Missing operating system with Ubuntu 10.10 on USB

[bencahill]

I'm trying to get an old laptop with no bios usb support (and grub won't boot my drive) to boot ubuntu 10.10 (cli) on a usb (copied from hdd, with ext2 and swap partitions, like a regular install).

However, when I select usb in plop (loading from grub), I see this:

Missing operating system.
Operating System not found
_

(^ blinking cursor)

Any ideas?

Thanks!

[Elmar]

you have to install grub or grub2 to the usb drive to boot your ubuntu.

regards
elmar

[bencahill]

Thanks for the prompt reply...I've now got grub on there and configured accordingly, thanks to the helpful folks at the #ubuntu irc channel .

But it doesn't seem like grub can find the ext2 partition, even though it's on the same disk:

Gave up waiting for root device. Common problems:
 - Boot args (cat /proc/cmdline)
   - Check rootdelay= (did the system wait long enough?)
   - Check root= (did the system wait for the right device?)
 - Missing modules (cat /proc/modules; ls dev)
ALERT!  /dev/disk/by-uuid/UUIDHERE does not exist. Dropping to a shell!

BusyBox v1.15.3 (Ubuntu 1:1.15.3-1ubuntu5) built-in shell (ash)
Enter 'help' for a list of built-in commands.

(initramfs)

Got any idea why this happened? I have the right uuid(s) in /etc/fstab, and so does /boot/grub/grub.cfg, which was auto-generated.

Thanks again!