Disk not found????

[Uncle Spellbinder]

Trying to install LMDE has become an insane chore. I finally got the live DVD to boot. Now, after a seemingly successful install, I go to reboot. I get an error message "disk not found or has failed."

As I just installed Ubuntu 12.04 on the same disk, it is not a disk error. Why can't i install. I tried 32 and 64 bit. Compatibility mode. Nothing works. All I can say is that Ubuntu, Windows 7, Fedora 16 and several others all install without issue.

I'm really about ready to give up on LMDE.

[Inkit]

The mint installer is actually quite easy to use and if something is going wrong in your install, it could be any one of many problems.
Did you for example do the midsum5 check to see if the download was good?
Did you burn it at the slowest speed? Some drives don't burn with good quality as the speed increase and going for 8X is a good choice.
Also, if you could detail the steps you followed, maybe we can identify what went wrong. It's tough to do that without any details.

[Uncle Spellbinder]

I have two 32 bit and two 64 bit ISOs. Each 32 and 64 were downloaded from a different US server.
Burned to DVD at the slowest speed. Midsum5 check to see if the download was good. Live DVD
of all 4 DVDs work fine. Though I had a horrible time just getting the live DVD to load. See here

As far as the process to install, I followed this to the letter: Linux Mint Debian Installation

My computer's specs are in my signature.

[Inkit]

I read your posts and checked out the video. If you want to wipe your HD clean and install only mint then that is as good a way to go about it as any.
Can you tell me how far you progress when you try booting up. Do you get the bios flash? Do you get to the grub screen? Hopefully the answers will give us an idea of what is happening.

[Uncle Spellbinder]

The install completes as it should, I restart, remove disc, wait for reboot. I see the HP welcome screen (computer setup and BIOS/UEFI stuff) then it goes to a screen with DHCP.../
*It looks just like this image I found on the net:


After that screen (about 30 seconds) I get the "disk not found or failed" message.


My BIOS > Storage > Boot Order screen looks like this one:

[Inkit]

When you installed, do you remember where you installed grub to? It has to be on /dev/sda/ Generally this is chosen by default, but sometimes it is not and you have to choose it. Maybe you have installed grub elsewhere.
The reason is that after your bios flash you should get a black screen with "Welcome to Grub" on it for a couple of seconds and then the Grub screen. Since this is not happening the logical assumption is that you've either not installed grub or that you have installed it somewhere else.
If you can boot up from the live medium once again, go to menu, search for gparted, open it and take a snapshot that you can post here, I'll know how exactly your partition layout is and where you need to install what.

[Uncle Spellbinder]

Grub was installed to /dev/sda/ - I triple checked

Right now, I have Ubuntu 12.04 installed. But I will attempt another install of LMDE this weekend and do as you suggest. I'll post back a screenine of gParted from the live medium this weekend. Assuming I can get the live to boot after the wonky LMDE install.

Appreciate your help!

[Inkit]

No problem.

[Uncle Spellbinder]

Here's the weird thing happening. Installing LMDE succeeds, but I get the "disk not found/failed" message. I then install Ubuntu alongsiside the LMDE install I cannot access. Once Ubuntu installs, the grub menu pops up and LMDE is listed. I am now dual-booting Ubuntu 12.04 and LMDE as this seems to be the only way to get into LMDE.

Can someone please explain why I can't install LMDE by itself????



Here's the way it went, in pictures...

[Inkit]

I have no idea why that happens. But there are a few other posts detailing problems with the grub menu after installing LMDE. Maybe the developers have changed something.

[Uncle Spellbinder]

It's an EFI/UEFI issue for sure. Ubuntu seems to install grub in sda/3. Opening gParted in Ubuntu shows this as it denotes EFI Boot, while opening gParted in LMDE says nothing about EFI.


See images:

[Uncle Spellbinder]

Yep. Definitely an EFI/UEFI problem. I had to convert my HDD from GPT to MBR partition table. I did this by using gParted in the LMDE live CD and deleted all partitions the changing the partition table from GPT to MSDOS.

LMDE now installs without a hitch.

Hopefully this issue can be resolved, though this may be a Debian issue as the only time I had this issue was with SolusOS, LMDE and Debian.