Boot failure

[cigs]

Problem Description: Attempting to install Linux Mint 14 (64bit iso) and came here to check common problems and mistakes before doing so. Read through and exectued steps found here http://forums.linuxmint.com/viewtopic.php?f=46&t=122257
I will include images of my specific failure states and descriptions of how I arrived at each.

System Specs:
i-5 2500k 3.3GHz
ASRock Z77 Extreme6
Corsair 850w Gold
Sapphire Radeon 7950
Corsair 120GT 120gb SSD
Seagate 1tb HDD
PNY (usb booot CD)
8GB Gskill Ripjaws Ram

Image 1: This was achieved by running Linux in regular mode upon booting the USB

Image 2 : After running the "nomodeset xforcevesa" line I achieved this locked state. It sat like this for a while until I lost patience and made this thread.


Thank you for your time.

[viking777]

The answer to nearly every install problem involving modern hardware and Linux Mint is to switch off Uefi and or Secure boot in the bios settings before you install. It is sometimes possible to switch them on again later if you need them for Windows. Check your bios settings and see if you have these 'features' and more importantly if you have a way of switching them off.

[cigs]

I checked through my BIOS and was able to verify that the secure boot function was indeed off. I cannot figure out how to "switch off my UEFI" there was no menu option that I deemed to fit that description and to be honest I didnt even know I could run without my UEFI or that it may be impeding my Linux install. I have gotten to the actual Linux Mint install screen in an acceptable resolution. According to the "working dots" under the logo it was processing something and maybe even in the mood to start but seemed to freeze at that screen. Im sorry I dont have a photo but it was literally the Mint logo in the center and green dots underneath. I will continue to poke around and try to disable my UEFI, any further assistance would be appreciated.

[cigs]

I have not been able to figure out how to disable the UEFI, Ill continue poking around. In the meantime, here is an updated photo of where it locks up during installation if it helps.

[viking777]

Sorry cigs, but the pics are no use. Firstly I can't even read them and secondly even if I could they probably wouldn't help since they usually print what they have actually completed rather than what they can't complete. If there is an error message at the end there just write it down and post it.

As regards Uefi, I mention it because it is by a huge margin the single biggest problem that I see on these forums nowadays (relating to boot issues that is), but because it is so common doesn't mean to say it is the problem that affects you, your problem may be totally unrelated.

The second biggest problem with booting nowadays is hybrid graphics - do you have that on this machine? If so, go back into the bios and switch off one of the two cards.

Have you tried booting in compatibility mode? I know you have already tried the "nomodeset xforcevesa" trick, but compatibility mode adds a few other boot cheat codes as well.

One other thing that I haven't quite grasped. You say you carried out the steps in xenopeek's tutorial, but did you actually try to install normally first or did you go straight into that tutorial?

[cigs]

I tried to install normally first.

I then did the compatibility mode install.

I was verifying that i did indeed need that tutorial and then ran the steps listed to get my posted results. I have a single graphics card as listed I will continue looking into turning off the UEFI and that sort of thing. Insofar I am about to attempt to use the rEFInd tool if I can figure out how to install and run it properly. I am a bit unsure of the tutorial steps. The only thing of use for the pictures is in the last one it says that it is "hard resetting" the ata 7 connection if that helps at all. Thanks for your time.

[viking777]

"hard resetting" seems to be generally regarded as an indication of a failing hard disk or a loose cable connection to a disk. Might be worth checking, but I don't guarantee anything.

[cigs]

Will check and reseat all cables now. I would agree with you about it being hardware but I am attempting to run a Win7/LinMin14 dual boot. I have a 120GB SSD and a 1TB junk drive. I sort of pre-formatted them Ill post a pic of the disk setup right now before install. Everything seems to work flawlessly with windows (which wasn't easy either to be honest) so I cant say its a hardware issue. I had a bad motherboard 2 weeks ago and just recently had to replace that so I did a full diagnostic on all my hardware before I went shopping. Everything but the motherboard (ASRock P67 Extreme4 Gen3) was good. The motherboard was recalled and I am waiting on a replacement from the factory. I upgraded to the ASRock Z77 Extreme6 after the break. I figured I had to wipe everything and do a clean install for the motherboard I might as well get around to installing Linux and finally start tinkering with that and some programming to see if I had an aptitude. (Just got out of the Army looking at college) So thats your short story for tonight, tune in next time when I tell you about my favorite color.

