Newbie: Mint Crashed While Installing alongside Win XP on D:\. Now Can't Access D in Windows

[Gomad]

Experimenting with Gparted is a good step towards setting up several different Linux distros on this same hard drive later on. But Wizard should be the one to teach you that subject. He as two computers, and each one has about 30-35 different partitions, each with its own Linux distro. It's pretty incredible, and he's the only one I know who has done such a thing!

But you don't have to use Gparted. Maybe it's easier for you, or maybe not. You can also created new partitions from the Linux installer with each new distro that you want to put on, at least if you're aren't trying to beat the Wizard. The built in installer might be more difficult as you add more and more to the mix, and there are many different installers used by the various distros.... so you have to be able to recognize the tasks and still follow the right steps when in a different installer environment. Lots o' fun!

Gparted is fine, now that I understand drive allocations. But I'll probably want to install at least 2 distros to play with at a time, so I'll ask Wizard for some pointers when I'm ready for that.

 

[Gomad]

I would try MATE, but I am biased... it's what I use too, and I'm on an older desktop, about the same age as yours. I don't like situations where you have to "fix things" just to make it boot.... something is up with Cinnamon. We might can pinpoint it and fix it, but we might struggle. And what if you want to reinstall it later, like a year from now.... and you might forget the fix! I'm really partial to booting the DVD/USB, installing Linux with default settings, and having everything work, at least at the basic level. It is more often the wireless that needs fixing after an install, but even those have become better.

I want you to have a working Linux! You could try Linux Lite too... it is another favorite of mine that was once my primary system for awhile.

But you certainly are not wasting your time in learning Gparted. It is a powerful tool and you want to be comfortable with it.

Thanks Stan. I shrank /sda1 and added an ex4 partition to the free space, and that went well. I also found the .iso for MATE, and I think I'm going to install it on the pen drive and see how it works with my old equipment.

So while we didn't really solve the problem with installing Mint, you have certainly gone above and beyond by taking the time to walk slowly with me while I sort out my (mostly self-induced) problems and learn a little bit about Linux. You're a great teacher, and I appreciate your time and patience.

I would still like to attempt to resurrect the data from the Samsung if possible, but I would rather get Linux running first, so I can send Windows packing. So I'll probably start a thread about that when I'm ready. In the meantime, I'll probably disappear for awhile, until I get Mate up and running, or have more problems, whichever comes first. I'm very grateful for this forum, and all the good people here willing to help.

Question: as for the Seagate GoFlex, I'm thinking I should format it, with an ext4 partition and use it for Linux backups. Is there anything I need to do first, or otherwise?

 

[atanere]

Gparted is fine, now that I understand drive allocations. But I'll probably want to install at least 2 distros to play with at a time, so I'll ask Wizard for some pointers when I'm ready for that.

Yeah, if you just want 2 or maybe 3, all will probably be well with the BIOS type system. BIOS/MBR has a limitation of only 4 primary partitions on a hard drive... one of the reasons that UEFI was born, to fix that. UEFI uses GPT instead of MBR... so don't you love all these alphabet soup systems? GPT is GUID Partition Table. Yeah, I'm sure that makes sense.

Maybe Wizard knows some tricks about using extended partitions instead of primary partitions to install even more, but this gets over my head real quickly. You might note, however, that your SWAP space is in an extended partition.

But you can always try new distros on DVD or USB. And you can also use special software to install Linux (or Windows) into a "virtual machine". No need to go down that road right now though.... you have enough hard drives and drive space to do lots of creative things.

Still playing with Gparted? Or want to try MATE or Linux Lite for a new test to see if something will work?

 

[atanere]

Thanks Stan. I shrank /sda1 and added an ex4 partition to the free space, and that went well. I also found the .iso for MATE, and I think I'm going to install it on the pen drive and see how it works with my old equipment.

So while we didn't really solve the problem with installing Mint, you have certainly gone above and beyond by taking the time to walk slowly with me while I sort out my (mostly self-induced) problems and learn a little bit about Linux. You're a great teacher, and I appreciate your time and patience.

