hard drive installation tethered to installation pen drive

[Microcord]

I've just installed -- well, kind-of installed -- Mint 9 Isadora Fluxbox 32-bit (ISO as downloaded from this site this morning) on an HP Mini 5102. I installed it via Unetbootin, as described in this page by Lars Michelsen, a procedure that worked with CrunchBang a day earlier. [I had other problems with CrunchBang. I fear that I also have these other problems with Mint. I'll be writing about them, but not in this message.]

Here's one part of the story. [Aside from a mention in this paragraph, I'll omit connectivity problems.] I booted Mint Fluxbox off the USB pen drive. Wireless didn't (immediately) work but I hadn't expected it to do so; otherwise Mint looked fine, so I opted to install. There were no error messages during this process. (Or none that were obvious. Perhaps I should have looked at the stream of white-on-black text; I didn't.)

Great, I thought. Now I've installed Mint. I turned the computer off, took out the USB pen drive, checked that no other drive was plugged in, and turned the computer back on. (And yes of course the hard drive is in, and indeed now at the top of, my list of boot options in the BIOS.)

The computer showed me the message I least wanted to read: “Non-system disk or disk error / replace and strike any key when ready”.

This was no fluke of misreading of the MBR. Just hitting the space bar did not boot up the computer. I had to turn it off, plug in the USB pen drive, and turn it back on. What happened then was interesting: I didn't get the first, inelegant blue screen you get from a live CD but instead a question about my username and password.

(The system let me unmount the pen drive. I don't remember this well. Now, as I try this a third time, Thunar shows me the USB pen drive ["1G Removable Volume"] immediately under "Desktop" and "File System"; right-clicking it allows me to mount it, implying that it's not mounted; I mount it, I unmount it, I pull it out -- no error message.)

I checked that this hadn’t been a mere fluke. No, IFF I have my Mint Fluxbox USB pen drive plugged in, I boot. And this is (or appears to be) a boot off the hard drive.

I wonder if there was some fluke in the installation process resulting in inability to boot directly off the hard drive. I can’t use the current USB pen drive to repeat the process, because it only lets me boot (it doesn't give me the blue menu). I suppose I could boot off some other Linux in order to zap everything on the hard drive, or reinstall CrunchBang in order that the Mint USB would see something different. But am I overlooking something simple?

Incidentally, the computer is just four days old and has been used much less than is normal in four days. I don't think that wear and tear on a vital area of the hard drive would be the culprit.

PS Here's an oddity. Right-click on screen | Quit | Suspend does nothing. Well, this doesn't surprise me much; perhaps it has to be "enabled" somewhere. But Right-click on screen | Quit | Shutdown also does nothing. That's with no USB plugged in, with it plugged in but unmounted, and with it plugged in and mounted.

[JasonLG]

I've just installed -- well, kind-of installed -- Mint 9 Isadora Fluxbox 32-bit (ISO as downloaded from this site this morning) on an HP Mini 5102. I installed it via Unetbootin, as described in this page by Lars Michelsen, a procedure that worked with CrunchBang a day earlier. [I had other problems with CrunchBang. I fear that I also have these other problems with Mint. I'll be writing about them, but not in this message.]

Here's one part of the story. [Aside from a mention in this paragraph, I'll omit connectivity problems.] I booted Mint Fluxbox off the USB pen drive. Wireless didn't (immediately) work but I hadn't expected it to do so; otherwise Mint looked fine, so I opted to install. There were no error messages during this process. (Or none that were obvious. Perhaps I should have looked at the stream of white-on-black text; I didn't.)

Great, I thought. Now I've installed Mint. I turned the computer off, took out the USB pen drive, checked that no other drive was plugged in, and turned the computer back on. (And yes of course the hard drive is in, and indeed now at the top of, my list of boot options in the BIOS.)

The computer showed me the message I least wanted to read: “Non-system disk or disk error / replace and strike any key when ready”.

