Solved New laptop won't install Linux Mint from drive

[Omnifitense]

I gave up trying to wrap my head around the problems from my last thread, and bought a new laptop. However, this one won't even let me install Linux Mint from the ISO drive.

I can boot into the isolated instance just fine, but when I tell it to install like I have the past two times, it tells me "No Root File System. Please Correct This From The Partitioning Menu."

Additionally, there is no actual drive displayed in the menu above for me to select.

I keep telling the drive to use EXT4 instead of NTFS or FAT32, but it doesn't make a difference once the ISO is written onto it, it defaults to the latter two.

 

[dos2unix]

What is the output of ..

lsblk

..and...

fdisk -l

anything here?

lspci | grep -E 'SATA|Volatile'

 

[Omnifitense]

What is the output of ..

lsblk

..and...

fdisk -l

anything here?

lspci | grep -E 'SATA|Volatile'

lsblk says that sda has no mountpoints (which I already gathered, but I'm using the same process I used twice before and it wasn't an issue there)

fdisk says permission denied

When I try entering the third command, it comes back with the E in grep -E highlighted red.

 

[kc1di]

how are you trying to install? How did you prepare the .iso (usb stick?) I'm not sure I understand exactly how you are trying to install Mint.

 

[Omnifitense]

how are you trying to install? How did you prepare the .iso (usb stick?) I'm not sure I understand exactly how you are trying to install Mint.

I downloaded an ISO from the Linux Mint site (quote unquote official), I used the USB Image Writer/USB Stick Formatter programs that come with Linux to format a USB drive with the ISO, then I boot the laptop onto the ISO from the USB and install it that way. That's how I've done it before, at any rate.

 

[AlphaObeisance]

If you're not scared of the terminal, you can identify your drive as dos2unix suggested with

df -h && lsblk

Then you can inspect and manage it's partitions with

cfdisk /dev/sdx

Where sdx is your drive name. You can then create your partitions if they are missing. Though, being Linux Mint, I'd find it highly unusual their GUI doesn't include this in their "Partitioning Menu".

I haven't installed Linux Mint in eons, but the CLI way is universal.

 

[Omnifitense]

If you're not scared of the terminal, you can identify your drive as dos2unix suggested with

df -h && lsblk

Then you can inspect and manage it's partitions with

cfdisk /dev/sdx

Where sdx is your drive name. You can then create your partitions if they are missing. Though, being Linux Mint, I'd find it highly unusual their GUI doesn't include this in their "Partitioning Menu".

I haven't installed Linux Mint in eons, but the CLI way is universal.

I was able to do part of this, but it keeps saying 'permission denied', even though I checked and I have full permissions within the ISO itself.

Additionally, when I click one of the options on the 'final screen' it gives me a strange message saying the installer has crashed. I'd hoped when I plugged the drive back into my old laptop it would keep a record of the message, but no luck.

 

[AlphaObeisance]

I was able to do part of this, but it keeps saying 'permission denied', even though I checked and I have full permissions within the ISO itself.

Additionally, when I click one of the options on the 'final screen' it gives me a strange message saying the installer has crashed. I'd hoped when I plugged the drive back into my old laptop it would keep a record of the message, but no luck.

just to cover your bases

Set a password for your installation ISO

passwd

then try running cfdisk with sudo. Basic, but it's another notch on the troubleshooting belt to check off for funzies. If that doesn't work, I'm afraid I'm unsure how to help at this time. Currently undergoing some maintenance of my own unfortunately lol

 

[Omnifitense]

I was able to do part of this, but it keeps saying 'permission denied', even though I checked and I have full permissions within the ISO itself.

Additionally, when I click one of the options on the 'final screen' it gives me a strange message saying the installer has crashed. I'd hoped when I plugged the drive back into my old laptop it would keep a record of the message, but no luck.

I was able to get the error dump. Transcribing it to the best of my ability.

label: dos
label-id: 0x24a1e612
device: /dev/sda
unit: sectors
sector-size: 512

/dev/sda1: start= 64, size = 6038336, type=0, bootable
/dev/sda2: start=8452, size, 10240, type=ef
/dev/sda3: start=6041600, size=1947483568, type=83

 

[PuppyHome]

As I understand you can boot up the USB drive. So from there are you able to use Gparted and format the drive you want to install Mint into ext4?

Delete the current partition, create partition table msdos and then format the whole partition to ext4.
Also in your BIOS/UEFI is there some protection enabled that prevents you from writing to the disc?

 

[dos2unix]

OK, looks like you have a mixture of DOS/GPT stuff here. That's likely the problem.
If you're using UEFI, I recommend a GPT table.
If you're using Legacy BIOS, I would use DOS.

sudo wipefs -a /dev/sda
sudo parted /dev/sda mklabel gpt

 

[Omnifitense]

OK, looks like you have a mixture of DOS/GPT stuff here. That's likely the problem.
If you're using UEFI, I recommend a GPT table.
If you're using Legacy BIOS, I would use DOS.

sudo wipefs -a /dev/sda
sudo parted /dev/sda mklabel gpt

This seems to have done the trick. Additionally, I went back into the BIOS settings and changed SATA Operation or Storage Mode from RAID on to AHCI. Not sure which tweak got past the roadblock but it is currently installing (finally).

 

[Condobloke]

ahci will make the difference, especially in what is a straightforward install

 

[Omnifitense]

It's installed correctly, and is running just fine. I think we can put in for a close on this one.

 

[Condobloke]

Go to your first post....click on edit....select Solved from the drop down