Split Mint partition with files into a FAT one?

[jimwg]

Greetings!

I am psyched up to use GParted on a Mint 9 USB flash drive to split its one partition into two which I'll format into FAT 32 so that both PC and Linux can read and write any files in there as recommended by some, but can I do this on a partition that already has files on it or do I have to find a way to back up everything and do a clean install all over again? I'm a non-techie and have gotten this far and gutsy thanks to user help from you all!

Jim in NYC

[karlchen]

Hello, Jim in NYC.

Feel free to do whatever you want to do. And do not forget to report back how things worked out ...
Yet. Do not make any experiments prior to having backed up all your data on the affected USB device to another backup drive.
I am not quite sure whether gparted will perform the job that you have in mind.
Yet, I know that Windows can handle and will only see one single FAT(32) partition on any USB device. So I doubt splitting the current partition into two partitions will yield something that can be used by Windows.
By the way, which filesystem does the current single partition on the USB device use? In order to convert an existing filesystem into a different filesystem you will have to reformat the parition. Doing so will inevitably erase all data on the original partition.

Cheers,
Karl

[jimwg]

Hello, Jim in NYC.

Feel free to do whatever you want to do. And do not forget to report back how things worked out ...
Yet. Do not make any experiments prior to having backed up all your data on the affected USB device to another backup drive.
I am not quite sure whether gparted will perform the job that you have in mind.
Yet, I know that Windows can handle and will only see one single FAT(32) partition on any USB device. So I doubt splitting the current partition into two partitions will yield something that can be used by Windows.
By the way, which filesystem does the current single partition on the USB device use? In order to convert an existing filesystem into a different filesystem you will have to reformat the parition. Doing so will inevitably erase all data on the original partition.

Cheers,
Karl

Alright, I made my first steps trying to resize the main partition by using unallocated space, but when I rebooted my Mint 9 flash drive (previously formatted by unetbootin-windows-575), this alert popped up:

Error mounting: mount exited with exit code 21: mount: according to mtab, /dev/sda1 is already mounted on /media/E8701CFA701CD0E4

I Googled for a clear explanation of what this is and there are a thousand out there but few straight out clear directions of how to fix it. They claim it's "not fatal" and my files are also still intact, still, can you direct me to any ideas? Thanks.

Jim in NYC

[karlchen]

Hello, Jim.

Please, run the command

Code: Select all

sudo fdisk -l -u

and post the output here. Please, also give a hint which of the devices that fdisk will list is the USB drive on which you used gparted.

The output of the fdisk command might look similar to the output below. The output below was generated on my current Ubuntu system and merely serves as an example.

$ sudo fdisk -l -u

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: 0x2cbf87df

Device Boot Start End Blocks Id System
/dev/sda1 2048 41945087 20971520 27 Unknown
/dev/sda2 * 41945088 42149887 102400 7 HPFS/NTFS
/dev/sda3 42149888 488394751 223122432 7 HPFS/NTFS

Disk /dev/sdb: 7789 MB, 7789927936 bytes
255 heads, 63 sectors/track, 947 cylinders, total 15214703 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: 0x000d5636

Device Boot Start End Blocks Id System
/dev/sdb1 * 63 15213554 7606746 b W95 FAT32

/dev/sda refers to the internal HDD. It has been devided into 3 partitions, /dev/sda1, /dev/sda2 and /dev/sda3.
/dev/sdb is my external USB stick. There is only one partition on /dev/sdb: /dev/sdb1.

The mount command displays the following mount points:

mount | grep "^/dev"
/dev/loop0 on / type ext4 (rw,errors=remount-ro)
/dev/sda3 on /host type fuseblk (rw,nosuid,nodev,relatime,user_id=0,group_id=0,allow_other,blksize=4096)
/dev/sdb1 on /media/INTENSO type vfat (rw,nosuid,nodev,uhelper=udisks,uid=1000,gid=1000,shortname=mixed,dmask=0077,utf8=1,flush)

As you can see the USB device has been (auto-)mounted on the directory /media/INTENSO.

It would be helpful to see the output of the mount command on your machine in order to find out what /dev/sda1 really is.

As a matter of fact I hope that by running and posting the output of the commands

Code: Select all

fdisk -l -u
mount

some relevant details will be revealed which so far a missing from your report.

Kind regards,
Karl

[jimwg]

Hello, Jim.