This was no fluke of misreading of the MBR. Just hitting the space bar did not boot up the computer. I had to turn it off, plug in the USB pen drive, and turn it back on. What happened then was interesting: I didn't get the first, inelegant blue screen you get from a live CD but instead a question about my username and password.

(The system let me unmount the pen drive. I don't remember this well. Now, as I try this a third time, Thunar shows me the USB pen drive ["1G Removable Volume"] immediately under "Desktop" and "File System"; right-clicking it allows me to mount it, implying that it's not mounted; I mount it, I unmount it, I pull it out -- no error message.)

I checked that this hadn’t been a mere fluke. No, IFF I have my Mint Fluxbox USB pen drive plugged in, I boot. And this is (or appears to be) a boot off the hard drive.

I wonder if there was some fluke in the installation process resulting in inability to boot directly off the hard drive. I can’t use the current USB pen drive to repeat the process, because it only lets me boot (it doesn't give me the blue menu). I suppose I could boot off some other Linux in order to zap everything on the hard drive, or reinstall CrunchBang in order that the Mint USB would see something different. But am I overlooking something simple?

Incidentally, the computer is just four days old and has been used much less than is normal in four days. I don't think that wear and tear on a vital area of the hard drive would be the culprit.

PS Here's an oddity. Right-click on screen | Quit | Suspend does nothing. Well, this doesn't surprise me much; perhaps it has to be "enabled" somewhere. But Right-click on screen | Quit | Shutdown also does nothing. That's with no USB plugged in, with it plugged in but unmounted, and with it plugged in and mounted.

You installed the boot loader(GRUB) to the USB drive.

[Microcord]

You installed the boot loader(GRUB) to the USB drive.

The USB drive has everything needed, no? (The machine had to boot off that in order first to run Mint live and then to install it. Unless I understand even less than I think.) But when I took the option to "install" (I think it was called), I expected the process would install the works everything needed on the hard drive.

What mistake would I have made?

Or: How would I avoid this mistake in a second attempt?

Or again: Can I now install grub on the hard drive without redoing the whole installation process, and if so, how?

[SimonTS]

You should be able to re-install GRUB on the HDD without too much problem. Start off by booting up your system - you need to boot from the LiveCD image on the USB for this.
"sudo fdisk -l"
identify the partition with your main Linux on it (e.g. /dev/sda1) and mount the partition manually;-
"sudo mkdir /media/sda1"
"sudo mount /dev/sda1 /media/sda1"
Then re-install GRUB with the link to the correct partition;-
"sudo grub-install --root-directory=/media/sda1 /dev/sda"
Now, shut-down the Live image and re-boot without the USB stick. Bob should be your uncle - as they say.

[Microcord]

Thank you for trying to help, SimonTS, but it didn't do the trick.

The main partition was sdb1. I made that change but otherwise did everything as explained. Installing grub took a few moments but then brought the message that yes, grub had been installed without any problem. (And I was able to shut the machine down by clicking in the right places on the screen -- I didn't have to push the on/off switch.) I pulled out the USB pen drive, turned the machine back on, and was again told "Non-system disk or disk error / replace and strike any key when ready"

Here's what fdisk -l now reports:

Code: Select all

Disk /dev/sda: 1031 MB, 1031798272 bytes
255 heads, 63 sectors/track, 125 cylinders
Units = cylinders of 16065 * 512 = 8225280 bytes
Sector size (logical/physical): 512 bytes / 512 bytes
I/O size (minimum/optimal): 512 bytes / 512 bytes
Disk identifier: 0x91f72d24

   Device Boot      Start         End      Blocks   Id  System
/dev/sda1   *           1         126     1007584    6  FAT16
Partition 1 has different physical/logical endings:
     phys=(124, 254, 63) logical=(125, 112, 50)

