Linux USB doesn't do anything ...

 

Back in the early days of Windows 7, usually there were only three primary partitions (system, OS partition & Recovery). A year or so later, various OEM added a 'Tools' partition, have seen many HP models with this & to be honest, am not exactly sure what it's for. 

Cat1092 & Pcpunk,

This is very interesting! I guess mine was missing this because it's an old. Also glad I listened to everyone telling me to stay away from HP!

Am I going to have trouble with this laptop when I try to wipe the drive and reinstall Ubuntu someday? Are the partitions that grub2 created permanent? I don't think I want an ntfs formatted partition there forever.

 

Ubiq, to answer your questions:

1) No, you won't have any issues with wiping the drive & installing Ubuntu, None at all, as long as your computer meets the requirements of the OS. Most any computer since the mid to late Vista years will run today's titles. 

2) No partitions are permanent, with a partition tool, like GParted, a tool that that's optional on many Linux distros, can be installed from the Ubuntu Software Center will delete any you wish. You can also download & create a bootable CD ISO image (recommended), or the ISO will work with bootable apps like Rufus to create a bootable Flash drive to accomplish the same w/out the need of a CD. You may also use any Linux install media on hand to do the same with, these has GParted built in. 

3) This includes the NTFS partition that you may not want there forever. 

Though you may desire to create your own Topic over these issues when the time arrives. 

Hope that this answers your questions & we're happy to have both you & jargos in our Linux community.

Cat

Edited by cat1092, 31 August 2015 - 03:48 AM.

@jargos

Ah .. still open. Good.

 

... another holding post.

Yep, they don't close Topics at BC, unless Staff determine a very good reason. It is all for others whom pass through to learn from, and for future contributions on the subject matter.

Hence the discouragement of "chit-chat". Chit-chat is for over at General, plenty to get into there.

My news is that I have "installed" Elaine's new laptop, shipping with Win 8.1 (I know yours is 7) - and have

• disabled the 8.1 secure boot option
• used Windows Disk Management tool to delete a Partition (yes, it DID ship with 4 Primary Partitions in place)
• shrunk the Windows partition by 465GB
• am sending this from a 64-bit Linux Mint 17.2 Rafaela Cinnamon I am running Live, and will be installing fully next 24

Following the hoped for success of that, I will then be unpacking my new Desktop - shipped with Windows 7

- won't be surprised if it has 4 Partitions Primary, and

- installing to dual boot with Raf Cinnamon 32-bit

... then we can finally address that part of your dilemma which has been languishing - I am 99.9% sure I know the problem, and I am hoping to fail the install - but don't worry, I know how to get around that.

More soon

Wizard

Hi Wiz, how you travelling ?

About the (non) closure of threads - noted.

OK, would be very interested to know how you go with your dual boot on Win 7, presuming you come across 4 primary partitons (likely) and then 'something else' in the Linux install, which will then neccesitate you going backwards, out of install, into Win 7 disk management, etc.

No hurry though - whenever.

Cheers

Edit, PS, about the chit chat .. just saw 'General' now .. lol .. never scrolled down that far the front page before.

Edited by jargos, 01 September 2015 - 05:17 AM.

I think this is an important topic, and, if not for other obvious reasons you should start a new one.  "Dual Booting With Four Primary Partitions" or something to that effect.  This will be helpful for all that are searching the web for this important info.  I see many people back away from Linux DualBooting because of this.  And, like cat1092 pointed out to me, all computers these days come like this (Might be some exceptions out there imo).

Here is cat1092's quote in case you missed it.  It's as simple as this, maybe a little tough for the beginner but with some help doable.

 

 

So you guys understand, some OEM's will put a Recovery Partition on their machines.  It is of much benefit to have these, but makes it more work for us Linux Dual Booters as they will use all Primary and leave us with no space to install.  Some pc's don't have these Partitions, so the Linux Installer will work without hassle. 

 

If a Windows 7 based computer or higher, if that partition isn't there, it was either self built, or the user simply deleted the partition. Some OEM's offers the user the choice of deleting the partition after Recovery Media Creation. 

 

 

Cat1092 and pcpunk,

tl;dr : Questions are bolded.

I'm glad this topic is still open. I think the four partition issue is very interesting and I feel like I'm sure to run into Jargos' problem at some point since I think I'm going to be buying old pcs for a while.

I'm confused about how I managed to not have this problem since I have a laptop that came with win 7 pre-installed.

Anyway, hope its okay that I post this here since its related to the OP's original issue and I guess I don't think I need a separate topic since my ignorance on this isn't an urgent problem.

Am I understanding your quote above, Cat1092? I should have had four partitions on this laptop since its win 7?

If I'm understanding you guys correctly, win 7 offers to erase this partition after creation of Recovery disks?

I ask this because I don't seem to have had four partitions on this laptop and I sure didn't erase any on my own. Is it possible that win 7 erased this without asking me during some of my (many) attempts to create recovery disks?

I made a set of recovery disks( At least I tried, not sure if I could actually recover anything from that mess) as well as a system image, all done by win 7 utilities of some sort, but I wasn't ever asked this by win 7. I'm sure I would remember that because years ago I tried to dual boot linux and had terrible trouble trying to partition my hd so any business about erasing a partition would have scared me to death!

