Can't reinstall Linux Mint Cinnamon 22.3 after changing drives to GPT and booting UEFI

[MisterEd]

Linux Mint ran fine with MBRs disk and BIOS boot but can no longer install Linux Mint after converting to GPT disks and UEFI boot.

MBD: Gigabyte GA-990FXA-UD3 rev. 4.0
CPU: AMD FX-8350 (AM3+)
RAM: G.Skill RipjawsX F3-12800CL6D-4GBXH 4GB(2x2GB)
RAM: G.Skill RipjawsX F3-12800CL9D-8GBXL 8GB(2x4GB)
GPU: ASUS ENGTX560 DCII OC/2DI/1GD5 1GB
DSK0: SAMSUNG 870 EVO 1TB (2.5" SATA SSD) Windows 10 Home
DSK1: SAMSUNG 870 EVO 500GB (2.5" SATA SSD) Windows 7 Pro

Start: Disk0 & Disk1 MBR with BIOS boot
Repartitioned Disk1 and created 200GB unallocated space.
Booted the flash drive with Linux Mint Cinnamon 22.3 to live mode
While in live mode installed Mint in unallocated space.
Afterwords was able to boot to Windows 10, Windows 7, or Linux Mint

Change: Disk0 & Disk1 to GPT with UEFI boot
From Windows 10:
From command line:
* Converted Disk0 from MBR to GPT
From Disk Management:

• Deleted all partition on Disk1
• Converted Disk1 to GPT
• Created partition on Disk1 and formatted NTFS.

Reinstalled Windows 7 on Disk1.
Repartitioned Disk1 and created 200GB unallocated space.
Created Linux Mint Cinnamon 22.3 setup on flash drive. Selected GPT/UEFI.
Booted the flash drive with Linix Mint Cinnamon 22.3.
During setup I got an error.

 

[Rocketing-warp9]

From what It Looks like, the Installer USB might be corrupted or not flashed correctly to the disk. It happens rarely, but could be the issue in question. My suggestion, Reflash the Install USB that you are using for Mint with Ventoy (Details for that here-> https://www.ventoy.net/en/doc_start.html)
Then after that, Give it another go.
Hope this helps!

 

[bob466]

Linux Mint ran fine with MBRs disk and BIOS boot but can no longer install Linux Mint after converting to GPT disks and UEFI boot.

Welcome to the Forum.

The above makes no sense...what do you mean...after converting to GPT disks and UEFI boot.

I have Mint Cinnamon 22.1 running on an SSD which is GPT and UEFI...I didn't change anything because you don't have too.

 

[MisterEd]

I tried Ventory. The only difference was it hung at a different place. The only progress I had was when I tried booting Legacy. It went a lot further but locked up when close to the end of startup into Mint Live.

I am beginning to wonder whether the problem is more than UEFI. The motherboard is one of the first supporting UEFI. Linux may not be compatible with that.

I have a choice to make.

• Convert the disks back to MBR and boot BIOS again. I had no problem running Linux Mint Live and installing it on Disk1.
• Leave the disk with GPT and booting UEFI again. Windows 7 and 10 are booting fine that way.

BTW, I downloaded Ventoy and the Linux Mint ISO again on another computer. I even tried a new flash drive. It made no difference.

Also note, doing a Google search showed some people had the same problem as I have. They had to go back to MBR and BIOS boot to get Linux booting. I don't recall how old their computers were. They may have had first generation motherboards with UEFI like I do.

 

[bob466]

Problems like this are usually Hardware or user created.

I have a 14 year old Laptop which is Legacy only and running Mint xfce 22.1...My Tower's Motherboard is UEFI only and running Mint Cinnamon 22.1

Both Laptop and Tower have a 500GB SSD and are GPT.
A Ventoy Flash Drive was used to install both Distros...as I said you don't need to change anything because the Distro does everything for you...just disable secure boot.

Boot to Mint from the Ventoy Flash Drive and click...Install Linux Mint...it's that simple.

 

[MisterEd]

How old is your tower? That may make a difference.

When the disks were both MBR and the boot was BIOS I had no problem booting the live version of Linux Mint Cinnamon 22.3. When in live I installed Linux Mint in the unallocated part of Disk1 which it shared with Windows 7. Now I can't even boot to the live version of Linux Mint Cinnamon 22.3.

I forgot to mention that earlier this year I had also installed Linux Mint Cinnamon 22.3 on a really old laptop. It is a Toshiba Tecra M7-S7331 which was purchased in the summer of 2006. I had no problems installing it.

Original Specs:
Chipset: Mobile Intel 945GM Express
CPU: Intel Core Duo T2400
RAM: 1024MB (2x512MB) DDR2-533
GPU: Intel Graphics Media Accelerator 950 with 8MB-128M shared RAM
DRV: Hitachi Travelstar 100GB (2.5" SATA HDD)
DSP: 14.1-inch 1440x900
O/S: Windows XP Tablet PC Edition (Vista Ready)

Upgrades:
RAM: 4096MB (2x2048) DDR2-667
DRV: Western Digital Scorpio 250GB (2.5" SATA HDD)
O/S: Windows XP/7

Upgrades:
DRV: Samsung 870 EVO 500GB (2.5" SATA SSD)
O/S: Windows 10 or Linux Mint

 

[Condobloke]

When in live I installed Linux Mint in the unallocated part of Disk1 which it shared with Windows 7.

What shows up in grub ?