I would still like to attempt to resurrect the data from the Samsung if possible, but I would rather get Linux running first, so I can send Windows packing. So I'll probably start a thread about that when I'm ready. In the meantime, I'll probably disappear for awhile, until I get Mate up and running, or have more problems, whichever comes first. I'm very grateful for this forum, and all the good people here willing to help.

Question: as for the Seagate GoFlex, I'm thinking I should format it, with an ext4 partition and use it for Linux backups. Is there anything I need to do first, or otherwise?

If you get a clean install of MATE going on the WD drive, that will be awesome. The GoFlex was going to be the next task, I think. With a good working Linux on the hard drive, I would make a last attempt to use Gparted to "repair" that NTFS partition.... if it works and files become available, I'd copy them off somewhere (either of the WD drives). Then I'd delete all the partitions on the GoFlex and start over with it and a fresh new partition.... NTFS so it will work with Windows too. (Windows will not recognize ext4.)

Another tip: if you get MATE installed and working, first thing is enable your firewall. Open an terminal and issue this command: sudo ufw enable (it will ask for your password that you create when installing Mint, but you won't see any echo of the characters that you type, not even stars ****).

Also, when Mint is installed.... Gparted is not there with it!!!! Go figure. So, you'll need to get your first lesson in installing software in Linux. There are several methods, but its quite easy. You might try again opening a terminal and issuing the command: sudo apt install gparted --- I think that will do it.

 

[atanere]

Not sure of your Time Zone, but I'm on U.S. CST (Chicago time), so I've got about 5 or 6 hours left today that I can play, and I'll also be available a good part of the day tomorrow, and some on Wednesday before the work cycle restarts Wednesday evening.

 

[Gomad]

Not sure of your Time Zone, but I'm on U.S. CST (Chicago time), so I've got about 5 or 6 hours left today that I can play, and I'll also be available a good part of the day tomorrow, and some on Wednesday before the work cycle restarts Wednesday evening.

Thanks for the tips in the previous post Stan. I live in a little mountain community in Arizona and we're on Mountain Time this time of year, but I have a hockey game to watch in 3 hours so I'll only get as much done as I can do in that much time. I'm going to try and get MATE working smoothly with all the updates, sound and video drivers, then install to the WD. If I run into trouble, you can bet I'll be back here asking questions.

Thanks again for all your help so far Stan. Good on yer.

 

[wizardfromoz]

but Wizard developed a method to "verify" that your USB used a good .iso.

I'd like to be able to claim the glory for that, but I actually found some tidbits of info in various spots on the net, and cobbled it all together.

You can read about it here

https://www.linux.org/threads/hash-checking-rare-tips.13544/#post-45991

... if you have need of it in the future.

Christophe Grenier, of cgsecurity.org is the author of Testdisk and PhotoRec, and it is a good product, by and large. Some of the scans can take a long time, but if you get in too deep and wish to exit, it is either q or Esc, I think q, to page back to the previous menu.

As with any recovery solution, as @Gomad likely knows, you have to act quickly to recover, insofar as not allowing the sectors to be overwritten with new data, but TestDisk has been known to be able to tunnel down sometimes even in those circumstances.

There is also the option of using Steven Shiau's Clonezilla, which is cross-platform, to migrate the data elsewhere for later recovery. Steven is from Taiwan and I have used his product several times over the last 3 and a half years with success. It too takes a long time, performing a low level sector by sector duplication (so target partition or drive must be at least the same size as source), and each time I use it I hold my breath - so no beers

Wizard

 

[Gomad]

Not sure of your Time Zone, but I'm on U.S. CST (Chicago time), so I've got about 5 or 6 hours left today that I can play, and I'll also be available a good part of the day tomorrow, and some on Wednesday before the work cycle restarts Wednesday evening.

Stan, you've been working very hard to try and get me going, and you have done a great job as far as I am concerned. So I thought it might make you smile to know that I'm logged in using MATE 64 bit! Yahoo! You were right about my processor being able to run 64 bit.

I enabled the firewall, installed Gparted and I am off to see if I can do updates and stuff without breaking MATE. LoL

Thanks again for your help so far! (notice I said so far!) LoL

Happy camper Steve... for the moment.