[viking777]

Your L and M partitions are formatted as exFat. I had never heard of it before, but wikipedia tell me it is a proprietary microsoft file system designed for flash drives. Now the L and M drives don't look like flash drives to me, and even if they were, your chances of installing Linux on them would be considerably less than me guessing your favourite colour in one

Strangely enough the only flash drive you seem to have (pendrive) is not formatted in this filesystem. Now maybe you know what you are doing with all this or maybe you don't, but I sure as hell don't know what you are doing, or even how you did it.

I can't see from that pic where linux is installed, L or M, but if it is really installed on one of those on that filesystem I am not surprised it won't boot but I am bloody amazed you got it to install there

You don't have some Mint4Win installation do you?

Anyway, you need to reformat the partition that Linux is on and reinstall it cause it ain't ever going to work on exFat. It should be ext4. Regarding swap, it is not really necessary to have one, but probably best that you do. You have got 8Gb of ram so make it equal to that.

You can reformat using gparted from the live cd or use the installer to do it. The former is probably easier. You know of course that reformatting a partition will wipe any data it contains.

As I am still totally gobsmacked to see what you have done here, I googled a bit more and apparently there is an exfat for linux. This is how to install and use it. Have you really done all this????

http://apcmag.com/how-to-enable-exfat-in-ubuntu.htm

And if so Why

[cigs]

I may have been unclear and sorry to confuse you. The photograph was meant to illustrate my desired dual boot setup. Disk 0 is my SSD, disk 1 is the 1TB junk drive, and disk 2 is the Linux Boot USB.

I have not installed Linux at all which is the problem. I have it on the USB boot stick only.

My intended setup with that photo was to say that I wanted Linux and Win 7 on my SSD as operating systems. I split the drive in half to do that after I installed windows 7 onto the SSD. I also split the junk drive (1tb) into 2 pieces to have a windows junk drive and a linux junk drive saving their respective junks there.

My problem remains the same (cant install) but the intentions and methods are hopefully more clear now. I formatted those partitions exFAT just for memory that they were intended to be Linux partitions (just saw FAT thought FAT32 worked as memory device)

So essentially Linux will have 55gb on the SSD to install on. It will have about 250gb of storage on the junk drive. Windows will have 55gb on the SSD and 650gb on the junk drive sort of splitting it down the middle for the two OS. If I indeed get it to install (with your glorious assistance) would the swap partitions be necessary considering the size of the drives? Its too easy to add them just wondering about necessity as Im not sure exactly how they work Im a new guy.

To ensure my thoughts on partitioning are correct for my primary partition it will be a primary partition in FAT32. for my junk drive its a logical in ext4. I intend to install mint 14 64bit Cinnamon btw if that matters. I also tested with the latest 64 bit Ubuntu and achieved the same results.

[viking777]

Sorry, I didn't twig that you were presenting a plan there, I thought you had actually done it like that!

I am still maybe a bit confused though because of this statement:

To ensure my thoughts on partitioning are correct for my primary partition it will be a primary partition in FAT32

It depends what you mean by 'your primary partition'. If you mean your mint partition then it will definitely not be fat32, you cannot install linux on windows file systems - ext4 - nothing else (there are alternatives but none worth bothering with). However if you want your linux partition on your 'junk' drive to be accessible from windows then you can format that as ntfs, but if access from windows is not needed then use ext4 again.

I don't know much anything ssd's and linux, so can't give you any help with that, I have never had one. I wouldn't put your swap file on the ssd though put it on the 'junk' drive.

You mark the junk drive as a place to 'store programs' etc. This will not happen. Linux stores programs on its / (called root) partition which will be on your ssd. You cannot change this without complicating the install process by specifying a separate /usr partition or using symlinks in /usr/bin to point to the programs installed on your junk drive. This is not very easy. If you are worried space on the ssd you could move the whole linux installation onto the 'junk' drive, it won't start as quickly, but it will work well enough.

This answer gives you instructions on how to put games programs on another partition to save space on an ssd:

viewtopic.php?f=47&t=125937&hilit=+steam+ssd#p688917

In conclusion, disk partitioning is such an 'individual' process that you will never get two people to agree on the same scheme, it is entirely a matter of personal preference, which is difficult if you haven't done it before.

[usbtux]

Totally agree with Viking.

