No CD drive. Now what?
- Thread starter totalnoob
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Yep it is a good article and explains what needs to be explained.
Perhaps it would eliminate some of the confusion about Linux if it was mandatory reading prior to downloading mainstream Linux distros.
Other thing that would help is if prior to downloading Linux distro iso is to learn some basic necessary Linux installation how to.
Hmm that would require initiative to learn prior to installing Linux so that a new user could have a good first Linux experience.
Oh well.
@totalnoob , G'day and welcome to linux.org 
That part may be relatively easy, with a simple use of Terminal.
To open Terminal, press Ctrl-Alt-t or open it from your Menu.
Type in and enter
and enter your password.
A short operation will follow and when it ends, reboot and see if you have a grub menu.
Windows should have an entry like Windows Boot Manager.
Let us know how you go.
Cheers
Chris Turner
wizardfromoz
That part may be relatively easy, with a simple use of Terminal.
To open Terminal, press Ctrl-Alt-t or open it from your Menu.
Type in and enter
Code:
sudo update-gruband enter your password.
A short operation will follow and when it ends, reboot and see if you have a grub menu.
Windows should have an entry like Windows Boot Manager.
Let us know how you go.
Cheers
Chris Turner
wizardfromoz
No help at all. The operation followed and accomplished nothing. Still boots directly to Mint.@totalnoob , G'day and welcome to linux.org
That part may be relatively easy, with a simple use of Terminal.
To open Terminal, press Ctrl-Alt-t or open it from your Menu.
Type in and enter
Code:sudo update-grub
and enter your password.
A short operation will follow and when it ends, reboot and see if you have a grub menu.
Windows should have an entry like Windows Boot Manager.
Let us know how you go.
Cheers
Chris Turner
wizardfromoz
I did find out that if I leave the bootable USB in place, the computer will, apparently intermittently, give me the Grub menu, but I can't get it to do that all the time and often not at all.
try
mount /dev/sda1 /boot/efi
grub-install /dev/sda
then
update-grub
and do a full power re-start
mount /dev/sda1 /boot/efi
grub-install /dev/sda
then
update-grub
and do a full power re-start
No good either. I opened a terminal with Ctl-Alt-T and typed in line 1 exactly as shown, and got an error message to the effect I needed to be a "superuser," whatever that is, to mount the partition.
I looked up being a "superuser" and the advice was type in "sudo" and then whatever command you wanted to and you would be fine.
Not so much. I entered "sudo" and line 1 and it seemed to respond positively to it -- at least no error message -- and I got another prompt whereupon I entered line 2 and got an error message of "not found." So the whole process bombed out before I could get to line 3.
I tried line 2 without first trying line 1, same result.
I thought about trying to enter the commands as "root" but could not get any instructions on how I do that other than to use "sudo" which supposedly serves to put you at root, I guess "pseudo" root. So that didn't work.
I did find out, however, that my intermittent Grub is somewhat more likely to work if I shut down the computer and wait a few hours to restart it. It will come if I strike "Esc" as quickly as I can before the turn-on screen disappears, and if I am lucky. At least I came up to Grub sometimes whereas I didn't get it at all after pushing the "restart" button on logoff or after a regular shut down followed seconds later (just before monitor off) by a regular power up start, even though I followed the remaining "Esc" procedures exactly the same way as I did when the computer was cold.
Could the temperature or some shutdown procedure going on past power off be affecting Grub?
Having to wait a couple of hours for the computer to cool off or work out its issues just to get to Windows is not making my business any more profitable.
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@KGIII @wizardfromoz @f33dm3bits
ANY FURTHER THOUGHTS, I'm down to suggesting a complete re-install
Brian
ANY FURTHER THOUGHTS, I'm down to suggesting a complete re-install
Brian
Hey totalnoob
"not making my business any more profitable"
Using mission critical equipment for experimentation will always lead to disaster.
Buy a used laptop with M$ Windows on it from a pawn shop and play with that. It will be much more enjoyable and rewarding.
Remember to have fun
Vektor
"not making my business any more profitable"
Using mission critical equipment for experimentation will always lead to disaster.