 

[Gomad]

I'd like to be able to claim the glory for that, but I actually found some tidbits of info in various spots on the net, and cobbled it all together.

You can read about it here

https://www.linux.org/threads/hash-checking-rare-tips.13544/#post-45991

... if you have need of it in the future.

Christophe Grenier, of cgsecurity.org is the author of Testdisk and PhotoRec, and it is a good product, by and large. Some of the scans can take a long time, but if you get in too deep and wish to exit, it is either q or Esc, I think q, to page back to the previous menu.

As with any recovery solution, as @Gomad likely knows, you have to act quickly to recover, insofar as not allowing the sectors to be overwritten with new data, but TestDisk has been known to be able to tunnel down sometimes even in those circumstances.

There is also the option of using Steven Shiau's Clonezilla, which is cross-platform, to migrate the data elsewhere for later recovery. Steven is from Taiwan and I have used his product several times over the last 3 and a half years with success. It too takes a long time, performing a low level sector by sector duplication (so target partition or drive must be at least the same size as source), and each time I use it I hold my breath - so no beers

Wizard

Thanks for posting this good info Mr Wizard. Bookmarked for future reference. Two thumbs up.

 

[atanere]

Stan, you've been working very hard to try and get me going, and you have done a great job as far as I am concerned. So I thought it might make you smile to know that I'm logged in using MATE 64 bit! Yahoo! You were right about my processor being able to run 64 bit.

I enabled the firewall, installed Gparted and I am off to see if I can do updates and stuff without breaking MATE. LoL

Thanks again for your help so far! (notice I said so far!) LoL

Happy camper Steve... for the moment.

And, in my best Homer voice....

 

[atanere]

That's great, Steve! And I take it that everything went "as expected" this time? You sometimes run into little issues that just baffle the heck out of you.... probably most can be solved, but how long might it take? Some are easier than others, but it can be "fun" or "challenging" as you have already found.

And, I don't mean to rush you or anything.... but, are you ready to break it again yet?

Okay, no hurry. But just want you to keep thinking of where you might want to go... like maybe learning that "something else" installation technique. But that can also be learned somewhat when you install the next distro you choose, but you do want to be prepared for mistakes and the possibility that you might have to come back to this point and start from scratch again. I like fresh installations, but Wizard has a great tutorial on the Timeshift program and I think was mentioned before.... it can allow you to restore your essential system from a backup/snapshot. You may want to learn more about that as you go as it can be very useful.

Of course, you need a place to put those backups, and your GoFlex will be a logical choice. I know you've accepted the data loss, but I mentioned that Gparted has at least a chance of repairing the errors that were reported. I don't think it will take to long to check/fix the drive, but I may be wrong too, and it might take many hours.... too hard to predict that for sure. The steps to try are quite simple though. Whether it fixes it or not, cleaning up this drive is probably the next task, right?

1. Have your shiny new Linux Mint MATE up and running, but don't start Gparted yet. And dont have the GoFlex plugged in yet.

2. Now plug in the USB cable to the GoFlex. Turn it on if it has a power button. Give it time to initialize. It may or may not show an icon on the desktop.

3. Now run Gparted, and I think you'll need the dropdown box to select the GoFlex.... which at this point should be /dev/sdb. Yes?

4. On the GoFlex drive, you'll see the two partitions, NTFS and ext4.

5.Right-click on the NTFS drive and look around the middle of popup that shows the available options... if Unmount is not dimmed out, then click on it so that the NTFS partition is unmounted. If it is already unmounted, it will show the word Mount instead, and it may be clickable or dimmed out, but don't click on it to mount it. Unmounted is what you want.

6. Right-click on the NTFS partition again... this time look a little lower below the Mount/Unmount.... below "Manage Flags".... you want the Check option. This will attempt to check and repair the partition. I've never used this, so I don't really know what to expect... for length of time or for what results or options it may give you when finished. You'll have to pay close attention to this step. And I guess you've learned about Gparted already that it doesn't jump into action... it leaves the "operation pending" until you click the "Apply" arrow in the menu area. Once it begins, try to do anything else it may ask or require... maybe rebooting at the end, I don't know. When all is complete, if you are looking at it again with Gparted and see any of that dim yellow color taking up some of the partition, you may can access the files on it. You may need to eject and restart the drive to re-mount it.

