Linux Mint Forums

I have a laptop with dual boot option: W7 and Linux Mint 11. I want to upgrade to Linux Mint 13 (erase Mint 11) but to keep intact the W7 and the dual boot option and I have no idea how to do it. Please help.

1) Backup your /home folder if you don't have a /home partition.
2) Boot from a Live install (either DVD or USB thumb drive) for LM13.
3) If everything works in the Live session (sound, video modes, keyboard, pointing device, etc.), then proceed with an installation.
4) Answer the preliminary questions: (language, keyboard, set system time, etc.) until it asks you how you want to install.
5) Select (I believe it is called) Other when it asks how you want to install.
6) Simply choose your old LM11 partitions and designate the usage as /, swap, (and /home if you have one) and tell the program to format / in EXT4 or whatever file-system you want to use.
7) Proceed as normal, following the screen prompts.

Tried that but it asks me to define root. I mention I am using GNU GRUB boot manager and I manually chose between Mint 11 and W7. I want to upgrade from Mint 11 to 13 and keep the W7 unaltered and of course the boot menu so I can chose which OS to boot. Any help would be appreciated because I have only basic Linux knowledge.

When you get to the partition table by selecting "Something Else", instead of deleting the old partition(s) and adding new ones for Mint, just use the "Change" button at the bottom of the table to edit the existing partitions.

Click on a partition you want to replace and click "Change" a partition edit window will open. Leave all partition parameters the same, just click "Format the partition as..." and select your file system choice from the drop down menu. The partition will be formatted (overwriting the existing OS) and the selected Mint partition (root, /home, etc.) will be installed.

For Grub installation, either click on the drop down menu at the bottom of the partitioning page and select the location for Grub installation, or just leave this alone and take the default installation. The default is /dev/sda. This will install Mint's Grub in the mbr over any existing bootloader (Ubuntu Grub, Windows, etc.), and set up the dual boot menu automatically.

REMEMBER - BACKUP your home first - any documents ect

While keeping the /home partition is fine, create a new username or before installation rename the old user's home folder on that partition to something else. Start with a clean home folder, instead of including all the stuff from a previous installation.

After installation, you can move your personal files from the old user's home folder to the new user's home folder. I'd suggest you stick to moving personal files (documents, music, photos, videos) and leave hidden files and folders behind. Possibly you have to change ownership of the files first, you can do so easily with the following command:

Code: Select all
sudo chown -R ${id -un}:${id -gn} /home/old-username


Where you replace old-username with the old username.

Do you understand partitions?
Do you have a separate home?
root is shown as /

in a standard install youll have
/ partition for the install including /home
/swap - probably in an extended partition.

You could possibly have separate partitions for / (root) swap and /home

Please see http://usbtux.hostzi.com/How_to and specifically http://usbtux.hostzi.com/somethingelse for more info