New USB sticks arrived today. They were MSDOS format which I did not change.
Plugged one in and Nautilus started, showing “4GB Volume”.
Ran USB Image Writer (Mintstick) to create a Live P9 USB. During the process, the name “4GB Volume” changed to "Peppermint 9.
At the end of the process two things happened:
a message appeared telling me that the write was successful.
the USB device disappeared from the Nautilus left-hand pane.
The expected message to remove the USB device did not appear but I removed it anyway.
Plugging it back in did not result in it appearing in Nautilus (or Nero).
So I now have two dead USB sticks.
This is getting expensive! Any ideas?
Gparted immediately shows an error message: “Invalid partition table: recursive partition on /dev/sdb”.
Clicking on “Continue” shows both Partition and Filesystem as “unallocated”
Neither Nemo nor Nautilus show the device.
sudo fdisk -l
.
.
.
Disk /dev/sdb: 3.8 GiB, 4026531840 bytes, 7864320 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
Disklabel type: dos
Disk identifier: 0x4c15e234
Device Boot Start End Sectors Size Id Type
/dev/sdb1 * 0 2758655 2758656 1.3G 17 Hidden HPFS/NTFS
[EDIT]
I looked at another of these new USBs and found that I am not the owner: it’s Root. Might that have something to do with my problems?
On this other USB I had to use chown and chmod to be able to copy files to it but root is still the first name shown in ls -al
The reason Gparted tells you there is an invalid partition table is mintstick uses the ‘dd’ method of writing the ISO to the USB stick … this means the USB stick now contains an iso9660 file system (which is really a CDROM/DVD file system), so basically you’ve turned your USB stick into a CDROM.
This is meant to happen, but shouldn’t stop nemo from being able to READ the USB (just not write to it.
This also why the other part of mintstick is “USB Stick Formatter”, which will turn it back to a “normal” USB stick (with a read/write file system … FAT32 by default).
(or you could use GParted to write a new partition table to the USB stick, then add a FAT32 partition … either method will turn it back into a “normal” USB stick)
There’s probably nothing wrong here, except maybe that nemo isn’t showing the USB stick in the left hand pane … but you haven’t yet said whether it is or not ?
Are you still having problems booting from the LiveUSB … or is this just about the stick now being unusable as a “normal” USB stick ?
I mentioned in the previous post “Neither Nemo nor Nautilus show the device”, which is mostly why I have been stuck and had to ask advice.
I don’t understand much of what you say about Gparted - I can do only simple things with it, like change the volume name. Creating partitions is a whole new ball game that I’ll need to practice on a spare device.
If your advice is to use the “USB Stick Formatter” and try again to create a Live USB, then I’ll try that now.
Used Minstick again to create the Live USB.
During the process, Nemo showed the USB stick as “Peppermint 9”.
At the end of the process, the USB stick disappeared from the LH pane and a message appeared telling me that the write was successful.
Rebooting Nero still fails to show the device.
Gparted still claims: “Invalid partition table: recursive partition on /dev/sdb” as before.
[EDIT]
Reformatted the USB once more to FAT32.
Used UNetbootin this time to create the Live USB.
This appeared to go well and Nero shows lots of appropriate files in the USB.
Rebooted the PC with the USB stick in (and PC set to boot from it!)
A brief message appeared too quickly to read except for “Missing…”
The PC booted into my normal Ubuntu.
So: Mintstick doesn’t work for me and UNetbootin doesn’t quite work either.
Ah, me!
I tried your suggestion but got in a complete muddle as the system expected me to make decisions that I don’t understand.
So if you don’t mind I’ll await Mark’s response.
Many thanks for trying to help me - sorry I’m so dim.
Yes, Mark: As in post #25, I have tried booting from the USB but it always reverts to my installed Ubuntu 16.04 system.
I’ve tried from scratch using a spare computer with the same result. Also created an Ubuntu 18.04 USB but that won’t boot either.
Does this help?:…
Using “USB Stick Formatter” on the USB drive creates a single FAT32 partition occupying the whole USB as shown in Gparted.
Then I use “USB Image Writer” to create a Ubuntu 18 (or Peppermint 9) Live USB.
This process renames the USB automatically (irritatingly).
File manager lists the files correctly.
Then using Gparted again:
A message box displays immediately saying “The driver descriptor says the physical block size is 2048 bytes, but Linux says it is 512 bytes”.
Cancelling this message, Gparted lists both the USB partition and file system as “unallocated” although file manager lists the files.
Just noticed that the “flag” on the USB partition is set to “lba” rather than “boot”. I’ll set it to “boot” to see what happens.