Unfortunately some computers refuse to boot correctly from some USB sticks. Try a different usb stick faster the better, Do you have a portable DVD drive that you can plug in? if so make a live dvd from the iso.

Partitioning.
Root on the sdd (root is known as /)
Home and swap on the junk drive both in the same extended partition.

How to dualboot Windows and Linux using a manual install This is manual install. http://youtu.be/GlEVQqFtcuM

[cigs]

Thank you for the partitioning advice. So as I understand it I will have two Ext4 partitions. One on SSD one on Junk. the root and home will be on SSD and then follow the listed guidelines to make the junk drive my storage space. If I cant figure that Ill just install it all on one large partition of the HDD.


My problem still remains that Im not able to get mint (or any distro) to get past where I have previously posted about. I have the secure boot function off. I installed Windows with the same USB Flash, is it a Mint specific problem with USB Flash? I will attempt to make a live CD but Im having little faith in that.

[viking777]

As far as I know Mint has no issues with Flash drives, but how you burn to the drive has definite consequences. I tried to make a Usb install disk on a flash drive recently and two out of three of the burning tools I tried failed to produce a bootable disk. Despite the abundant choice of these tools today, I still use the original and in my opinion, best, which is Unetbootin.

Use that if you havnen't already.

[cigs]

I originally used a Unetbootin USB drive and then subsequently tried LiLi and Universal USB Installer. Should I attempt this rEFInd tool? It seems like it may help but like I said I dont know what I'm talking about. At this point im just sort of floundering around trying random tweaks and install changes and hoping it just works one time. Seems to be the way of things with this OS from browsing forums.

[viking777]

Well it won't hurt to try I guess, but I don't think refind is the answer myself. Floundering around has become the norm since the arrival of Uefi/Secure Boot (just as Microsoft intended it to be). But at this stage we don't even know if Uefi/Secure Boot is your problem. Your Flash drive could be faulty, your graphics could be playing up or maybe Linux doesn't like your SSD (like I said I have no knowledge of these).

I would just start again. Redownload the iso, check the md5sum, burn it to your flash drive with a reliable tool like Unetbootin, switch off Uefi, switch off secure boot, switch off fast boot, switch off hybrid graphics if you have them, and try and install it to your 'junk' drive first (if this works you can try again on the ssd if you want or just leave it where it is). If none of this works then I have run out of ideas, sorry.

[cigs]

I mean I personally love the UEFI it's pretty easy to use and for windows purposes it has been nothing but pretty awesome. The problem seems to be that Linux hasn't been able to adapt to this quickly enough and now new users like myself are left floundering with a bunch of stuff that seems to not work for simply no reason. I will definitely do all of the things you have suggested and keep searching around. If I get an install or any news I'll update here thank you for your help.

[viking777]

I mean I personally love the UEFI it's pretty easy to use and for windows purposes it has been nothing but pretty awesome. The problem seems to be that Linux hasn't been able to adapt to this quickly enough and now new users like myself are left floundering with a bunch of stuff that seems to not work for simply no reason. I will definitely do all of the things you have suggested and keep searching around. If I get an install or any news I'll update here thank you for your help.

You are pretty well correct there imho (apart from the bit about uefi which is completely worthless). I would add to that though. Even when presented with hundreds of complaints about Uefi on Linux they continue to claim there is nothing wrong and don't even bother to address the situation at any level. They leave it all for the community to sort out. That is exceedingly second rate.

Having said that though it is pretty well impossible to create a solution for every single Uefi implementation motherboard manufacturers have dreamed up. You, me and hundreds of others are left to sort out the mess for ourselves.

[cigs]

I did a bit of poking around about this UEFI business. I'm still going to say that I like UEFI it makes things easy for me to work with like overclocking and boot options. Its just convenient. I was looking around for Mint solutions to the UEFI probs and it seems that the rEFInd tool is whats here for that. I started looking at other distros and found something pretty interesting.
[url]
http://docs.fedoraproject.org/en-US/Fed ... Media-UEFI[/url]

If you look here and poke around a bit to logical links in the same document it seems that Fedora is super ahead with a UEFI solution. Is there something like this for Mint or are these sorts of things distro specific?

[viking777]

Prior to removing Uefi on my machine I tried the 'super-advanced' Uefi capable Fedora 18 on my machine and it booted in legacy mode - ie it is rubbish. The only distro that actually installed in full Uefi mode for me was Ubuntu (and after it did I wish it hadn't!)