Please, run the command

Code: Select all

sudo fdisk -l -u

and post the output here. Please, also give a hint which of the devices that fdisk will list is the USB drive on which you used gparted.

Hope I did this right and it helps! Thanks a trillion for the look-see!


sudo fdisk -l -u

Disk /dev/sda: 60.0 GB, 60011642880 bytes
240 heads, 63 sectors/track, 7752 cylinders, total 117210240 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: 0x7205cf80

Device Boot Start End Blocks Id System
/dev/sda1 * 63 117210239 58605088+ 7 HPFS/NTFS

Disk /dev/sdb: 7998 MB, 7998537728 bytes
247 heads, 62 sectors/track, 1020 cylinders, total 15622144 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: 0x0009e87d

This doesn't look like a partition table
Probably you selected the wrong device.

Device Boot Start End Blocks Id System
/dev/sdb1 ? 3223366752 3470046675 123339962 f4 SpeedStor
Partition 1 has different physical/logical beginnings (non-Linux?):
phys=(793, 22, 13) logical=(210484, 238, 21)
Partition 1 has different physical/logical endings:
phys=(870, 235, 61) logical=(226593, 23, 48)
Partition 1 does not end on cylinder boundary.
/dev/sdb2 ? 378192737 710426324 166116794 10 OPUS
Partition 2 has different physical/logical beginnings (non-Linux?):
phys=(205, 7, 0) logical=(24695, 217, 54)
Partition 2 has different physical/logical endings:
phys=(870, 235, 50) logical=(46390, 159, 7)
Partition 2 does not end on cylinder boundary.
/dev/sdb3 ? 225603442 225603451 5 74 Unknown
Partition 3 has different physical/logical beginnings (non-Linux?):
phys=(367, 66, 47) logical=(14731, 208, 13)
Partition 3 has different physical/logical endings:
phys=(370, 32, 37) logical=(14731, 208, 22)
Partition 3 does not end on cylinder boundary.

Partition table entries are not in disk order

Disk /dev/sdd: 2031 MB, 2031091712 bytes
255 heads, 63 sectors/track, 246 cylinders, total 3966976 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: 0x00000000

Device Boot Start End Blocks Id System
/dev/sdd1 * 63 3966920 1983429 b W95 FAT32
Partition 1 has different physical/logical endings:
phys=(1023, 254, 63) logical=(246, 236, 63)
jimwg@mint ~ $

mount
rootfs on / type rootfs (rw)
none on /sys type sysfs (rw,nosuid,nodev,noexec,relatime)
none on /proc type proc (rw,nosuid,nodev,noexec,relatime)
none on /dev type devtmpfs (rw,relatime,size=245072k,nr_inodes=61268,mode=755)
none on /dev/pts type devpts (rw,nosuid,noexec,relatime,gid=5,mode=620,ptmxmode=000)
/dev/sdb on /cdrom type vfat (rw,relatime,fmask=0022,dmask=0022,codepage=cp437,iocharset=iso8859-1,shortname=mixed,errors=remount-ro)
/dev/loop0 on /rofs type squashfs (ro,noatime)
/dev/sdb on /casper-rw-backing type vfat (rw,relatime,fmask=0022,dmask=0022,codepage=cp437,iocharset=iso8859-1,shortname=mixed,errors=remount-ro)
/dev/loop1 on /cow type ext2 (rw,noatime,errors=continue)
aufs on / type aufs (rw,noatime,si=472b5720)
none on /sys/fs/fuse/connections type fusectl (rw,relatime)
none on /sys/kernel/debug type debugfs (rw,relatime)
none on /sys/kernel/security type securityfs (rw,relatime)
none on /dev/shm type tmpfs (rw,nosuid,nodev,relatime)
tmpfs on /tmp type tmpfs (rw,nosuid,nodev,relatime)
none on /var/run type tmpfs (rw,nosuid,relatime,mode=755)
none on /var/lock type tmpfs (rw,nosuid,nodev,noexec,relatime)
none on /lib/init/rw type tmpfs (rw,nosuid,relatime,mode=755)
binfmt_misc on /proc/sys/fs/binfmt_misc type binfmt_misc (rw,nosuid,nodev,noexec,relatime)
/dev/sdc1 on /media/BLUE_FLASH type vfat (rw,nosuid,nodev,relatime,uid=999,gid=999,fmask=0022,dmask=0077,codepage=cp437,iocharset=iso8859-1,shortname=mixed,utf8,flush,errors=remount-ro)
/dev/sdc1 on /media/BLUE_FLASH_ type vfat (rw,nosuid,nodev,relatime,uid=999,gid=999,fmask=0022,dmask=0077,codepage=cp437,iocharset=iso8859-1,shortname=mixed,utf8,flush,errors=remount-ro)
/dev/sdc1 on /media/BLUE_FLASH__ type vfat (rw,nosuid,nodev,relatime,uid=999,gid=999,fmask=0022,dmask=0077,codepage=cp437,iocharset=iso8859-1,shortname=mixed,utf8,flush,errors=remount-ro)
/dev/sdc1 on /media/BLUE_FLASH___ type vfat (rw,nosuid,nodev,relatime,uid=999,gid=999,fmask=0022,dmask=0077,codepage=cp437,iocharset=iso8859-1,shortname=mixed,utf8,flush,errors=remount-ro)
/dev/sdd1 on /media/BLUE_FLASH____ type vfat (rw,nosuid,nodev,relatime,uid=1000,gid=1000,fmask=0022,dmask=0077,codepage=cp437,iocharset=iso8859-1,shortname=mixed,utf8,flush,errors=remount-ro)
jimwg@mint ~ $

