanent: After logging into Ubuntu, open a terminal and type

sudo vi /boot/grub/menu.lst

At the bottom after the section ## End Default Options ##

Find the Ubuntu boot menu items with “root (hd1,0)”, change them all to “root (hd0,0)”

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  • Thanks for this post, too.
    Your article save my pendrive!

    Thanks from brazil

    Fred
  • Paul
    Thanks for this post. This is the first time I ever searched a problem I was having and found the exact problem and solution. I might recommend including "sudo gedit /boot/grub/menu.lst" at the bottom for anyone who doesn't know how to make the permanent change you described. Thanks again though.
  • This happened because I skipped the step to disconnect all the hard drives on my system, which was really a precautionary measure for Linux newbies to avoid losing all the data on a hard drive if the loader was incorrectly installed on the wrong hard drive. If I had disconnected all the hard drives, USB drive would be detected as HD(0,0) and the reboot would have worked as expected.
  • It's because when I used the Ubuntu installer CDROM, during the installation, Ubuntu detected the hard drive on the computer as HD(0,0) and the USB drive as HD(1,0) and wrote grub to reflect this fact. Upon the reboot and booting directly off the USB drive, the USB drive moved to HD(0,0) hence the reason for the error above and needing to get grub updated.
  • milo
    The instructions at pendrivelinux.com worked fine for me. You must have another SATA drive in your system that is taking precedence, making the flash drive shift to (hd1.0)
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