<Solved>Ubuntu Host on bootable USB harddrive

[NickCollide]

I bought a new laptop about a month ago. I installed Ubuntu 9.04 on an external USB harddrive because the system can boot from the USB port. I installed Virtualbox as the first application on the machine and when I went to launch it, it hard locked my laptop. I had to power it down and reboot. I've had no luck getting this thing to work yet and was hoping somebody could help.

NC

ps: i've been searching the forums and most usb questions are about getting the devices to work on the guest os. i've also been going thru page after page of usb posts as well - i've got a long way to go, but if anybody has any shortcuts, i'd certainly appreciate your help!


edit: I'm marking this <Solved> only because I've gotten it working. Since I'm not sure what I did to make it work I can only list the things I did before trying virtual box again. I turned off as many desktop effects as I could - that was about it. (I took Sasquatch's suggestion and turned off the USB support after I booted up VB and am posting this while XP is installing.)

Thanks for the help! NC

[Sasquatch]

Do you get the lockup the moment you start the GUI, or when you start a VM? If it's the latter, you might need to disable USB for the Guest.

[NickCollide]

Do you get the lockup the moment you start the GUI, or when you start a VM? If it's the latter, you might need to disable USB for the Guest.

At the moment I'm not sure - it's been awhile since I've tried it (obviously hard locking my computer isn't something I'd do on a daily basis!) I've got my computer tied up at the moment, but tomorrow after I get off of work hopefully it'll be available for me to attempt to run VirtualBox again and I will let you know.

Thank you very much for your reply!

NC

ps: Even in my searching, I've never heard of anyone running VB on an external usb host before - has it ever been done? the primary reason for my doing so is to use Ubuntu and Vbox w/o changing anything or using space on the internal harddrive (with the laptop being brand new - i'm not in too big of a hurry to fiddle around w/ the internal drive and it's OS, that and it's not all that large of a drive and the external drive is huge by comparison)

[Sasquatch]

Does the laptop have an eSATA port? If so, it might be better to hook it up that way.