WARNING!
Now that we're at this stage.... I want to give you what may be the most important Linux advice you will get: NEVER unplug removable media (pen drives, external hard drives, camera memory cards, anything like that) without first telling Linux to "safely remove drive" or "eject" or "unmount".... the wording varies. Windows also offered a method to "safely remove drive"... but with Windows it wasn't as critical as it is with Linux... and many Windows users would simply yank the media (or USB cable) out without safely removing first. If you are in this habit, break it now! When Windows would, say, copy a file to a pen drive, it would really do it, and it would complete it... which is why you could get away with yanking the drive out when done (but not while still writing data). Linux is very different in this. If you tell Linux to copy a file to a pen drive, Linux says, "Okay, I'll store that instruction in RAM and get around to it when I feel like it." When you then tell it to unmount/eject/safely remove, then Linux will say, "Oh, okay.... just a sec while I catch up my chores and put your data on the pen drive." It will then usually report to you that it is safe to remove, or the drive (icon) will disappear from the desktop or from the file manager.So if you yank the pen drive out without safely removing, you will frequently have trouble and will likely lose data. Booting on the pen drive was different, so no worries there. But now you may be using pen drives and your GoFlex frequently with Linux... so you need to heed this advice.

OK, with that out of the way. Let me go back to the GoFlex for a bit. If the Check works and you can access files, you can copy them to your new Linux Mint for temporary storage.... probably the safest thing to do and you should have plenty of space. So if you complete the file copy, or if the repair failed and you're ready to just blow it all away.... you can use Gparted again to hopefully make it all good again. Again get the GoFlex up in Gparted, and right-click on each of the partitions and choose Delete. When all finished, you will have only one large unallocated space. Click your "Apply" button up on top and it will quickly complete the deletion. Then right-click on the unallocated space and your only choice should be New. I think you've got it from here because of your experimenting earlier tonight. I would still recommend NTFS so that you can later use it to save any data (or recovered data if we are able) from your Samsung drive. Linux can use NTFS just fine, and it is usually about the best choice. Even if you give up Windows totally, you would be able to take the GoFlex to any other computer and use it (but Mac computers may not play well).

After formatting the GoFlex with NTFS, we hope that no errors are reported, and that it will work properly and give good service. Remember to "safely remove" before you unplug the USB cable or before you turn it off if it has a power button. Oh, if the GoFlex still shows the "boot flag".... you can again right-click on the partition, and choose Manage Flags to remove it. I think it should be gone, but just in case. If there are other flags after creating the new partition, leave them alone.

I don't think I've jumped too far ahead, and I hope I haven't skipped or forgotten stuff. Enjoy the game!

Cheers

 

[wizardfromoz]

Crikey! (Oz for gee whiz!) Somehow I missed (reading) from #40 to #64, and now I have gone back and got repetitive strain injury from clicking "Like" so much - someone's going to pay for this

Don't know how to say this without sounding condescending or patronising, but then I have Asperger's Syndrome (along with 7 other Disorders, beat that. Better still, don't ). But you pair have performed legendary work together , and Steve, you definitely have what it takes to succeed at Linux. Goodonyer.

Thanks for posting this good info Mr Wizard. Bookmarked for future reference. Two thumbs up.

Don't call me Mr Wizard, call me Chris, Wizard, Wiz ... anything but late for dinner. Mr Wizard was my late father, who passed away 3,500 years ago during the 4th Age of Man.

With the GParted shot, page 3, #43, on the Western Digital? 1.5 TB or 1.36 TiB. I have an axe to grind with manufacturers, whereby if they produce an HDD of (arbitrary figure) 500GB or more, they should format it in GPT, not MSDOS-MBR which is what yours is, and even what my 3TB Adata 'Nobility' NH3 powered external HDD was, before I kicked it over to GPT. GPT is much more Linux-friendly, and more efficient.