[karlchen]

Hello, Jim.

Thank you for running those commands and posting their screen output.
Just to make sure I understand the details correctly, let me ask a few more questions:

• Disk /dev/sda: 60.0 GB, 60011642880 bytes
  /dev/sda1 * 63 117210239 58605088+ 7 HPFS/NTFS
  This is your internal harddisk, size 60 GB, filesystem NTFS, holding your Windows installation. Correct?
  
• Disk /dev/sdb: 7998 MB, 7998537728 bytes
  /dev/sdb1 ? 3223366752 3470046675 123339962 f4 SpeedStor
  /dev/sdb2 ? 378192737 710426324 166116794 10 OPUS
  /dev/sdb3 ? 225603442 225603451 5 74 Unknown
  This seems to be some kind of USB device, probably a USB stick, telling from the size of 8 GB.
  Telling from the output of the mount command, it looks as if you are running a Mint live system with activated persistence from this device. Correct?
  
• Note on /dev/sdb:
  It looks as if the partition information on this device are inconsistent. fdisk seems unable to determine the exact sizes and the filesystem types of the 3 partitions existing on /dev/sdb.
  
• Finally, there seems to be another USB stick or USB storage card:
  Disk /dev/sdd: 2031 MB, 2031091712 bytes
  /dev/sdd1 * 63 3966920 1983429 b W95 FAT32
  
• What confuses me a bit is that the mount command does not hold any reference to /dev/sdd1, but instead several references to /dev/sdc1. Any idea why this is so?

Which of the devices is the Mint 9 USB flash drive which you wish to split into several partitions and which you mentioned in your initial post, please? /dev/sdb or /dev/sdd?

Kind regards,
Karl

[jimwg]

Hello, Jim.

Thank you for running those commands and posting their screen output.
Just to make sure I understand the details correctly, let me ask a few more questions:

• Disk /dev/sda: 60.0 GB, 60011642880 bytes
  /dev/sda1 * 63 117210239 58605088+ 7 HPFS/NTFS
  This is your internal harddisk, size 60 GB, filesystem NTFS, holding your Windows installation. Correct?
  
• Disk /dev/sdb: 7998 MB, 7998537728 bytes
  /dev/sdb1 ? 3223366752 3470046675 123339962 f4 SpeedStor
  /dev/sdb2 ? 378192737 710426324 166116794 10 OPUS
  /dev/sdb3 ? 225603442 225603451 5 74 Unknown
  This seems to be some kind of USB device, probably a USB stick, telling from the size of 8 GB.
  Telling from the output of the mount command, it looks as if you are running a Mint live system with activated persistence from this device. Correct?
  
• Note on /dev/sdb:
  It looks as if the partition information on this device are inconsistent. fdisk seems unable to determine the exact sizes and the filesystem types of the 3 partitions existing on /dev/sdb.
  
• Finally, there seems to be another USB stick or USB storage card:
  Disk /dev/sdd: 2031 MB, 2031091712 bytes
  /dev/sdd1 * 63 3966920 1983429 b W95 FAT32
  
• What confuses me a bit is that the mount command does not hold any reference to /dev/sdd1, but instead several references to /dev/sdc1. Any idea why this is so?