Result: “USB Image Writer” says successful write but Gparted says “unallocated” and file manager does not list the USB.
When starting up my pc this morning, my Peppermint 9 USB booted successfully (and it looks good, by the way).
I had rebooted my pc several times yesterday during all these trials without success, so I have no idea what’s going on.
I have just tried recreating an Ubuntu 18 Live USB. I removed the new Live USB before rebooting the pc with the USB plugged in again and, voila - it worked. I can’t see any particular combination of actions that succeed as I think I tried them all yesterday, but I’ve done something right this time.
You and SeZo have been very patient, for which I thank you.
I am not out of the woods yet, though, as the original problem was getting Peppermint onto an aging laptop (32bit).
So one question: Can I test a 32-bit P9 Live USB on my (known-working) 64-bit laptop?
…and the answer is yes.
Because some VERY old PC’s weren’t able to boot from USB sticks.
Maybe you could remove the hard drive, attach it to another PC (after having removed its drive first), install Peppermint 32bit, then swap the drive back to the original PC … that would be one way to overcome a PC that can’t bot from USB.
2. In Gparted I get an error message "Invalid partition table - recursive partition /dev/sb". And shows the whole partition to be "unallocated".
this is normal because it’s now using a CDROM file system.
3. Yet the Live USB works perfectly - on my 64-bit machine, anyway.
again, it will do because the system see’s it as a CDROM
The downside is once you’re done installing, to use the stick as a normal writeable USB stick again you’ll need to reformat it as FAT32/NTFS/a Linux file system/any other block device file system.
The old laptop is a Dell D505 and must be about 15 years old.
It has Peppermint 3 that I installed ages ago and works well, if not up-dateable. Pretty sure I used a USB stick, but I’m not sure after all this time.
. I’ve looked at the Plop Boot manager website and it looks all to easy for a novice to screw up his computer - one really needs to understand the words! Which I don’t.
. Swapping HDDs means taking apart two laptops - hmm!
. Creating a live DVD looks like the best option, though it will take a while for me to get some.
Which image writer would you recommend for that?
By the way; although both the 64-bit and 32-bit Peppermint Live USBs don’t display in file manager or Gparted (for the reasons you mention), the Ubuntu 18 LiveUSB does display in file manager, but is “unallocated” in Gparted.
Hi Keith - removing the HDD is pretty simple on a Dell laptop - the Latitude range are all pretty much the same. Mine is a D520 of similar age to yours and I swapped to a 500GB HDD a while ago. Take a look here - https://youtu.be/Xg_EhfPcZX4
The HDD sits behind the 2 sockets for Mic and headphones. The screw arrangement may be different on yours - mine has 2 screws along the edge, for instance - remove these and the caddy slides out. There are 2 more screws holding the HDD into the caddy so just remove these and replace with the new unit and you’re good to go. NB - remember to remove the battery first!!
Thank you for that. I once changed the HDD in my Lenovo for an SSD. Like you, I followed a YouTube demo and it went OK, although I was very careful!
I could go that route but having two laptops in bits is asking for trouble - the number posts I’ve made to this forum is a measure of how easily I screw things up!
I’ll try the easy option first (DVD) and do the swap only if that doesn’t work.
Can you recommend a DVD writer that will write an image disk?
Hi Graeme.
I recognise the name and seem to remember using it for ripping CDs. I didn’t realise it would write Live Discs, so that would be good. I shall install it and give it whirl.
Brasero worked a treat and I can recommend it.
The Live DVD of Peppermint 9 (32 bit) worked well on my 64 bit Lenovo laptop and spare desktop.
The original purpose was to install P9 on a very old Dell 505 but when I tried to do so, it failed.
On the first Peppermint screen there appeared some mostly illegible text of which all I could make out was something like " inappropriate…kernel…CPU…".
So I guess the machine is just too old to cope with a modern operating system.
My thanks to Mark, Rich J and Graeme for your patience and advice - I have learnt a lot.
I wonder if there is another, more stripped-down version of Linux that might do?
Keith
The original purpose was to install P9 on a very old Dell 505 but when I tried to do so, it failed.
On the first Peppermint screen there appeared some mostly illegible text of which all I could make out was something like " inappropriate....kernel....CPU...".
So I guess the machine is just too old to cope with a modern operating system.
My guess is the “inappropriate kernel” thing is the old Dell will be non PAE (Physical Address Extensions) most distros now require that as well as 64 bit , I think there are still 1 or 2 distros have a non PAE 32 bit version although I couldn’t name any off hand but I’d suggest having a look at Bodhi they certainly used to do a non PAE 32bit version . I have an old Dell 600 non PAE 32 bit and it runs well on it
