Linux Mint Forums

I have the latest version on a flash drive, and i want it to be bootable. My main question is this. Can I install Linux from a blank Harddrive? Or do I need to have either Windows or another version of Linux previously installed for it to recognize it? There has to be a way using a blank HDD because Windows did it. I've tried formatting the Flash drive as NTFS and Fat32 types, and neither of them were successful. With NTFS I get "Missing BOOTMGR press Ctrl + Alt + Del to restart". With Fat32 it just hangs at the bootup screen. I'd really appreciate any help. Sorry if this is an idiotic question to all you Linux masters, but searching google for hours didn't help me out.

You can't install anything from a blank hard disk drive, and Windwoes can't do it either, because the blank hard disk drive is, oddly enough, blank. Maybe you're talking about a USB flash drive. You also don't say how you are getting the linux image onto the flash drive.

Format the flash drive as FAT32 and use unetbootin to write the downloaded linux .iso image to it. If you don't know what unetbootin is, use google.