Which of the devices is the Mint 9 USB flash drive which you wish to split into several partitions and which you mentioned in your initial post, please? /dev/sdb or /dev/sdd?

Kind regards,
Karl

Thanks for your inspection! I hope my non-techie responses are adequate! Your guesses are correct about my lap's XP hard disk and the 8gig flash drive I installed Linux Mint 9 on with unetbootin-windows-575, and there was also a 2gig flash drive just used for backup storage attached as well. I hope it didn't throw off the results. Also, there was a Linux Mint Debian CD just lying in there at the time as well -- and as a live CD it works beautifully! I only wish there was some way to make live-CD disks really useful by letting you also plug in a blank USB flash drive for it to store all its configs and data and your files into which the live-CD can later access on next boot-up, just like persistence does on a installed flash drive, or is that just a newbie wild wish? Right I'm taking your advice and hunting for a simple and complete way to backup my Mint flash onto my old desktop before re-attempting this splitting partitions thing -- which is just to allow me a way to have my PC and Mint access the same files on the flash! I really do have to get lessoned up on sdas and sdds and such before I can be half-way competent enough to answer your techie questions, Seems one problem just leads to another!

Thanks for the lessons!

Jim in NYC

[karlchen]

Hello, Jim.

Your reply seems to confirm that my interpretation of what fdisk and mount had revealed was not totally incorrect.

About using the Linux Mint Debian CD as a live system:

It is possible to instruct a live system started from a CD to save settings to a USB stick e.g. and to load those settings on next boot. Yet, as a matter of fact, personally I would create a USB stick holding the same live system and launch it with persistence instead.
The reasons are pretty simple:
A live system started from a USB device should be faster and more repsonsive than any live system started from a CD or DVD, though if your CD/DVD drive is fast, the speed difference may not be too big.
The second reason is that if the live system and the persistence file are kept on the same USB device, you only need this USB device.


About your current Mint 9 live system:

Though you said you installed it on the USB drive, which Linux names /dev/sdb, the live system is just this: a Mint 9 live system. This is not a full Mint 9 operating system installation. It is the Linux Mint 9 live/installation CD transferred to a USB device. I.e. the operating system and any software which it includes are read-only. You cannot update them. You cannot install or uninstall software on the Mint 9 live system.
By launching this live system with persistence turned on you are able to save your system settings and reload them on next reboot so that you do not have to perform the same configuration steps over and over again on every reboot.
Nonetheless, it is a fixed system which for convenience reasons allows you to save and reload your personal settings.
It is not a normal fully featured Linux Mint 9 installation.

If I am not totally mistaken, then there is a Linux Mint 9 ISO image file on the USB device. When booting this live system it is booted directly from the ISO image. The needed and used Mint components will be extracted from the ISO image at runtime and used.

What you know as persistence, i.e. your ability to save and reload settings and your ability to save data files like text documents, spreadsheets etc, in fact is a container file named casper-rw-backing. The file casper-rw-backing is located in the root folder of the device /dev/sdb. Look for the line reading

/dev/sdb on /casper-rw-backing type vfat

in the screen output of the mount command. casper-rw-backing is a file which internally holds a complete filesystem. This filesystem holds folders and files. Mint 9 will be able to read and write to this filesystem inside the container file casper-rw-backing. Windows, however, will never be able to do so.
The reason is that Mint uses a mechanism known as lupin-support and lupin-casper in order to access filesystems which live inside a container file. Windows does not have any lupin-support for such Linux container files by default.

In short words:

There is no point in trying to re-partition the USB device /dev/sdb with the aim of allowing Linux Mint and Windows to access the same folders and files.
There is absolutely no point in trying to allow Windows to access the Linux Mint 9 live system. Windows will not even understand the Linux filesystems.
There is no point in trying to access the casper-rw-backing file from Windows, because casper-rw-backing is a Linux specific container file.


Using data files from Windows and Mint interchangeably:

I assume that you wish to be able to work with certain data files like images, text documents, spreadsheets or presentation files using the office software that you installed on Windows and using the office software that comes with Linux Mint 9, depending on which operating system you booted.

Linux Mint can read from and write to filesystems ext2 (Linux specific), ext3 (Linux specific), ext4 (Linux specific), FAT16 (Windows), FAT32 (Windows), NTFS (Windows). Windows, by default, can only use its own filesystems, unless you install some extra software which enables it to access extX filesystems as well.