Disk /dev/sdb: 160.0 GB, 160041885696 bytes
255 heads, 63 sectors/track, 19457 cylinders
Units = cylinders of 16065 * 512 = 8225280 bytes
Sector size (logical/physical): 512 bytes / 512 bytes
I/O size (minimum/optimal): 512 bytes / 512 bytes
Disk identifier: 0x000ae8e0

   Device Boot      Start         End      Blocks   Id  System
/dev/sdb1               1       19089   153324544   83  Linux
/dev/sdb2           19089       19458     2963457    5  Extended
/dev/sdb5           19089       19458     2963456   82  Linux swap / Solaris

Distant memories of MS-DOS tell me that the problem with sdb1 is simply (?) that it isn't "bootable", and I even dimly remember what that means in MS-DOS terms. But what it means in Linux terms, I don't know. More to the point, I don't know how to fix it. (I did try googling but the material's all about disks other than a single internal hard drive.)

Help please!

Before the first elegant green screen of Mint comes up, an error message in white on black pops up but disappears before I can read it, let alone write it down. If this might help, and if I'm told how to trap it, I'll trap it.

And a bonus stupid question: When I (somehow) succeed in making sdb1 bootable, will it matter at all that there's an "sdb" but no "sda"?

[SimonTS]

Bonus question - I don't think so, if it does then we'll deal with that once we've got the GRUB issue solved.

I missed a step that may or may not make a difference - run a "sudo update-grub" as well.
Go to the following web-page and download the script from there, follow the instructions on that page and post the output here please;-
http://bootinfoscript.sourceforge.net/

[Microcord]

Thank you Simon.

I ran update-grub, but by itself this didn't fix matters.

I then ran the shell script; here's the output:

Code: Select all

                Boot Info Script 0.55    dated February 15th, 2010                   

============================= Boot Info Summary: ==============================

 => Grub 2 is installed in the MBR of /dev/sda and looks on the same drive in
    partition #1 for /boot/grub.
 => Grub 2 is installed in the MBR of /dev/sdb and looks on the same drive in
    partition #1 for /media/sdb1/boot/grub.

sda1: _________________________________________________________________________

    File system:       vfat
    Boot sector type:  Unknown
    Boot sector info:  According to the info in the boot sector, sda1 starts
                       at sector 0. But according to the info from fdisk,
                       sda1 starts at sector 63.
    Operating System: 
    Boot files/dirs:   

sdb1: _________________________________________________________________________

    File system:       ext4
    Boot sector type:  -
    Boot sector info: 
    Operating System:  Linux Mint 9 Isadora
    Boot files/dirs:   /boot/grub/grub.cfg /etc/fstab /boot/grub/core.img

sdb2: _________________________________________________________________________

    File system:       Extended Partition
    Boot sector type:  Unknown
    Boot sector info: 

sdb5: _________________________________________________________________________

    File system:       swap
    Boot sector type:  -
    Boot sector info: 

=========================== Drive/Partition Info: =============================

Drive: sda ___________________ _____________________________________________________

Disk /dev/sda: 1031 MB, 1031798272 bytes
255 heads, 63 sectors/track, 125 cylinders, total 2015231 sectors
Units = sectors of 1 * 512 = 512 bytes
Sector size (logical/physical): 512 bytes / 512 bytes

Partition  Boot         Start           End          Size  Id System

/dev/sda1    *             63     2,015,230     2,015,168   6 FAT16


Drive: sdb ___________________ _____________________________________________________

Disk /dev/sdb: 160.0 GB, 160041885696 bytes
255 heads, 63 sectors/track, 19457 cylinders, total 312581808 sectors
Units = sectors of 1 * 512 = 512 bytes
Sector size (logical/physical): 512 bytes / 512 bytes