Buy a used laptop with M$ Windows on it from a pawn shop and play with that. It will be much more enjoyable and rewarding.
Remember to have fun
Vektor
theLegionWithin
Well-Known Member
lol that is a great article! I especially enjoyed "3b".
I'm not going to put effort into finding a solution for a 15 year old laptop where you have to guess for solutions that may or may not work since the hardware being that old and I can't remember using hardware from 2010. The only three things I am willing to suggest are to buy an external dvd drive that you can connect through usb or buy a second hand laptop that's a bit more modern so that has a bios where you can boot from usb and if OP is not willing to do that try all the normal buttons for being able to boot from a selected device with one of the f-keys which most of the time is f9 of f10.
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@totalnoob - the file /etc/default/grub is one of the key files used by Linux to control how your computer boots up, using certain parameters.
If you open a Terminal and type in and paste the command (does not require sudo)
you can copy and paste the output to here. Best is to copy it to inside the Code Tags
The first three (lines (after comments, which are preceded by a hash) will likely look as follows
... it is these that we can likely change, to provide you with a permanently showing grub menu at boot, and to further progress your wish to have Windows showing as a choice.
When that appears, move the arrow keys to move up or down, and the choice will remain until you select it.
Take a phone picture of the grub menu and post it up to us. See my article here
https://www.linux.org/threads/posting-screenshots-at-this-site-read-this-for-easy-way.21722/
for how to include pictures or screenshots.
Allow for my timezone to respond, I am on East Coast Australia (Queensland)
Wizard
If you open a Terminal and type in and paste the command (does not require sudo)
Code:
cat /etc/default/grubyou can copy and paste the output to here. Best is to copy it to inside the Code Tags
The first three (lines (after comments, which are preceded by a hash) will likely look as follows
Code:
GRUB_DEFAULT=0
GRUB_TIMEOUT_STYLE=hidden
GRUB_TIMEOUT=10... it is these that we can likely change, to provide you with a permanently showing grub menu at boot, and to further progress your wish to have Windows showing as a choice.
When that appears, move the arrow keys to move up or down, and the choice will remain until you select it.
Take a phone picture of the grub menu and post it up to us. See my article here
https://www.linux.org/threads/posting-screenshots-at-this-site-read-this-for-easy-way.21722/
for how to include pictures or screenshots.
Allow for my timezone to respond, I am on East Coast Australia (Queensland)
Wizard
@totalnoob - the file /etc/default/grub is one of the key files used by Linux to control how your computer boots up, using certain parameters.
If you open a Terminal and type in and paste the command (does not require sudo)
Code:cat /etc/default/grub
you can copy and paste the output to here. Best is to copy it to inside the Code Tags
The first three (lines (after comments, which are preceded by a hash) will likely look as follows
Code:GRUB_DEFAULT=0 GRUB_TIMEOUT_STYLE=hidden GRUB_TIMEOUT=10
... it is these that we can likely change, to provide you with a permanently showing grub menu at boot, and to further progress your wish to have Windows showing as a choice.
When that appears, move the arrow keys to move up or down, and the choice will remain until you select it.
Take a phone picture of the grub menu and post it up to us. See my article here
https://www.linux.org/threads/posting-screenshots-at-this-site-read-this-for-easy-way.21722/
for how to include pictures or screenshots.
Allow for my timezone to respond, I am on East Coast Australia (Queensland)
Wizard
Code:
$ cat /etc/default/grub
# If you change this file, run 'update-grub' afterwards to update
# /boot/grub/grub.cfg.
# For full documentation of the options in this file, see:
# info -f grub -n 'Simple configuration'
GRUB_DEFAULT=0
GRUB_TIMEOUT_STYLE=hidden
GRUB_TIMEOUT=10
GRUB_DISTRIBUTOR=`( . /etc/os-release; echo ${NAME:-Ubuntu} ) 2>/dev/null || echo Ubuntu`
GRUB_CMDLINE_LINUX_DEFAULT="quiet splash"
GRUB_CMDLINE_LINUX=""
