After days of searching online and trying to find everything I need I have finally made a bootable flash drive with Ubuntu on it. The first time I did this I couldn't save any changes I made while using the flash drive. I scraped it and decided to make another one when I realized that I didn't do it correctly. I had no idea I was supposed to make a flash drive with persistent capabilities... I currently have a flash drive with Ubuntu 12.10 on it, and I have my laptop set up to boot from a USB key before the hard drive. When my laptop started up it went into Ubuntu, and asked me if I wanted to "Try Ubuntu Now" or "Install Ubuntu." I hit the try Ubuntu now button because I didn't want to Install it and delete my Windows OS and I have no way to back up my system so I cannot partition my hard drive because I don't want anything to go wrong and lose Windows unwillingly... Now, instead of spending several more days trying to fix this myself, I figured I'd ask for a little help... I believe I have all the necessary "stuff" ( like files and folders) on my flash drive to make it a bootable persistent flash drive with Ubuntu as the OS. My only problem is that I think I have extra "stuff" (excess files and folders) on there as well. I believe this is the reason why it asked me if I wanted to install it when I had no intention of doing that at all. Is there any way someone could help me by telling me exactly what needs to be on this flash drive? I want to delete all of the unnecessary "stuff" and leave everything needed alone.

I don't know if I understood but if you want to make ubuntu booting from flashdrive like if it was on a harddrive, you have several options:
1. Using vmware / vbox to install ubuntu (with generic drivers so that it can be launched on any PC) and then turn the VM off after the installation is complete and boot your PC from it ....

2. Simply burn ubuntu to a DVD or make a bootable flashdrive like the one you have now (how did you make it btw?) and when the installation asks you where to install you choose the flashdrive you want to run it from ....

(3. ... maybe some other more advanced ways like chrooting and stuff I dont understand yet )

I downloaded the ubuntu 12.10 desktop i386.iso and used universal usb installer. Can you tell me more about the vmwar / vbox stuff? I haven't run across that yet...

On your nubmer two reply.... I think it wants to install it to the hard drive. I don't think you get to choose where...

The reason of the choice you are given, between "Try Ubuntu" and "Install Ubuntu", is that the Ubuntu Desktop live image is designed to do that: as far a I know, it has nothing to do with the files and folders you saved on your flash drive. Please read the installation documentation, for example:

http://www.ubuntu.com/download/help/...desktop-latest

If you already set up the flash drive using the Ubuntu Desktop image, it will have all the necessary stuff to load the system live (as you already did) or, if you want, to install it on your hard disk (yes, you do get to choose where). If you choose the latter option, you will have to decide if you want Ubuntu to be the only operating system on your computer (losing everything is already on your disk) or if you want to repartition the disk, leaving your existing system alone and installing Ubuntu in some free space, in a dual-boot configuration.

With the installer's partitioning tool it will be possibile to resize existing partitions, in order to create space for new ones that will be dedicated to your new system; for partitions created by Windows the use of a Windows tool is recommended, but I had good results with partman as well (which I think is still the Ubuntu installer's partitioning tool). Anyway, please pay attention: don't play with partitions unless you know what you are doing!

A few links on partitioning and multi-boot:

http://ubuntuguide.org/wiki/Multiple_OS_Installation
https://help.ubuntu.com/community/WindowsDualBoot
http://tldp.org/HOWTO/Partition/

I tried the install now option and it wanted to install it to my hard drive. I'll try again in a second, but I wanted to see if anyone else had replied to this post (thank you for that by the way). I'm going through all of this because I REALLY don't want to play with partitions right now. My friend set up Ubuntu on my old laptop, which allowed me to dual boot. He also warned me against playing with partitions. Is there any way that you know of that would allow me to install Ubuntu from the flash drive to the flash drive. I only looked briefly because I really don't want to lose my current OS at the moment. From what I saw though it didn't really give me a choice... It just kinda chose my laptop hard drive on its own...

I recommend that you physically disconnect your hard drive before installing to the USB. This will make 100% certain that no user error or software bug will accidentally result in overwriting your hard drive.

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I would also prefer not to take my new laptop apart... (I have no experience with such things...)

In that case I recommend the 100% safe and foolproof usb-creator application that comes bundled with Ubuntu.

https://help.ubuntu.com/community/In...n/FromUSBStick
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ubuntu_Live_USB_creator

Move the "Stored in reserved extra space" slider to the right.