Therefore, the easiest way of sharing data files between Windows and Linux on your machine is by storing those files and folders on a Windows partition (NTFS or FAT32) on your internal harddisk or on a dedicated USB device, not the one where your Mint 9 live system lives.

There is no way of sharing executable files between Windows and Linux Mint, because Windows and Mint are totally independent and different operating systems. Windows cannot execute Linux executables and Linux cannot execute Windows executables.

Kind regards,
Karl

[jimwg]

Hello, Jim.

Your reply seems to confirm that my interpretation of what fdisk and mount had revealed was not totally incorrect.

About using the Linux Mint Debian CD as a live system:

It is possible to instruct a live system started from a CD to save settings to a USB stick e.g. and to load those settings on next boot. Yet, as a matter of fact, personally I would create a USB stick holding the same live system and launch it with persistence instead.
The reasons are pretty simple:
A live system started from a USB device should be faster and more repsonsive than any live system started from a CD or DVD, though if your CD/DVD drive is fast, the speed difference may not be too big.
The second reason is that if the live system and the persistence file are kept on the same USB device, you only need this USB device.


About your current Mint 9 live system:

Though you said you installed it on the USB drive, which Linux names /dev/sdb, the live system is just this: a Mint 9 live system. This is not a full Mint 9 operating system installation. It is the Linux Mint 9 live/installation CD transferred to a USB device. I.e. the operating system and any software which it includes are read-only. You cannot update them. You cannot install or uninstall software on the Mint 9 live system.
By launching this live system with persistence turned on you are able to save your system settings and reload them on next reboot so that you do not have to perform the same configuration steps over and over again on every reboot.
Nonetheless, it is a fixed system which for convenience reasons allows you to save and reload your personal settings.
It is not a normal fully featured Linux Mint 9 installation.

If I am not totally mistaken, then there is a Linux Mint 9 ISO image file on the USB device. When booting this live system it is booted directly from the ISO image. The needed and used Mint components will be extracted from the ISO image at runtime and used.

What you know as persistence, i.e. your ability to save and reload settings and your ability to save data files like text documents, spreadsheets etc, in fact is a container file named casper-rw-backing. The file casper-rw-backing is located in the root folder of the device /dev/sdb. Look for the line reading

/dev/sdb on /casper-rw-backing type vfat

in the screen output of the mount command. casper-rw-backing is a file which internally holds a complete filesystem. This filesystem holds folders and files. Mint 9 will be able to read and write to this filesystem inside the container file casper-rw-backing. Windows, however, will never be able to do so.
The reason is that Mint uses a mechanism known as lupin-support and lupin-casper in order to access filesystems which live inside a container file. Windows does not have any lupin-support for such Linux container files by default.

In short words:

There is no point in trying to re-partition the USB device /dev/sdb with the aim of allowing Linux Mint and Windows to access the same folders and files.
There is absolutely no point in trying to allow Windows to access the Linux Mint 9 live system. Windows will not even understand the Linux filesystems.
There is no point in trying to access the casper-rw-backing file from Windows, because casper-rw-backing is a Linux specific container file.


Using data files from Windows and Mint interchangeably:

I assume that you wish to be able to work with certain data files like images, text documents, spreadsheets or presentation files using the office software that you installed on Windows and using the office software that comes with Linux Mint 9, depending on which operating system you booted.

Linux Mint can read from and write to filesystems ext2 (Linux specific), ext3 (Linux specific), ext4 (Linux specific), FAT16 (Windows), FAT32 (Windows), NTFS (Windows). Windows, by default, can only use its own filesystems, unless you install some extra software which enables it to access extX filesystems as well.

Therefore, the easiest way of sharing data files between Windows and Linux on your machine is by storing those files and folders on a Windows partition (NTFS or FAT32) on your internal harddisk or on a dedicated USB device, not the one where your Mint 9 live system lives.

There is no way of sharing executable files between Windows and Linux Mint, because Windows and Mint are totally independent and different operating systems. Windows cannot execute Linux executables and Linux cannot execute Windows executables.

Kind regards,
Karl

Okay that was an excellent educational read! You explained everything in a nutshell! I wish sites such as this made it part of their home page FAQ for newbies like me! Okay, I'll dump the partitioning idea, but is there anyway to fix this error code 21 problem than have to install all over again?

Thanks!!!!

Jim in NYC

[karlchen]

Hello, Jim.

You explained everything in a nutshell!