The skipping in numbering - sda1, sda2, then to sda5, is indicative of that. However, Swap does not care whether it is on a Primary Partition, an Extended Partition, or on a Virtual Partition underneath an Extended Partition, so no worries there. Under GPT, every partition is Primary, and Swap lives comfortably.

It is worth your checking to establish the status of all your external drives, to find if they are formatted subject to the 4-partition rule, or to the GPT standard. And you can convert to GPT, even without loss of data, but that is a little more advanced. A GPT HDD is ideal for exploring Linux.

Sing out if you need advice on more Linux.

(Wizard disappears in a puff of smoke, sets off sprinkler systems, everybody drenched and cry "Curse you, Wizard!)

BTW when you have everything sweet, use Timeshift to save a snapshot so you can roll back if needed (like Windows Restore).

 

[Gomad]

Thanks for your comments, fellas. I'll reply later. Just a quick note for now, I'm reasonbaly certain the nVidia 304 proprietary driver is wreaking havoc. Everything was working great in MATE, until I installed that driver. Then I got the same "Busybot" screen with (initramfs) prompt, that I got after the install attempt to the WD. And this was still running from the pen drive. Off to work for now, but when I get home tonight, since I don't know how to fix things yet, I'm just going to do another clean install on the pen drive but I won't update the video driver. Everything works fine with the generic driver.

Later..

 

[atanere]

Thanks for your comments, fellas. I'll reply later. Just a quick note for now, I'm reasonbaly certain the nVidia 304 proprietary driver is wreaking havoc. Everything was working great in MATE, until I installed that driver. Then I got the same "Busybot" screen with (initramfs) prompt, that I got after the install attempt to the WD. And this was still running from the pen drive. Off to work for now, but when I get home tonight, since I don't know how to fix things yet, I'm just going to do another clean install on the pen drive but I won't update the video driver. Everything works fine with the generic driver.

Later..

Ahhh, so you decided it really was a good time to break it! Get 'em early, and get 'em often!

Well, we thought nVidia might be the trouble with Cinnamon too... so this is even more proof. But you might gain a couple of more knowledge bits with this experience, if you want. 1) We might investigate further about installing Cinnamon and not using the nVidia driver, if you think at this point you would prefer Cinnamon. You don't have much experience with either one yet, but this is just one of those opportunities for you. 2) Even if you go back to MATE, you might consider installing without using "the easy way". Wizard was right when he said that "GPT" was the better method for setting up the hard drive (in large part so that you can have more than 4 primary partitions for further development). He is obviously very expert in GPT setup, and if you'd like to give that a go at this point, I'll kick back and watch you two have at it for awhile.

Hmmm, come to think of it, I don't know that I've ever setup an older BIOS-based computer with GPT. For my simple needs that's never been necessary. But the new UEFI-based computers use GPT by default, and I've had to play with that a little on a couple of laptops that I have. I've always been old-school... and BIOS/MBR was what I grew up on, but UEFI/GPT is better, and it was sorely needed to keep up with hard drive capacity and technology. But it has been "fun" and "challenging" to learn the new ways. Thanks to Microsoft, there are a few added things in UEFI that Linux folks have had to overcome, and it is still onging.

Cheers

 

[Gomad]

Oh my. You two guys crack me up. It's hard to type with coffee spewed on my keyboard. LoL

I'm going to consolidate my replies to both of you (Wizard and Stan) here, in the interest of, well, interest. heh

Didn't take me long to break it, did it, huh? Crash is my middle name. LoL Now all I need is some fast track learning from the "gods" (that's you guys) so I can fix it when I break it. So I'm willing to let you play all you want with my system as this will surely help me learn Linux in short order and I have my (uhg!) Win 7 running on the Samsung, so let's have some fun if you want to, and don't forget I have a brand new WD 1.0 GB in a drive bay just waiting to be energized. However, I might not have as much time as you do for this, but you never know. I could get addicted with all the help available here

Stan, do you still want me to proceed with the steps outlined in #71? I haven't done anything with the wounded Mate install yet, (running Windows now) so if you want to try some fixes to the video issue, I'm game for that. Otherwise I can either reinstall Mate, or Cinnamon, doesn't matter to me. I'm going to learn good stuff either way. You guys make the calls and I will be your huckelberry. I'll end up with a perfectly working Linux install eventually and that's my goal.