Before I installed Ubuntu I ran speccy, the results of which are in my sig.

I booted win 7 today and ran speccy again. Now that Ubuntu is installed there seems to be four partions if we are counting partition 0. So, am I looking at the speccy correctly? I didn't have four partitions prior to Ubuntu? Could there be a "hidden" partition that Speccy couldn't see in the Pre-Ubuntu report?

Anyway, thanks for reading guys!

Pre-Ubuntu Speccy

Post-Ubuntu Speccy

 

 

 

So you guys understand, some OEM's will put a Recovery Partition on their machines.  It is of much benefit to have these, but makes it more work for us Linux Dual Booters as they will use all Primary and leave us with no space to install.  Some pc's don't have these Partitions, so the Linux Installer will work without hassle. 

 

If a Windows 7 based computer or higher, if that partition isn't there, it was either self built, or the user simply deleted the partition. Some OEM's offers the user the choice of deleting the partition after Recovery Media Creation. 

 

 

Cat1092 and pcpunk,

 

tl;dr : Questions are bolded.

I'm glad this topic is still open. I think the four partition issue is very interesting and I feel like I'm sure to run into Jargos' problem at some point since I think I'm going to be buying old pcs for a while.

I'm confused about how I managed to not have this problem since I have a laptop that came with win 7 pre-installed.

Anyway, hope its okay that I post this here since its related to the OP's original issue and I guess I don't think I need a separate topic since my ignorance on this isn't an urgent problem.

Am I understanding your quote above, Cat1092? I should have had four partitions on this laptop since its win 7?

If I'm understanding you guys correctly, win 7 offers to erase this partition after creation of Recovery disks?

I ask this because I don't seem to have had four partitions on this laptop and I sure didn't erase any on my own. Is it possible that win 7 erased this without asking me during some of my (many) attempts to create recovery disks?

 

I made a set of recovery disks( At least I tried, not sure if I could actually recover anything from that mess) as well as a system image, all done by win 7 utilities of some sort, but I wasn't ever asked this by win 7. I'm sure I would remember that because years ago I tried to dual boot linux and had terrible trouble trying to partition my hd so any business about erasing a partition would have scared me to death!

 

Before I installed Ubuntu I ran speccy, the results of which are in my sig.

I booted win 7 today and ran speccy again. Now that Ubuntu is installed there seems to be four partions if we are counting partition 0. So, am I looking at the speccy correctly? I didn't have four partitions prior to Ubuntu? Could there be a "hidden" partition that Speccy couldn't see in the Pre-Ubuntu report?

Anyway, thanks for reading guys!

Pre-Ubuntu Speccy

Partition 0

Partition ID: 

Disk #0, Partition #0

Size: 

1.46 GB

 

Partition 1

Partition ID: 

Disk #0, Partition #1

Disk Letter: 

C:

File System: 

NTFS

Volume Serial Number: 

6079547E

Size: 

454GB

Used Space: 

91GB (21%)

Free Space: 

363GB (79%)

 

Partition 2

Partition ID: 

Disk #0, Partition #2

Size: 

9.90 GB

 

Post-Ubuntu Speccy

Partition 0

Partition ID: 

Disk #0, Partition #0

File System: 

NTFS

Volume Serial Number: 

727501AD

Size: 

1.46 GB

Used Space: 

196 MB (13%)

Free Space: 

1.27 GB (87%)

 

Partition 1

Partition ID: 

Disk #0, Partition #1

Disk Letter: 

C:

File System: 

NTFS

Volume Serial Number: 

6079547E

Size: 

339 GB

Used Space: 

90 GB (26%)

Free Space: 

248 GB (74%)

 

Partition 2

Partition ID: 

Disk #0, Partition #2

Size: 

9.90 GB

 

Partition 3

Partition ID: 

Disk #0, Partition #3

Size: 

115 GB

 

I can answer your post Ubuntu install speccy question, its actually very simple and I am sure you just didn't realize it. When you ran speccy prior to having Ubuntu installed you only had the three partitions: 0,1, and 2. Number 1 is small.. probably has something to do with Windows Recovery... or something of that nature. Number 2 is Windows itself, and number 3 could be to do with recovery as well. So once you installed Ubuntu it needed somewhere to be installed, so it created itself another partition to sit on, hence having four partitions after installing Ubuntu. If I am assuming right with your 4 partition question, the whole thing with the four partitions is just that you are limited to four Primary partitions, once you have four you then have to create extended and logical ones. That is a limit of MBR, if you use GPT you can use (apparently) up to 128 primary partitions.

Edited by DeimosChaos, 01 September 2015 - 04:47 PM.

The title of this topic is "Linux USB doesn't do anything ..." .

 

From my reading of it the original problem was essentially resolved by #15 and the topic definitely started wandering off into the scenery somewhere about #32. While some of the discussion has been entertaining and much of it has been informative it has tended towards information not relevant to the OP. It would have been better for example if a separate topic had been raised for how to get screen shots out of Linux and into BC.

