Hello everybody !
I am new to community so please consider me as not very much knowledged.I have a macbook air in which I have already installed parrot security os and it works quite well.But now I need to install parrot security os on an external hard disk.I searched on internet but didn’t found any exact answer.The only 2 ways I found were either to remove the internal hard disk (which I am not willing to do on my macbook) or to disable internal hard disk (i am not finding a way to do it on my macbook).Please someone help me with a solution for this.
1 Like
I think you are just asking about a live OS image. A flash drive, thumb drive, or external HDD/SSD will all be very similar, or the same. There are really 2 parts to your query - 1) getting Parrot onto a drive and 2) getting your Mac to boot from an external drive.
There is a ton of info about creating bootable drives. The only thing you have to decide is if you want persistence.
https://docs.parrotlinux.org/getting-started/create-boot-device/
https://docs.parrotlinux.org/info/usb-live-persist/
I am not familiar with Mac, but google will be your friend.
Good luck!
1 Like
Hi @Raghav_Deo!
I do something unorthodox and install Parrot (or other Linux distros) directly onto USB thumb drives. I can boot off them and use them without needing any kind of persistence. My 128 GB USB 3.1 thumb drive is completely encrypted and running Parrot 4.11 great. I just boot off another USB drive imaged with balenaEtcher with the Parrot ISO and choose the other USB thumb drive to install Parrot on.
I’ve also used VMware and/or VirtualBox to boot off the Parrot ISO and choose whatever thumbdrive I want to use Parrot on.
I’m only familiar with macOS X running on VMware (on Windows), so don’t know off-hand the keyboard combo to choose a different drive to boot off of. I imagine you will need to use UEFI so the external hard drive should have a GPT partition table of course.
3 Likes
I am planning to do the same. I just needed some guidance which was received by your post. Thanks a lot for posting. I never expected response so early. The parrot community is awesome
2 Likes
I actually wanted to try this exact thing as well, I’ve installed Parrot normally on my OS (dual boot with Windows) using a thumb drive. If I wanted to install an encrypted Parrot (normally, as you described, not live with persistence) on a 128GB microSD, do I need to do anything special? Or did you just install it the same way you would to a normal SSD?
1 Like
I just install Parrot on a USB thumb drive and make sure to install Grub2 on it too. 
2 Likes
Hahahaha for now…Your drive is going to die far faster than it was likely intended. Encryption will add a not insignificant wear and tear cost that will be noticeable in not too long. A genuine external drive like an ssd is more advised than a flash drive.
1 Like
I use Rufus to make an image of the thumb drive every once in awhile. Carrying a $16 thumb drive with me is easier than stuffing a more expensive bulky SSD in my pocket. Thanks, I know the risk.
1 Like
This topic was automatically closed 120 days after the last reply. New replies are no longer allowed.