Wizard, no disrespect intended to your 3500+ year old "father." It was just a momentary lapse of reason. And thanks for all the likes. Hope you didn't get carpel tunnel. I have more likes now than posts.

Ok, enough of that. LoL If you think GPT is a good thing, Wiz, then I probably should take note of that. And as I said earlier, I'm willing and ready to play with my system because I'm confidend that not only will I learn Linux quickly working with you pros, but I'm sure I'll end up with a much more robust system than I could have on my own. I never really fully understood extended partitions, so GPT would save me learning that for now, because at my advanced age, my brain is pretty well full by now, and every time something new goes in, something old has to leave. So GPT sounds great, if you're willing to spend the time, and I would be very grateful if you wouldn't mind walking me through it. (Based on Stan's comments, sounds like he would be interested in watching that go down too).

So maybe you two could have a pow wow and decide a plan of attack? GPT first? Sounds like the first logical step to fixing my video issues. Don't forget about the new WD 1.0 GB just waiting for some love.

Oh yes, I want to give a shout-out to @Condobloke. Thanks for the likes.

 

[Gomad]

Crikey! (Oz for gee whiz!) Somehow I missed (reading) from #40 to #64, and now I have gone back and got repetitive strain injury from clicking "Like" so much - someone's going to pay for this

Don't know how to say this without sounding condescending or patronising, but then I have Asperger's Syndrome (along with 7 other Disorders, beat that. Better still, don't ). But you pair have performed legendary work together , and Steve, you definitely have what it takes to succeed at Linux. Goodonyer.




Don't call me Mr Wizard, call me Chris, Wizard, Wiz ... anything but late for dinner. Mr Wizard was my late father, who passed away 3,500 years ago during the 4th Age of Man.

With the GParted shot, page 3, #43, on the Western Digital? 1.5 TB or 1.36 TiB. I have an axe to grind with manufacturers, whereby if they produce an HDD of (arbitrary figure) 500GB or more, they should format it in GPT, not MSDOS-MBR which is what yours is, and even what my 3TB Adata 'Nobility' NH3 powered external HDD was, before I kicked it over to GPT. GPT is much more Linux-friendly, and more efficient.

The skipping in numbering - sda1, sda2, then to sda5, is indicative of that. However, Swap does not care whether it is on a Primary Partition, an Extended Partition, or on a Virtual Partition underneath an Extended Partition, so no worries there. Under GPT, every partition is Primary, and Swap lives comfortably.

It is worth your checking to establish the status of all your external drives, to find if they are formatted subject to the 4-partition rule, or to the GPT standard. And you can convert to GPT, even without loss of data, but that is a little more advanced. A GPT HDD is ideal for exploring Linux.

Sing out if you need advice on more Linux.

(Wizard disappears in a puff of smoke, sets off sprinkler systems, everybody drenched and cry "Curse you, Wizard!)

BTW when you have everything sweet, use Timeshift to save a snapshot so you can roll back if needed (like Windows Restore).

Wiz, so that I understand, GPT is a formatting standard for HD's, correct? We don't need to do anything to my BIOS? I only have one system at the moment (although I've been shopping around for a new motherboard and processor) so I don't want to end up dead in the water. All my eggs are in one basket at the moment.

 

[Gomad]

Also, I'm doing some research on GPT and GRUB bootloaders, MBR's and 4096 sectors vs 512, etc, on my own so you don't have to type that all out for me. But I'm certainly interested in anything you have to say, Wiz.

 

[atanere]

Oh my. You two guys crack me up. It's hard to type with coffee spewed on my keyboard. LoL

That's what we're here for! And you are obviously very tolerant, good-natured, and kind-hearted to put up with us!

