[Marchalla]

So I just got this laptop and it has a newly installed Linux OS on it. I worked with it for about a week then I couldn't get much software. After that I went ahead and tried to download Windows XP and it didn't turn out to well. So my system was up and going again and I found out I had a few trouble spots on my PC. My question is can I create a new partition and then release the old one and still have the Linux OS in okay shape? Is there is a way of rearranging or repairing the partion so that I can clear up any problem areas? I'm not real sure how the system can be tuned or minor overhauled to fix it. A step through of how to do this operation would be great.

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don't really understand where your at, so can you give a bit more detail.

 

are you now running windows xp or were you still able to boot the linux os after a failed attempt at installing windows xp?

are you still running mint 12 or did you do a fresh install of mint 17.1?

exactly what problems are you having?

what partitions are on your hard drive at the moment?

what partitions are you wanting to release and create new and why?

 

there are lots of things you can and can not do with partition setup but it does depend on what those partitions are and how you are going to make the changes, from within the os or from running a live os of some type on a cd/dvd/usb stick.

 

[terry1966]

don't really understand where your at, so can you give a bit more detail.

 

are you now running windows xp or were you still able to boot the linux os after a failed attempt at installing windows xp?

are you still running mint 12 or did you do a fresh install of mint 17.1?

exactly what problems are you having?

what partitions are on your hard drive at the moment?

what partitions are you wanting to release and create new and why?

 

there are lots of things you can and can not do with partition setup but it does depend on what those partitions are and how you are going to make the changes, from within the os or from running a live os of some type on a cd/dvd/usb stick.

 

[Marchalla]

Okay no I'm not running xp I still have the linux mint 12 and it has some problems on the drive.  I didn't go ahead and install mint 17 because I don't have a disc for it to go on and the usb seems not to work. There is just one partition on the drive and to change anything takes a little bit of skill. I would like to know about creating a new partition. Then if I do I could delete the old one because I could solve the problem that way. The thing is that some files in the system were damaged and I can leave it alone and maybe it would be okay. The facts are kind of technical and the best I can say is that it's the original and it has only one.    Linux (0x83)    I have a couple of things I could do but not sure. I appreciate your help thank you.

[terry1966]

well if there's only 1 partition on the drive, (find that hard to believe because by default there should be at least 2, a small partition for swap (usually about 2GB) and then the rest of the drive for root which is where the os and user data is stored.) it will always be mounted and in use so you will not be able to make any changes to it.

 

first you will have to create a working live cd or usb stick to use for making the changes you want to that partition.

 

I would like to know about creating a new partition. Then if I do I could delete the old one because I could solve the problem that way.

still don't really understand how you think after creating a new empty partition and then deleting the original partition with your os on is going to solve your problems whatever they are though.

 

anyway seeing how you are going to need to create a bootable live usb stick anyway to make changes to that partition then you might as well create a mint 17.1 install stick and do a completely clean install of your operating system.

 

if your having trouble creating a bootable usb stick then download and use imagewriter to write the mint 17.1 iso download to the usb stick and you should find that will then boot up just fine.

if it doesn't you may need to alter your boot sequence either in bios/uefi or by tapping a certain keyboard key on start up which will bring up your boot order menu so you can select what device to boot that 1 time.

 

get the mint 17.1 iso from here :- http://www.linuxmint.com/download.php

i suggest getting either the 64bit version of mate or cinnamon, just click on the 64bit then click on whatever mirror you want to use to download the iso file.

 

next get imagewriter from here :- http://community.lin...usb-imagewriter

 

not sure of the exact size of the mint iso's but think they are smaller than 2GB so you will need to check that but think a 2GB usb stick will be large enough to use.

 

now just plug the usb stick into the laptop, run imagewriter and then point it to the iso image or drag and drop the iso file into it's window to create the bootable usb stick, once finished, restart the laptop and now it should boot up the usb stick and offer you choices to either run the live os or install mint 17.1 to your hard drive, like i said earlier if it doesn't then you may need to change your boot order first.

 

let us know how you get on or if you have any problems or further questions keep them in this topic.

 

[Marchalla]

Thank you!

[terry1966]

had a thought is your problems to do with the lack of a swap partition? like i said by default mint has 2 partitions 1st is swap 2nd is root usually, so was just thinking how xp would have messed up your linux system but still left it bootable and the only thing i could think was that you tried to install xp onto the first partition, which would have been the 2GB swap partition and of course it wouldn't fit so fail but it would also stop that partition from now being usable by the mint os.

 

so your hard drive probably now only has the 1 partition but it also has free space where the swap partition used to be, if that is the case then you could always create a new swap partition in that empty space again to fix things without the need of creating a bootable live usb stick or cd/dvd.