I am glad to learn that I did not use too much tech-speak understandable only to computer nerds. And thanks for the compliment.

is there anyway to fix this error code 21 problem than have to install all over again?

I do not think that anything will have to be re-installed.

The error message which you posted read

Error mounting: mount exited with exit code 21: mount: according to mtab, /dev/sda1 is already mounted on /media/E8701CFA701CD0E4

I.e. Mint 9 tried to mount a disk device, but failed, because the file /etc/mtab suggested the device had already been mounted under the mount point (= folder name) /media/E8701CFA701CD0E4.

Looking at the fdisk screen output which you posted later on, we learn this about /dev/sda1:

Disk /dev/sda: 60.0 GB, 60011642880 bytes
/dev/sda1 * 63 117210239 58605088+ 7 HPFS/NTFS

As you confirmed what Mint 9 calls /dev/sda1 is your Windows partition.

Conclusion #1:
Mint 9 tried to (auto-)mount your Windows partition, /dev/sda1, under /media/E8701CFA701CD0E4 and failed.

Now let us have a look at the mount screen output which you also posted and look for both strings, /dev/sda1 and /media/E8701CFA701CD0E4. Unless I have missed it, neither string can be found in the mount screen output.
mount, invoked without any further arguments, will list all devices which have been mounted and their mount points (among a few other details, which we will ignore at the moment).
mount does neither display the name /dev/sda1, nor the mountpoint /media/E8701CFA701CD0E4.

Conclusion #2:
/dev/sda1 has not been mounted under /media/E8701CFA701CD0E4, although the file /etc/mtab suggests that this is the case.

Or have you already followed the advice given to you in the Linux Forums - here and manually umounted /media/E8701CFA701CD0E4?

Assuming for the moment that the problem still persists, here are 3 suggested steps:

Could you, please, post the output of the terminal command

Code: Select all

cat /etc/mtab

Can you also post the output of the commmand

Code: Select all

ls -al /etc/mtab

, please.
Finally, post the output of the command

Code: Select all

cat /etc/fstab

as well.

Assumption:
Maybe the file /etc/mtab holds an outdated entry about /dev/sda1 which no longer is true. If so solving your problem might be as simple as getting rid of this entry from /etc/mtab. Maybe.

Kind regards,
Karl

[jimwg]

Hello, Jim.

....
Maybe the file /etc/mtab holds an outdated entry about /dev/sda1 which no longer is true. If so solving your problem might be as simple as getting rid of this entry from /etc/mtab. Maybe.

Kind regards,
Karl

Well, since I lost my Firefox and Drapes configurations on my Mint USB and my 2nd storage-use USB flash drive now won't even register on the desktop unless I do the "as administrator" menu route, forget the error 21 thing, I'm just scraping persistence altogether and going the "real install" route, placing LinuxMint Debian 201204 on my 8gig flash drive since some say it''s more stable and forgiving of errors than Mint 9. I'm just waiting on generous Linux mavens to whip up the best gParted sdb-sda partition set-up figures to format the drive since half-clueless me doesn't want to take any chances messing with an operation as delicate as that. If you use a flash with a "real installed" copy of Linux on it. not just a live-cd with persistence, can you suggest the best partition set up figures I should input to get rolling?

Thanks for any tips!

Jim in NYC

[karlchen]

Hello, Jim.

In case you wish to use Linux regularly and not just for testing purposes, in this case a regular installation will be the right choice.
Of course, you can use a USB attached drive for a regular installation, provided your BIOS allows to boot from it. (Which it apparently does, else you would not have been able to boot your Mint 9 live system, would you.)

About using an 8-GB-USB-stick:
It might be feasible to keep a complete Mint 9 or LMDE installation on a USB stick which has got a total size of 8 GB. Yet, I doubt that this is a good choice. The minimum disk size required by Ubuntu / Mint is about 5 GB. A regular installation will need a swap area (disk space used as swap space only), too. The size of the swap space depends on the size of the machine's RAM. The rule of thumb is 1.5 times the size of the RAM. Yet, in particular if the machine has got plenty of RAM it may be possible to grant it less swap space.
Yet, in the end 8 GB will be more or less exactly the absolute minimum. This may lead to problem caused by lack of free disk space later on: Ubuntu, Mint, LMDE will all want to update themselves regularly. And like Windows Linux, too, will use disk space for downloading the updates and installing the updates, even though this disk space may be needed and used only temporarily.
You may yourself decide to reduce the amount of available free disk space, too, by deciding to install some additional software packages. (I do. )

Just considering the amount of disk space, personally I would not recommend to use a device having less than 20 or 25 GB.