If you mean the instructions in #71 about working on the GoFlex... no, I'd say hold off on that for now. The only reason being that if the "Check" function worked, you'd need a place to copy the files to, which I was planning on your Mint WD drive for temporary storage. (I'm thinking of saving your new WD drive for catastrophe management... that lesson is coming! Did you know a hard drive can float??? No, no, I'm only kidding!!!! )

We can proceed any direction that you wish... you're the "customer". If we are slow to respond and you take off on your own, you can see now, I think, that we should be always able to help you start over if you get stuck. A huge benefit to your patience is that you don't require a working system this very minute, and you have the freedom (and will) to learn and experiment with things. Protecting your Samsung means you can always plug it back in and have a working system that you're familiar with.

I have a story to tell: Today, I bought a used netbook... it's a tiny little thing with a 10" screen and 1 GB of RAM. But it is quite snappy running Linux Lite on it. It is also old-style BIOS/MBR, and I did a little preliminary testing to see if I could work some Wizard-like magic on it and install 3 or 4 Linux distros. The short story ended with.... no, apparently I can't (or not without some further study, or help from Wizard). I mentioned yesterday that I don't think I had ever attempted this before. I'm fairly familiar with the tools... I used fdisk /dev/sda to convert the 250 GB drive from "dos" to "gpt" and I used the Mint installer to create a "reserved BIOS boot area" (with the "something else" section of the installer). After installing, I got "no bootable device". Checked with Gparted and looked okay, but added the "boot flag" to the "reserved BIOS boot area" but same result. That was my give-it-up moment for today.... and I have kind of walked you through those steps without you having to do it yourself... unless Wizard points out what went wrong. Actually, I wonder if it is even possible with old-style BIOS (like yours and mine) to set up and use GPT. UEFI knows how to boot up in that special boot area, but I don't know if BIOS can learn that trick. Oh, the end of my little story goes like this: I used Linux Lite to delete all the Linux Mint stuff and do a fresh install "the easy way". Linux Lite is not UEFI capable, and the little bugger converted my hard drive back to "dos". This is partly what makes me think that BIOS needs MBR instead.... and that maybe GPT is not going to work, but maybe it was just Linux Lite and not BIOS. Still scratching my head....

If you buy a new motherboard you will almost certainly be getting UEFI. Personally, I usually prefer to buy a new system all together (usually something cheap from a big box store). I don't keep up to date with hardware changes, but I worry about power supply compatibility (Is it still big enough? Have voltages or connectors changed? Etc.) and other possible connector or connection issues (video, etc). If you buy a whole new system and keep your old one going too.... then you can learn all about networking! (I'm such a jerk sometimes! )

Sorry... I started late this evening and time is almost up for tonight. And I haven't really given you any firm direction to move toward.... letting you think about that and tell us what you'd like to do. Maybe Wizard will teach both of us how to use GPT properly on an old BIOS system. (Maybe he has an "easy way" too!)

Cheers for now,
Stan

 

[wizardfromoz]

Hi, re #76 through #78, short answer is:

You can use an MBR-partitioned HDD with BIOS; you can use a GPT-partitioned HDD with BIOS; you can use a GPT-partitioned HDD with UEFI; you cannot use an MBR-partitioned HDD with UEFI. If the firmware in your computer has an option to select BIOS mode (some firmware manufacturers refer to this as ‘Compatibility Support Module’ or ‘Legacy Mode’) instead of UEFI and you want to use an MBR on the HDD, you will have to use BIOS. In summary, for Linux your options are BIOS-MBR, BIOS-GPT or UEFI-GPT.

And don't ever use "UEFI-BIOS" like some manufacturers do, or I'll turn you into a toad. BIOS and UEFI are firmware standards. (MSDOS-)MBR and GPT are formatting standards.

Guys just an FYI (might put something on my profile) - I have major commitments next 3 weeks, selling our old house to pay off the new, and I am doing the legal paperwork, so I could be in and out.

I can give you some reading material, and I'll help as best I can, and after mid-Feb, I'll be let loose and run amok (as usual).

Cheers

Wiz

 

[Gomad]

That's what we're here for! And you are obviously very tolerant, good-natured, and kind-hearted to put up with us!