Alright, I followed your links and they led me to an application that has finally given me what I wanted. I'm actually running off of Ubuntu right now I have one complaint though. I don't know if I should start a new thread for this or not though. I click on that home folder in the launch bar, and it gives me the option to click on different devices. Well, I noticed with my first attempt of the bootable flash drive version of Ubuntu that I could access, view, and transfer anything from those devices to Ubuntu. This was with the first attempt where I couldn't save changes to Ubuntu... Well, now that I CAN save changes to Ubuntu, I can't get access to other devices that Ubuntu recognizes... I get this error "Unable to mount 732 GB Volume" NEXT LINE "Adding read ACL for uid 999 to '/media/ubuntu' failed: Operation not supported" Is there any help you could provide?

You can try mounting the drive as root user. (caution: this is very powerful and not to be used lightly... be careful!)

press alt+f2 and type:

press Enter and you should get a file manager will full root privs. Be sure to close it when you're done.

I will try this now. I was asking for this reason though. On one of my flash drive attempts I could access these devices normally, then I couldn't... On another attempt I couldn't access the devices OR save changes... I thought if deleted a specific folder or file it would take the "try ubuntu" "install ubuntu" screen away (this was my main issue at that time). When I deleted the "install" folder nothing, at least nothing obvious, seemed to change. I checked the home folder again and it granted me access to all of the devices again.... However, I STILL couldn't save changes so I scrapped it and used another program to attempt another bootable persistent Ubuntu flash drive. Which is where I'm at now. Is there any way that you know of that would allow this same access without always having to do the alt+f2 thing every time I want to access the devices?

Also I just tried the alt+f2 thing... Nothing happened at all. No file manager or anything...

Can you tell us more about the drive/partition you're having trouble accessing? Is it an internal hard drive? External? Windows filesystem or Linux filesystem?

Alright, first of all I want to thank you for all of the help you have provided me with. Now then... I have NOT played with the partition. I am formatting a flash drive and using the application Linux Live to turn this flash drive into a bootable, persistent, Ubuntu flash drive. When I insert this flash drive into my laptop and boot Ubuntu, from the flash drive, I have the ability to click on the "Home Folder" in the launch bar on the desktop. I see a couple of different things that I have on my laptop. One of these things is my hard drive (internal with Windows OS); however, when I click it to view its contents I see the previous/above error. The alt+f2 option you told me about did absolutely nothing... I mean NOTHING (this is an edit: this edit will make more sense when you read farther down. WHEN i DELETED THE CASPER-RW FILE THE ALT+F2 OPTION did WORK). Now this is where I take pride in myself. Previously, I told you I deleted the "install" folder from the flash drive once it was "supposedly" a "bootable, persistent, Ubuntu flash drive." I had two problems (BEFORE I deleted the "install" folder). The problem I'm having now with not being able to see into the devices I can see in the list of devices connected to my laptop while I was using Ubuntu, AND it wouldn't save any changes I made while I was using Ubuntu. This was when I deleted the "install" folder from the "supposedly" a "bootable, persistent, Ubuntu flash drive." I forgot, at the time that I posted this in this thread, that I also deleted the "casper-rw" file within the flash drive. Toying around with these two things, install folder and casper-rw file, I have found the cause of my problem. I'm not allowed access to the devices Ubuntu recognizes because of the "casper-rw" file; however, this is also what allows my changes in Ubuntu to be saved (it's what allows my flash drive to be persistent). I am about to see if I can temporarily place the "casper-rw" file inside a folder within the flashdrive. It's in the root of the flash drive, this is what makes me believe that it needs to be in root to do what it is supposed to do. I'm thinking that if it's not in the root of the flash drive when I boot Ubuntu, it won't be persistent. If I open the flash drive in Windows, I'm thinking the solution to that will be as simple as placing it back in the root of the flash drive from within the flash drive. I'm making it so "complicated" because when I completely take it off the flash drive it takes about three to five minutes to remove the file to my windows desktop and another five to seven minutes to place it back onto the flash drive. I'm THINKING that if I just move it around the same device, it might not take so long to end up with the same result. I'm going to test this now and post my results once I find out if it will work or not. If this does work, it will be great; however, if you know of a way that would make it to where I wouldn't have to move the file every time, I would LOVE for you to let me know about it. Thank you for all of your help again. I really do appreciate it.

EDIT: It worked! I can move the "casper-rw" file into a folder on the same flash drive and be given access to devices that Ubuntu recognizes. Like I said though, this prevents the flash drive from being persistent since the "casper-rw" file isn't in the root of the flash drive when Ubuntu is booted from the flash drive...