About using a USB stick as such:

Like Windows a regular Linux installation, too, will read and write to its disk frequently. (This is not true for a live system. Live systems will only read, because a live system itself is fixed, i.e. read-only)
Constant rewriting is a process which will shorten the lifestime of a USB stick substantially. (OK, they are cheap, so you may decide that this doesnot matter.)
Personally, I would use a (cheap) USB harddisk. The system will be faster. Constant reading and more importantly constant writing to the disk will not make a harddisk wear out as fast as a USB stick.
Yet, it is your decision.


About LMDE vs Mint 9:

Hm. The rule is: use what works best for you. It is as simple as that. And at the same time as complicated as that, because as long as you have not tried out different Mint flavours, how are you going to decide what is going to work best for you?

Mint 9 is based on Ubuntu 10.04. Ubuntu 10.04 is a long term version, supported for 3 years. It is very stable. (Have been using 3 different Ubuntu 10.04 machines for two years each now.) Therefore I would be amazed to learn that Mint 9 were less stable than Ubuntu 10.04.
The downside of Mint 9: Ubuntu 10.04 has got 11 more months to go. Then the 3 years support time will be over and it will not receive any more updates and any more support.

LMDE is a Mint release which is based on Debian directly. Debian is said to offer more "rough edges" to the user than Ubuntu does. LMDE is "rolling release", i.e. a Mint release which keeps on updating itself constantly. There is no such thing as LMDE v1, LMDE v2, LMDE v3, because LMDE is being updated constantly.

Before deciding which Mint release to use in future you might simply carefully read what the official homepages tell you about the different releases and then decide which one to use:

+ Linux Mint Debian (LMDE) and very likely this: Mint LMDE...How techie should I be to use it? <SOLVED>

+ Linux Mint 13 "Maya" ... This going to be the next long term support version of Mint, successor of Mint 9.

+ Linux Mint 9 "Isadora" ... Manual, homepage seems to have vanished already.

Kind regards,
Karl

[jimwg]

Hello, Jim.
+ Linux Mint 9 "Isadora" ... Manual, homepage seems to have vanished already.

Kind regards,
Karl

Thanks I'm hard at work on that! Thanks to your tips and logic I decided to give Mint 9 another go in live mode and finished creating a non-persistence live Mint 9 install on a 8gig flash drive and while it works amazingly, my PC now won't boot-up without the flash drive engaged. All the screen says when I do F12 for normal boot is "error: no such device. grub rescue> " So for now my PC's wedded to my flash drive! Since it's a different issue you don't have to jump in, and besides I'm really anxious to learn via linux mavens without runnning ragged all over linx blogs and Google!

Jim in NYC

[karlchen]

Hello, Jim.

Let me make an educated guess: When you performed a full installation of Mint 9 you - unknowlingly - allowed the installer to write the Linux Mint bootloader Grub2 to the MBR of your (Windows) harddisk, /dev/sda. What happened was that Grub2 overwrote your genuine Windows bootloader. Yet, as Grub is "intelligent", it did not only detect Linux Mint 9 and added it to its list of bootable operating systems, but also Windows XP. Yet, the downside is that now you have to have your USB stick attached in order to boot into Windows XP as well, because the Grub2 bootloader is sitting inside the MBR of the Windows harddisk, but its configuration is sitting on the USB stick, folder /boot.

In order to fix this situation you will have to perform these steps

• Boot from your Windows XP installation CD and launch the recovery console.
• Inside the recovery console, you will have to execute the commands

  Code: Select all

  fixboot
fixmbr

  
  You may like to have a look at this post here and at the articles which it links to in order to get more details on dual booting XP and Mint.
• Reboot without the USB stick attached and see if Windows XP boots correctly.
• Once the Windows XP booting problem has been fixed, boot your machine from the Mint 9 live CD and install Grub2 again, but this time to the USB drive where you installed Mint 9. It used to be /dev/sdb.

As users frequently step into the trap where the bootloader of one OS overwrites the bootloader of another OS there are a lot of threads and how-to articles available explaining how to solve these problems without the need to re-install everything from the scratch.
As Mint 9 is based on Ubuntu 10.04 you will find a lot of helpful threads and articles on fixing bootloader problems in the genuine Ubuntu forum as well.

Good luck,
Karl