 

There are other total irrelevancies. I am for example taking my wife's car into the garage today to see about a minor brake problem - this is of some interest to her, me and perhaps the garage proprietor but of no interest or relevance to anything else on BC. I fail to see what the relevance of the Australian stock market or the unpacking of computers is to the problem of getting Linux to run off a USB drive.

 

Please keep discussion relevant and on topic, or run the risk of having the topic locked !

 

Chris Cosgrove

As Chris said The title of this topic is "Linux USB doesn't do anything ..."  That issue has been resolved. If you have further issues please start a new thread.

Nick

Done !

 

 

As Chris said The title of this topic is "Linux USB doesn't do anything ..."  That issue has been resolved. If you have further issues please start a new thread.

+1!

One thing that we don't want to happen on this site is to have Topics locked down, because someone else may come along with the same issue & can further discuss it in the existing Topic if necessary. That's one reason why, unlike many other forums, we don't have the option of closing or 'Mark as Solved' of our own Topics. 

So unless anyone's concerns has to do with "Linux USB doesn't do anything ...", then please feel free to create Your own Topic for discussion, there's no shortage of server space on the site & members are encouraged to create their own Topics. We will be more than happy to assist with any of your concerns. 

Locking down of Topics makes us look bad, and there's been two participants in this one whom has had several locked (one several of the member's own). Am calling no names. 

It's simply time to move on from this one, for the sake of the community. 

Cat

I can attest to being carefull with your boot order or loader. I had a copy of Nopik on a cd and was useing it to learn Linux used it for several weeks and then I did something wrong and both Nopik and windows were both gone, nothing left to boot from. C drive gone and e drive all gone. This was on a XP Pro machine.

The heck of it was I was really starting to like Linux. LOL

I can attest to being carefull with your boot order or loader. I had a copy of Nopik on a cd and was useing it to learn Linux used it for several weeks and then I did something wrong and both Nopik and windows were both gone, nothing left to boot from. C drive gone and e drive all gone. This was on a XP Pro machine.

The heck of it was I was really starting to like Linux. LOL

dannyboy, please lets keep this Topic in order.

You may have a valid issue, and if you had stated using a Linux USB instead of a CD, may have been somewhat on Topic. Yet USB & CD's are two different type of devices, and a Moderator has intervened twice already, we don't want this to happen again. 

If you're just starting to like Linux, then feel free create a Topic of your own, where we may assist you to enjoy it further. We'd be pleased to have you as a member, though we do have rules. If you can add relevant information to any Topic that applies to it, that's OK, feel free to do so. If not, move on to another where you can offer assistance. 

Regards,

Cat

 

Not sure if anyone welcomed you to the Linux section yet, but welcome .
 

 

I have no idea what a BIOS or UEFI is.

It's the software built into your motherboard that allows you to boot into your operating systems like Windows, or Linux Mint, as well as control certain aspects of your hardware. BIOS has been around for many years, UEFI has been around for quite some time as well but only recently has become the new standard.

 

I wonder why no mention was made of the neccessary steps you mentioned, in the post to which my link (in OP) refers

Knowing how to boot from various devices, and change BIOS/UEFI settings is, by many, considered to be a prerequisite piece of knowledge. I cannot say if that is why the poster excluded it, but that's my guess.

 

it was made to sound quite simple.

The actual act of installing most big-name Linux operating systems is usually not difficult. However, much the same as installing Windows, what makes it seem complicated is all the stuff you need to know about your computer, and how you have it setup.

 

Why are you suggesting I hold off ?

As mentioned above, there are things you need to know about your computer, and how it's setup before attempting to install any operating system, whether it be Linux or Windows. It's quite common for people to get ahead of themselves, and install Linux incorrectly. The result being that they delete their personal files, or accidentally destroy their existing operating system installations (eg: Windows). Then they end up stuck with a Linux operating system they may or may not like. Not trying to scare you off, just trying to make sure you don't rush into this, and end up in a situation like that. For example, I'm presuming, at this point, you don't even know if your hardware is compatible with Linux Mint.

 

It seeems the hardest part is to get it going - or does it get harder after that ?

In my opinion, most big-name Linux distros aren't as easy to use as Windows, that's not to say they are difficult to use, but they do take time to become comfortable with using. Linux Mint is one of the easier distros to switch to, and has good out-of-the-box hardware support, making it an excellent choice for someone who is new to Linux.

 

for something touted as simple, Linux is turning out to be a real pain .. to get going, anyway.

Again, not to scare you off, but I would not describe any Linux distro as being as simple to use as Windows. When you factor in how different it is, it can seem a scary to a new user. Once you've used it for a while it's not so scary anymore.


 

 

At last, a Linux fan who openly admits that no Linux Distro is as simple to use as Windows! I have been arguing this point with quite a few Linux oficianados and NONE of them have ever admitted it's true. So thank you for validating my impression of it :-)

 

One thing that we don't want to happen on this site is to have Topics locked down, because someone else may come along with the same issue & can further discuss it in the existing Topic if necessary.

If that is the case they can start a new thread.

As Chris and I said the original issue was solved in post #15 therefor this thread is done.