Hack #1: Installing Tails OS on an Internal Hard Disk Drive


Short answer: You cannot do this. Tails OS does not support booting from internal drives.


Long answer: You can do this, but you must (1) be extremely careful and (2) really know why you are doing this. Tails OS works well from USB thumb drives and is designed to fit on very small USB thumb drives. USB thumb drives are easy to destroy if needed by smashing them with a hammer or by "accidentally" crushing them under the leg of a chair. Tails OS ensures that a computer booted from a USB thumb drive will not leave a trace on the computer indicating that it was used to boot any particular machine. By contrast, a hard disk inside a computer is harder to destroy (it requires disassembling the computer), and if left inside the machine, it provides evidence that the user of the machine was using Tails OS and thus the Tor network.


Having said all that, here's how to install Tails OS on an internal hard disk drive. To do this, the internal hard disk drive must be removable, which is a given on most PCs and older Intel Macs, but is not a given on newer Intel Macs and some PCs with tightly integrated hardware. Most Intel Macs allow booting into target disk mode if you absolutely cannot physically remove the drive. You can Google "target disk mode, Mac" to learn how to do this. If you are using "target disk mode" instead of removing the internal drive, you must have a second computer.


STEPS TO INSTALL TAILS OS ON AN INTERNAL HARD DRIVE:


(1) Disassemble your computer and remove the internal hard drive.  You must have a device that will allow the internal hard drive to connect with the computer from the outside via USB.  For example, SATA to USB connectors are cheap and common to find on Amazon, but you can also find M.2 to USB connectors and others.


(2) You must install Tails OS onto a USB thumb drive using instructions from the official Tails OS website and boot the computer into Tails OS from the USB thumb drive.  When you arrive at the welcome screen after booting, you MUST enable persistent storage AND set an administrator password.


(3) Plug the internal hard drive into the computer via USB and mount that disk using the disk mounter program in Tails (located in the "Utilities" tab of the Applications menu).


(4) Open the Tails Cloner app, which is located in the "Tails" tab of the Applications menu.  Clone Tails to the hard drive you mounted in step 3.  You can choose whether or not you want to include Persistent storage.


(5) DO NOT TURN OFF THE COMPUTER YET


(6) After you have successfully cloned Tails to the drive you mounted in step 3, the drive will be unmounted.  Go back to the disk mounter program and re-mount the drive.


(7) Open the "Root Terminal" app, which is located in the "System Tools" tab of the Applications menu.


(8) In the Root Terminal app, type and enter the following command:

(If you cannot view this code, you can download the PDF version of this guide here.  The password to open the PDF document is "aboutwes.com")