I’m just looking for a bit of advice I want to upgrade my daughters notebook from Peppermint 4 to Peppermint 5, currently Peppermint 4 is installed alongside Widows 7 and boots using easybcd so my question is can I install Peppermint 5 in the normal manner or will it install GRUB and wipe out easybcd.
I’m reluctant to attempt to run the installer because i cant open gparted in the live session when i try i get the progress bar bouncing endlessly back and forth, running from the terminal ends with this error message
(gpartedbin:3927): GLib-CRITICAL **: Source ID 72 was not found when attempting to remove it
(gpartedbin:3927): GLib-CRITICAL **: Source ID 71 was not found when attempting to remove it
(gpartedbin:3927): GLib-CRITICAL **: Source ID 79 was not found when attempting to remove it
(gpartedbin:3927): GLib-CRITICAL **: Source ID 100 was not found when attempting to remove it
(gpartedbin:3927): GLib-CRITICAL **: Source ID 99 was not found when attempting to remove it
(gpartedbin:3927): glibmm-CRITICAL **:
unhandled exception (type Glib::Error) in signal handler:
domain: g_convert_error
code : 1
what : Invalid byte sequence in conversion input
Here’s the partition table in case it’s any help
Any help would be much appreciated
peppermint@peppermint ~ $ sudo fdisk -l
Disk /dev/sda: 250.1 GB, 250059350016 bytes
255 heads, 63 sectors/track, 30401 cylinders, total 488397168 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 identifier: 0x464fe09d
Device Boot Start End Blocks Id System
/dev/sda1 2048 206847 102400 de Dell Utility
/dev/sda2 206848 20686847 10240000 7 HPFS/NTFS/exFAT
/dev/sda3 * 20686848 266702847 123008000 7 HPFS/NTFS/exFAT
/dev/sda4 266704894 488396799 110845953 5 Extended
/dev/sda5 266704896 477640703 105467904 83 Linux
/dev/sda6 477642752 488396799 5377024 82 Linux swap / Solaris
Disk /dev/sdb: 1027 MB, 1027604480 bytes
18 heads, 49 sectors/track, 2275 cylinders, total 2007040 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 identifier: 0x000c43f4
Device Boot Start End Blocks Id System
/dev/sdb1 * 2512 2007039 1002264 c W95 FAT32 (LBA)
If you can’t open gparted in a live session … are you able to run it from Peppermint 4 ?
If so, that would point to an issue with the USB stick … how did you create the USB stick ?
I’d try figure this out before installing Peppermint … if the USB stick has errors the install may not go well
In answer to your question - You’d need to choose “Something Else” during the installation then manually set up the partitions, but elect to install the GRUB bootloader to the Peppermint 5 / partition (such as /dev/sda5 if you’re replacing Peppermint 4 but keeping the same partition layout)
So you’re installing GRUB to the Peppermint PARTITION not the MBR of the drive (ie. NOT /dev/sda)
Then you’d (in windows) use EasyBCD to add the Peppermint 5 partition to the Windows bootloader.
Further to my last post, I’ve tried creating USB live disks using UNetbootin (Peppermint 5 64bit & LXLE 32bit) with a different USB stick and none of them will run gparted however all of them will boot up on my PC and run gparted without a problem
OK I edited the /etc/apt/sources.list file as per your link, updated and successfully installed Gparted, but it’s doing exactly the same thing so it looks like we can rule out the USB drives
I ran parted from the terminal and that seems to be ok, it shows the first partition (Dell Utility) as FAT16 format, something tells me the problem lies there
At the end of the day it's your call whether to continue or not.
I have to continue but I want to minimize the risk as much as possible so I have a couple of questions
I cloned the drive as a backup incase it all went belly up but I’m not sure if it went ok because the drive is 250GB and the backup is only 40GB is that normal ?
Anyway if I can ascertain the backup is good I don’t mind having a go and risking failure I can always restore and get back to square one again
I have a feeling that the Dell utility partitions are causing this problem, so if I wiped them is there a way to reinstall Windows via USB in the very unlikely event that’s required as she very rarely uses it but just want’s to have it there ?
