Newer computers are phasing out legacy boot options, so creating a bootable Ubuntu drive is now something of a nightmare =.=  It’s been a terrible journey, but I’ve got one working so here’s how I went about it.

1. on a small USB stick create a Ubuntu installer
2. Set up virtual box to run the installer USB stick from a VM and give it access to your USB drives
   (this is not necessary but will stop you from accidentally overwriting a hard drive)
   https://www.top-password.com/blog/how-to-boot-an-existing-virtualbox-vm-from-usb-drive/
3. Plug in the USB you want to install Ubuntu on along with the Ubuntu installer USB
4. Make sure to run the virtual machine in EFI mode, in virtual box this is under system>Enable EFI ( special OSes only)
5. Start the VM, and choose the USB stick as your install location
6. install normally – during the process you will need to partition the stick to have one partition to install Ubuntu (make that one really big)  and a second partition for the EFI booter, make that small like 500mb-1G
7. and then you should have a bootable USB yay!!

 

Now, to try and match it to an existing VM you would

1. Back it up with Ubuntu backup tool
2. Transfer the backup files to the USB stick, and restore from there

There will be a lot of messed up stuff that’ll take hours to get back up and running, but this is the only way I’ve found where I can make a virtual box VM portable through EFI =.=  And restoring from a backup will at least save a lot of time vs starting from scratch.

 

And finally after you’ve gotten everything to where you want it, make a backup USB!

1. Use disk clone in Mini Tool Partition wizard
   https://www.partitionwizard.com/free-partition-manager.html
2. And if you get a
   EDAC pnd2: Failed to register device with error -22.
   error when trying to run it then one of your partitions were renamed in the process
3. use “sudo blkid” to see all your partition UUIDs
4. then edit “nano /etc/fstab” and fix the UUIDs as necessary

 

Sorry this article is a mess – I’ve gone back and forth from so many methods to try and make a bootable EFI drive that my notes are all over the place.  So this is more a general outline of how I made my bootable stick, but it should point you in the right direction.