 

[bob466]

My Tower's Motherboard...Ram 16GB and CPU i5 are 3 years old...socket 1700 and Ram is DDR4...my SSD is 7 years old.
My Tower's Motherboard failed just over 3 years ago and was Legacy.

I don't dual boot as it can cause problems with the Linux Boot loader...this might be your problem...I have a w7 VM which works just fine.

Maybe you're not installing Mint correctly...I've found the best way to install Linux Mint is to install it to the whole Drive (don't use a HDD)...choosing Erase Disk and Install Linux Mint.
Once installed download Virtualbox and install your w7 VM.

Don't worry about MBR...GPT...Legacy or UEFI because Mint doesn't and I don't either.

I have a portable 1TB SSD I store my system images on...it's MBR the same as my 32GB Ventoy Flash Drive because that's the way it is....but as everything works who cares.

 

[MisterEd]

Now I am really at a loss. LInux Mint worked fine two weeks ago.
I converted the drives back to MBR
In the BIOS everything is set to Legacy. The status says that Secure Boot is disabled.

I tried booting and am still getting errors.
One error I was getting was that it it couldn't read /dev/sr0. That makes no sense. Why is it trying to access the optical drive.
I disabled the SATA port in the BIOS for the optical drive and tried again.
This time it hangs at "unable to enumerate usb device".

I am beginning to believe that there is something wrong with the computer. It shouldn't be this hard!

 

[Condobloke]

Somewhere in that time, you may have fired up win 7 and the windows grub has stepped over the top of the Linux grub....it is infamous for doing this.
Bob466's instructions are good to follow..... post #8

Concentrating more and more on mbr and etc etc etc.....etc....will just lead you further and further down the rabbit hole.

 

[MisterEd]

My Tower's Motherboard...Ram 16GB and CPU i5 are 3 years old...socket 1700 and Ram is DDR4...my SSD is 7 years old.
My Tower's Motherboard failed just over 3 years ago and was Legacy.

I don't dual boot as it can cause problems with the Linux Boot loader...this might be your problem...I have a w7 VM which works just fine.

Maybe you're not installing Mint correctly...I've found the best way to install Linux Mint is to install it to the whole Drive (don't use a HDD)...choosing Erase Disk and Install Linux Mint.
Once installed download Virtualbox and install your w7 VM.
View attachment 32625

Don't worry about MBR...GPT...Legacy or UEFI because Mint doesn't and I don't either.

I have a portable 1TB SSD I store my system images on...it's MBR the same as my 32GB Ventoy Flash Drive because that's the way it is....but as everything works who cares.
View attachment 32624

But everything was working fine two weeks ago!
After I booted the Linux Mint flash drive it loaded Mint Live. After I was satisfied that everything was working I installed Linux Mint in the 200GB unallocated space in Disk1. When I booted Grub loaded a menu to boot to Windows 7, Windows 10, or Linux Mint.
I did make one change. I changed the boot loader back to Windows. After that I used a program called EasyBCD to add Linux Mint to the Windows boot menu.

 

[MisterEd]

Since I can't even boot to Linux Mint Live anymore with the flash drive does that mean I have a hardware problem?

 

[piorunz]

Since I can't even boot to Linux Mint Live anymore with the flash drive does that mean I have a hardware problem?

First of all, take that stick and boot different computer with it to LiveUSB mode (no permanent changes). You can boot a laptop, any virtual machine at well.
Once you verify that the image on USB stick works, you can continue.

 

[MisterEd]

I tried both the original Linux Mint flash drive and Ventoy flash drive with Linux Mint using my laptop. They both booted fine to the Linux Mint live main menu.

 

[piorunz]

I tried both the original Linux Mint flash drive and Ventoy flash drive with Linux Mint using my laptop. They both booted fine to the Linux Mint live main menu.

You have not booted to LiveUSB mode, so still not verified if stick is good or not.
Try doing that on the laptop, it will only take couple of minutes.
Once you verified stick can boot to LiveUSB desktop, turn laptop off and go to affected machine which was not booting.
Disconnect any SATA hard drives, so the BIOS is not trying to boot anything you don't want it to at this moment.
Next, turn it on, go to BIOS, and reset all settings. Save, reboot, and try booting from USB stick then, report result.

 

[MisterEd]

I misspoke. I did boot to the Linux Mint Live desktop using both flash drives on my laptop. At the upper left was the option to install Linux Mint on the laptop drive. At the bottom I selected the option to reboot. It told me to remove the flash drive. After that I booted to Windows 11 again.

Note that I had no problems doing this with the regular Linux Mint on the flash drive. With Ventoy I had to disable Secure Boot before it would boot.

Like I said, a couple weeks ago I had no problems on my desktop booting to the Linux Mint desktop. I even installed it on Disk 1 then.

 

[piorunz]

I misspoke. I did boot to the Linux Mint Live desktop using both flash drives on my laptop. At the upper left was the option to install Linux Mint on the laptop drive. At the bottom I selected the option to reboot. It told me to remove the flash drive. After that I booted to Windows 11 again.

Note that I had no problems doing this with the regular Linux Mint on the flash drive. With Ventoy I had to disable Secure Boot before it would boot.

Like I said, a couple weeks ago I had no problems on my desktop booting to the Linux Mint desktop. I even installed it on Disk 1 then.

Great, so the stick is working.
Now, proceed with the instructions I provided in the post above, if you want to do 100% sure troubleshooting and make your computer work as you want it to again.