Booting Ubuntu from Esata possible?

Hi, I'd like to start by saying I am not a boot master, I wanted to broaden my knowledge of some more OS's but I don't want to lose my data on my internal hard drive so I'm trying to run them on my external hd via my esata card.

This is what I have.
RC-605 rosewill esata express card
MBP using OSx 10.4.11
Cheap Coolmax hd enclosure with my old MBP's 120gb HD

So this is what I've done so far. I installed the newest version of rEFIt and enabled it so I can pick between my windows bootcamp and mac partitions from my internal hard drive. Then I loaded up the ubuntu live cd and installed ubuntu on my external HD's first partition (atleast I think I did. I selected my external hd's first partition as the root in the ubuntu installation). It didn't seem to have any problems until I took out the live disc and tried to reboot. When it rebooted I still only had my mac and windows listed in rEFIt. It seems the only way I can load ubuntu back up is if I stick the livecd back in.

Here's a pic of what the partition looks like in disk Utility



I really don't know where to go from here! Is it even possible to boot from my esata drive or am I completely borked?

The problem is that you can't boot Ubuntu from an external eSATA drive. You're going to need to create an EXT3 partition on your internal drive, install Ubuntu and then GRUB at the mount point root and let rEFIt detect it and setup the boot sequence. You'll then have a triple boot setup.

Or, you can do this: (will only work with Ubuntu 8.04)

Boot your machine to Windows. While in Windows, insert the Ubuntu 8.04 install CD. The Ubuntu installer will detect Windows and offer to install Ubuntu in a Windows virtual session. Install it that way.

Now, when you boot to Windows from OS X, you'll see a GRUB boot menu offering you Windows or Ubuntu. Simple, and it works well. You can easily uninstall Ubuntu from the Windows add\remove programs if for some reason you don't like it.

Regards.

esata boot

To boot from esata in Win7, first allocate the drive while in windows. Now with a laptop, remove the internal drives. Now hook up your esata drive, use the boot Ubuntu iso disk in the optical drive to load ubuntu on esata. Now when you boot if you don't have a multiboot option at first page, enter bios and move esata to top of list. Now you will boot ubuntu first, unless you unplug it, then it will boot to windows. Works just like the internal drive, and includes smart disk functions. enjoy! Macintosh software is loaded the same way.

Mac machines do not have a BIOS. What you suggested above will not work. And MacIntosh software (OS X) can not legally be loaded on any PC or other machine except for a genuine Mac.

esata continued

Is it possible to still install ubuntu on eSATA if you are installing from windows and not creating an ext3 partition?