 

i'd need to actually see the drive info first though to check things

eg.

mainpc:/home/suse13-1 # fdisk -l /dev/sda

Disk /dev/sda: 250.0 GB, 250000000000 bytes, 488281250 sectors
Units = sectors of 1 * 512 = 512 bytes
Sector size (logical/physical): 512 bytes / 512 bytes
I/O size (minimum/optimal): 512 bytes / 512 bytes
Disk label type: dos
Disk identifier: 0x00024db8

   Device Boot      Start         End      Blocks   Id  System
/dev/sda1   *        2048      819199      408576   83  Linux
/dev/sda2          819200   488280063   243730432   8e  Linux LVM

i'd still recommend installing mint 17.1 though and not worry about fixing your mint 12 os.

 

Edited by terry1966, 26 April 2015 - 06:48 PM.

[Marchalla]

Sure I saved mint 17 to a usb it's an iso and it won't boot from it. I have tried to boot with mint 16 from the cd and it would not do that either. I also tried to boot from a disc the OS zorin so far not sure about that anymore. About how I tried to install xp was from an iso I made from a download and this did not work. The basic thing I know about the partition is that I read it has one of them. What I did was I checked it after my pc stalled but then got up and running. Then what I can learn about the system is from the disk utility so that's as much as I can do with a linux without knowing any other basics.

[terry1966]

you can't just save an iso to a usb and expect it to boot, the usb has to be made in a certain way so it has a bootable partition on it that holds the iso files and why i said to use the imagewriter program.

 

same thing with cd/dvd's you can not just copy the iso to them they have to be burned as an image.

 

so lets assume you have made the usb and cd's correctly so they will boot, did you go into the bios/uefi and check the boot order so the cd/dvd drive was first bootable device and not the hard drive? if the hard drive is first boot device then you will never be able to boot a cd/dvd similar thing for the usb stick..

 

when you start the laptop what do you see on the screen before it starts loading the os, does it say something along the bottom like press F2 to enter setup or F10 for boot options? it will only be on there for a short time so you will need to not take your eyes off the screen to see if it does say anything.

 

 

to get your hard drive info, open a terminal or command line (whatever you call it.) then type in or copy and paste into it

sudo fdisk -l /dev/sda

enter the password and then copy and paste the result (which should look similar to mine in previous post) into your next reply.

Edited by terry1966, 26 April 2015 - 07:20 PM.

[Marchalla]

I know I can use F12 to go to booting options also I can make sure of the first bootable device.

[terry1966]

good, once you make the bootable usb stick of the mint 17.1 iso using image writer use F12 to set the boot device, it may show up under usb devices or it may be listed under the hard drive option but where ever it is, select it and then with luck it should boot up correctly now and offer you a menu of choices like run mint 17.1 live, install, etc. etc.

 

[Marchalla]

Well I had a few problems I tried to install Linux mint 13 and after I began I lost the old system. Anyway thank you for your help and I don 't need any now but I appreciate it though.

[terry1966]

yes installing any new version of mint will usually install on the same root partition as the older version and why you lost the original system, i do wonder what problems you had though because installing the os is usually straight forward and a case of following the on screen prompts unless there is a fault with the medium your using also wonder why you tried installing 13 instead of 17.1. 

 

no matter though just as long as your happy and have a working pc again.

 

so what os did you finally get installed and working? windows or linux?

 

[Marchalla]

Well I can no longer use the PC I had it was an IBM Thinkpad that lasted about a week. Now I have a different PC and I'm using Windows Vista it's more to my liking, easier and everything. There were problems on the installing of Mint 13 it was very open and there were issues that did arise. I tried that one because the PC would have accepted it okay as it was older. Turns out it didn't but anyways I'm just happy to be browsing again on a PC that works better again.

[terry1966]

can you be a bit more specific on what sort of problems you ran into, and what the issues were, usual thing are after install that makes people give up is it will only boot to a black screen with command line, and is usually a display setting problem that can be quite easy to fix.

 

if the thinkpad is that old with a small amount of ram then i'd try something much smaller like puppy linux :- http://puppylinux.or...ing Started.htm

 

[Marchalla]

Okay sure the problem area was that when I tried to install the Linux mint 13 maya that it got started then I could not complete it. The issue was the whole entire new install didn't go on correctly and was partially done only. To complete the install I mean follow through all steps and then get finished it would have been installed. Go through steps to finish it and it didn't do that it got stuck in the middle of the install. So I don't know what went wrong but that's all there is to it. I tried to install XP from a download and that's where the main problem began with this computer. I figured I could not get much software for this one and it was slow going so that's all. It works on bios and I can do a few things there but the Linux mint 12 is no longer on there. So after all that I won't be using this one anymore from now on but I'll keep what you said in mind.