# If your computer has multiple operating systems installed, then you
# probably want to run os-prober. However, if your computer is a host
# for guest OSes installed via LVM or raw disk devices, running
# os-prober can cause damage to those guest OSes as it mounts
# filesystems to look for things.
#GRUB_DISABLE_OS_PROBER=false
# Uncomment to enable BadRAM filtering, modify to suit your needs
# This works with Linux (no patch required) and with any kernel that obtains
# the memory map information from GRUB (GNU Mach, kernel of FreeBSD ...)
#GRUB_BADRAM="0x01234567,0xfefefefe,0x89abcdef,0xefefefef"
# Uncomment to disable graphical terminal
#GRUB_TERMINAL=console
# The resolution used on graphical terminal
# note that you can use only modes which your graphic card supports via VBE
# you can see them in real GRUB with the command `vbeinfo'
#GRUB_GFXMODE=640x480
# Uncomment if you don't want GRUB to pass "root=UUID=xxx" parameter to Linux
#GRUB_DISABLE_LINUX_UUID=true
# Uncomment to disable generation of recovery mode menu entries
#GRUB_DISABLE_RECOVERY="true"
# Uncomment to get a beep at grub start
#GRUB_INIT_TUNE="480 440 1"So then I try os-prober as suggested.
Code:
sudo os-prober
/dev/sda1:Windows 7:Windows:chain
/dev/sda4:Windows Recovery Environment:Windows1:chain
grub-probe: error: cannot find a GRUB drive for /dev/sdb1. Check your device.map.so I guess I am still nowhere.
agreed. The computer I am using for this is my emergency backup with some archived files and legacy programs on it that I am afraid would vanish if I lose Windows on my primary. In that sense, it is only somewhat "mission critical." The real answer would be to buy a legit backup and a backup backup. And a boatload of SSD memory and remember to backup my data daily (I don't trust cloud storage in the Elon Musk era).
But who has time and money for all that? I was hoping for cheaper, faster, more reliable, but that has not how this test has worked out.
I guess the lesson her is that the hype for Linux Mint: "It just works" https://forums.linuxmint.com/viewtopic.php?t=314730 should be adjusted too Linux Mint: "It's just hype."
I only replied because @Brickwizard asked me if I had any ideas, so I replied to the part about giving you ideas of how to install Linux without being able to boot from usb or a dvd drive.
As for what you have to say about Linux Mint, I used Linux mint for several years before 2017 and I never experienced any issues.
You mentioned having an install of Linux Mint 17, and then trying to upgrade to 18, and then 19. It doesn't say when you tried this but if you tried this recently it's not really of use because 17, 18 and 19 are all end of life so the repos are offline.
That might also explain why upgrading took so long if you were trying to upgrade from a repo that wasn't offline yet but didn't have the needed updates to finish the upgrade process.
And if this was still in the time when one of the versions was supported than you might want to do a disk check as I've never had Linux installation take that long with all my years of using Linux. Knowning how old that laptop is it's probably still an old hard disks who also have a shorter lifespan than ssd's and wear out and become slower with age and the more the have been used.
How long do hard drives last: Life Span Chart
Hard drives last 3–5 years. In contrast, SSDs (Solid State Drives) are expected to live ten years or more under regular use, although this is not
www.itamg.com
Lastly, not trying to sound mean about this, just giving my honest opinion.
I wouldn't blame all of your problems on Linux Mint because of age of your hardware and because of if those 17,18,19 upgrades were recent then it's not quite possible to upgrade to end of life versions. So just do yourself a favor and treat yourself with a laptop upgrade and if not replace the hard disk in that laptop with a new one.
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I've been using Linux Mint Cinnamon for 10 years with no problems...on my Tower and my 13 year old Laptop 64bit which is running Cinnamon 21.1.
Sounds like your Laptop is just too old as I said in my other post...most likely 32bit...Mint no longer supports 32bit. As others have said...get a newer Laptop.
Problems we see in Mint 95% of the time are caused by the user or should I say beginner.
There should be a little pin hole on the front of the CD/DVD player use a paper clip and stick it in that hole and see if the door pops open
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