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So, I have a Seagate "Backup Plus" removable hard drive. I have partitioned a 1TB partition (fat32) and a 3tb (NTFS) partition. I used the YUMI software to add quite a few distributions of linux, some other network and hardware tools, AV, etc. Once i try to boot to the drive, it boots into a black screen with the blinking text line.

I have used a usb with exactly the same setup and it boots to YUMI and it's distributions perfectly on the same laptop.

the laptop is a dell latitude, and the other usb is a 32gb Kingston DT50

Any information is appreciated, and if this is the wrong site to post this question, ill remove it and post it elsewhere. Thanks a bunch!

Elliot Luck
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I've done it! its extremely weird, but its functional. So, the way I got it to work, was basically installing them one at a time. The process was, Plug in external drive, load up YUMI, install iso, select "no" when it asks if you want to install more isos, exit YUMI, Eject drive, Repeat.

Elliot Luck
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I boot computers to linux from various external drives, USB pendrives, SD cards, SSDs and hard disk drives connected via USB and eSATA. And it works both with live systems (YUMI creates live systems) and installed systems (like installed into an internal drive).

But there are drives (and external boxes) with electronics, that will work with running operating systems, but cannot be not recognized by the boot mechanism. Maybe your Seagate "Backup Plus" drives is one of those drives that are not recognized during booting.

You could try to boot from the other USB ports. Sometimes the computer will be more willing to boot from one of the USB ports, for example a USB 2 port. It might also help to connect the drive via a USB hub to the computer.

sudodus
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  • @ElliotLuck, 1.Did you try to make the external hard disk drive bootable with YUMI or did you clone from the working USB pendrive? 2. Did you try to create a simple single boot system by cloning for example a Debian or Ubuntu iso file into the external hard disk drive? The cloning process is very robust and will make a working system, but you must check that you are cloning to the correct target device (avoid overwriting the internal drive). 3. Did you try to boot another computer from this external hard disk drive? – sudodus Sep 15 '19 at 10:10
  • i set it up with yumi, didn't clone. I'll try a singleboot and see if it works. I have tried 4 computers that all work with my usb, and it's the same blinking line on the external hdd – Elliot Luck Sep 15 '19 at 15:13
  • also, I know it can boot to the drive, because in my bios i configured it to try to boot to the seagate removable drive first, then boot to the internal hdd. It always goes into the removable drive, if it weren't detected it would just boot into windows. – Elliot Luck Sep 15 '19 at 15:19
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    I've just used Rufus with parrot OS on the drive, works perfectly – Elliot Luck Sep 15 '19 at 17:15
  • is there some way i can get an ISO file with all the Operating systems i need on it, so i can use rufus to put it on the drive? – Elliot Luck Sep 15 '19 at 17:16
  • @ElliotLuck, That's great news :-) So the problem is not the hard disk drive, but maybe YUMI. I suggest that you try again with YUMI, this time put only one or two systems onto it and try again. If still problems, maybe you can use another tool, [MultiBootUSB by Sundar](http://multibootusb.org/), which might work for you. I am afraid that we will not find any iso file, that contains the operating systems that you want. – sudodus Sep 15 '19 at 17:22
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    I've done it! its extremely weird, but its functional. So, the way I got it to work, was basically installing them one at a time. The process was, Plug in external drive, load up YUMI, install iso, select "no" when it asks if you want to install more isos, exit YUMI, Eject drive, Repeat. – Elliot Luck Sep 15 '19 at 19:33
  • I am guessing here: Maybe you had a problem with a huge buffer, that was not flushed before you unplugged the drive (when you had problems). Or maybe there is some bug, that appears, when you use a hard disk drive. (I think YUMI is developed and debugged using USB pendrives.) – sudodus Sep 15 '19 at 19:45
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    Thank you Elliot Luck. I ran into the same issue. I was beginning to think there was either a USB or SATA issue with my motherboard. I can confirm that I was running into the same issue with my Seagate 4TB Backup Plus HDD. I resorted to a jump drive for now for speed's sake. I want to see if I can run Clonezilla from the drive and store images to it. – Dennis Day Nov 04 '22 at 01:51