I cloned the drive as a backup incase it all went belly up but I'm not sure if it went ok because the drive is 250GB and the backup is only 40GB is that normal ?
Yes/probably … backup solutions tend to only copy data, not the blank space on the drive … what did you use to do the backup, redo ?
(Redo also appears to compresses the backup)
I have a feeling that the Dell utility partitions are causing this problem, so if I wiped them is there a way to reinstall Windows via USB in the very unlikely event that's required as she very rarely uses it but just want's to have it there ?
Restore it how ? … from a Windows 7 installation media ? … or from your backup (in which case we need to know how you created the backup) ?
[EDIT]
Who installed Windiows in the first place … was it preinstalled ? … if so is there no option somewhere in Windows to create a recovery disk ?
Restore it how ? .. from a Windows 7 installation media ? .. or from your backup (in which case we need to know how you created the backup) ?
I meant from installation media, I have a Windows 7 Starter disc and found instructions here How to Install Windows 7 From USB (Flash Drive, Ext HD) on how to put it on a bootable USB drive but I also created a system image in Windows which i now have on an external USB HDD but I’m not sure if I can boot from that to restore the image
Who installed Windiows in the first place .. was it preinstalled ? .. if so is there no option somewhere in Windows to create a recovery disk ?
It was preinstalled there is options to “Create a system image” & “Create a system repair disc” I’ve created a system image onto an external HDD but like I said above I don’t know if that will restore Windows in the event of bricking it
The problem appears to be with the FAT16 partition labeled “Dell Utility” being fragmented but it seems defragmenting isn’t possible as it’s hidden from Windows, there is apparently a workaround but the post is a little too technical for me to understand
The suggestion seems to be if left long enough Gparted will eventually calculate the free/used space and load so I’m gonna leave it running overnight and see if it’s loaded in the morning
So the question is if it does eventually load up what should I do ?
Dell Inspiron Mini (the same as the one described in the link in my last post)
Does it have the Dell Datasafe software in Windows ?
Yes and I’ve created a recovery USB drive as per the video you posted
Gparted did eventually load up overnight, I don’t know exactly how long it took but I know it was more than 3 hours, I’ve since closed it down again so I can boot into Windows to create a recovery disc but I’ll leave gparted loading in a live session before I leave for work so it should be loaded up when I get home this evening so we can make any changes to the partition table you think is necessary
Just as a matter of interest, what happens if you start the Peppermint installer and work your way through and select “Something Else”
Does it display the partitions ?
At that point you haven’t made an changes (so you can safely back out of the installer) … I just wondered if the installers partitioner starts properly ?
Yes but I wasn’t to tick any of the checkboxes beside each partition the only thing I was able to do was right click on a partition and resize but I’ve never really got to grips with that partitioner so I might have been misunderstanding how to use it, but it was displaying all the partitions
I don’t really have a plan I only want to replace Peppermint 4 with Peppermint 5
am I right in saying that if I ever had to restore Windows back to factory settings I can use the USB disc I created with the Dell utility if that’s the case then we can leave the Windows restore partition where it is and delete the FAT16 partition that’s causing the problem which then hopefully will allow us to delete Peppermint 4 and replace it with Peppermint 5 as normal, I don’t really care if we use Easybcd or GRUB for the bootloader
In a perfect world I would wipe the entire drive clean and install Peppermint 5 on it’s own but thanks to Microsoft Office & iTunes I’m compelled to preserve Windows 7 which quite honestly is utterly horrible on this little machine
and confirm that you currently boot Windows and Peppermint with the WINDOWS bootloader, not GRUB ?
I think the plan should probably be to
a) boot the PM5 LiveUSB
b) when you get to the paprtitioning phase, select “Something else”
c) delete the PM4 partitions and create new PM5 ones … and put the bootloader on the new PM5 partition
d) once installed, boot to windows and add PM5 to the Windpws bootloader via EasyBCD