If you mean the instructions in #71 about working on the GoFlex... no, I'd say hold off on that for now. The only reason being that if the "Check" function worked, you'd need a place to copy the files to, which I was planning on your Mint WD drive for temporary storage. (I'm thinking of saving your new WD drive for catastrophe management... that lesson is coming! Did you know a hard drive can float??? No, no, I'm only kidding!!!! )

We can proceed any direction that you wish... you're the "customer". If we are slow to respond and you take off on your own, you can see now, I think, that we should be always able to help you start over if you get stuck. A huge benefit to your patience is that you don't require a working system this very minute, and you have the freedom (and will) to learn and experiment with things. Protecting your Samsung means you can always plug it back in and have a working system that you're familiar with.

I have a story to tell: Today, I bought a used netbook... it's a tiny little thing with a 10" screen and 1 GB of RAM. But it is quite snappy running Linux Lite on it. It is also old-style BIOS/MBR, and I did a little preliminary testing to see if I could work some Wizard-like magic on it and install 3 or 4 Linux distros. The short story ended with.... no, apparently I can't (or not without some further study, or help from Wizard). I mentioned yesterday that I don't think I had ever attempted this before. I'm fairly familiar with the tools... I used fdisk /dev/sda to convert the 250 GB drive from "dos" to "gpt" and I used the Mint installer to create a "reserved BIOS boot area" (with the "something else" section of the installer). After installing, I got "no bootable device". Checked with Gparted and looked okay, but added the "boot flag" to the "reserved BIOS boot area" but same result. That was my give-it-up moment for today.... and I have kind of walked you through those steps without you having to do it yourself... unless Wizard points out what went wrong. Actually, I wonder if it is even possible with old-style BIOS (like yours and mine) to set up and use GPT. UEFI knows how to boot up in that special boot area, but I don't know if BIOS can learn that trick. Oh, the end of my little story goes like this: I used Linux Lite to delete all the Linux Mint stuff and do a fresh install "the easy way". Linux Lite is not UEFI capable, and the little bugger converted my hard drive back to "dos". This is partly what makes me think that BIOS needs MBR instead.... and that maybe GPT is not going to work, but maybe it was just Linux Lite and not BIOS. Still scratching my head....

If you buy a new motherboard you will almost certainly be getting UEFI. Personally, I usually prefer to buy a new system all together (usually something cheap from a big box store). I don't keep up to date with hardware changes, but I worry about power supply compatibility (Is it still big enough? Have voltages or connectors changed? Etc.) and other possible connector or connection issues (video, etc). If you buy a whole new system and keep your old one going too.... then you can learn all about networking! (I'm such a jerk sometimes! )

Sorry... I started late this evening and time is almost up for tonight. And I haven't really given you any firm direction to move toward.... letting you think about that and tell us what you'd like to do. Maybe Wizard will teach both of us how to use GPT properly on an old BIOS system. (Maybe he has an "easy way" too!)

Cheers for now,
Stan

Mornin' Stan. I did not know that a HD can float. But I do know that if your pager goes off and you throw it in the toilet, you can still hear it.

Thanks for the compliments, but my X-wife would probably not agree that I'm tolerant, good natured and kind-hearted. LoL

If I understand correctly from what I've been reading, UEFI needs to somehow run firmware from an EEPROM, as BIOS does, (but I haven't figured out how it does this yet) and bootup points to a file that launches the OS kernel, without having to initialize every piece of hardware first as BIOS does. If that's true, I can imagine bootup being almost instantaneous. GPT appeaers to be a partition format that needs UEFI to access fstab in Linux, which I believe lists all available disk partitions and other types of file systems and data sources that are not necessarily disk-based, and indicates how they are to be initialized or otherwise integrated into the larger file system structure. But like I said, I have to see all the pieces of a puzzle before this will make sense to me, so I have lots more research to do. How to get UEFI and GPT to run without flashing the BIOS and replacing it with UEFI, is the answer Wiz must have. Maybe he just waves his magic wand? It must be great to be a wizard.