Partition  Boot         Start           End          Size  Id System

/dev/sdb1               2,048   306,651,135   306,649,088  83 Linux
/dev/sdb2         306,653,182   312,580,095     5,926,914   5 Extended
/dev/sdb5         306,653,184   312,580,095     5,926,912  82 Linux swap / Solaris


blkid -c /dev/null: ____________________________________________________________

Device           UUID                                   TYPE       LABEL                         

/dev/sda1        B8DE-3F7E                              vfat                                     
/dev/sda: PTTYPE="dos"
/dev/sdb1        e279205e-aa1e-4d7c-9f3c-6619de9a152d   ext4                                     
/dev/sdb2: PTTYPE="dos"
/dev/sdb5        c3aa4854-dce2-4b0d-837a-bcc487da48d1   swap                                     
/dev/sdb: PTTYPE="dos"

============================ "mount | grep ^/dev  output: ===========================

Device           Mount_Point              Type       Options

/dev/sdb1        /                        ext4       (rw,errors=remount-ro)


=========================== sdb1/boot/grub/grub.cfg: ===========================

#
# DO NOT EDIT THIS FILE
#
# It is automatically generated by /usr/sbin/grub-mkconfig using templates
# from /etc/grub.d and settings from /etc/default/grub
#

### BEGIN /etc/grub.d/00_header ###
if [ -s $prefix/grubenv ]; then
  load_env
fi
set default="0"
if [ ${prev_saved_entry} ]; then
  set saved_entry=${prev_saved_entry}
  save_env saved_entry
  set prev_saved_entry=
  save_env prev_saved_entry
  set boot_once=true
fi

function savedefault {
  if [ -z ${boot_once} ]; then
    saved_entry=${chosen}
    save_env saved_entry
  fi
}

function recordfail {
  set recordfail=1
  if [ -n ${have_grubenv} ]; then if [ -z ${boot_once} ]; then save_env recordfail; fi; fi
}
insmod ext2
set root='(hd1,1)'
search --no-floppy --fs-uuid --set e279205e-aa1e-4d7c-9f3c-6619de9a152d
if loadfont /usr/share/grub/unicode.pf2 ; then
  set gfxmode=640x480
  insmod gfxterm
  insmod vbe
  if terminal_output gfxterm ; then true ; else
    # For backward compatibility with versions of terminal.mod that don't
    # understand terminal_output
    terminal gfxterm
  fi
fi
insmod ext2
set root='(hd1,1)'
search --no-floppy --fs-uuid --set e279205e-aa1e-4d7c-9f3c-6619de9a152d
set locale_dir=($root)/boot/grub/locale
set lang=en
insmod gettext
if [ ${recordfail} = 1 ]; then
  set timeout=-1
else
  set timeout=10
fi
### END /etc/grub.d/00_header ###

### BEGIN /etc/grub.d/05_debian_theme ###
set menu_color_normal=white/black
set menu_color_highlight=black/light-gray
### END /etc/grub.d/05_debian_theme ###

### BEGIN /etc/grub.d/06_mint_theme ###
insmod ext2
set root='(hd1,1)'
search --no-floppy --fs-uuid --set e279205e-aa1e-4d7c-9f3c-6619de9a152d
insmod png
if background_image /boot/grub/linuxmint.png ; then
  set color_normal=white/black
  set color_highlight=white/light-gray
else
  set menu_color_normal=white/black
  set menu_color_highlight=white/light-gray
fi
### END /etc/grub.d/06_mint_theme ###

### BEGIN /etc/grub.d/10_linux ###
menuentry "Linux Mint 9, 2.6.32-22-generic (/dev/sdb1)" --class linuxmint --class gnu-linux --class gnu --class os {
   recordfail
   insmod ext2
   set root='(hd1,1)'
   search --no-floppy --fs-uuid --set e279205e-aa1e-4d7c-9f3c-6619de9a152d
   linux   /boot/vmlinuz-2.6.32-22-generic root=UUID=e279205e-aa1e-4d7c-9f3c-6619de9a152d ro   quiet splash
   initrd   /boot/initrd.img-2.6.32-22-generic
}
menuentry "Linux Mint 9, 2.6.32-22-generic (/dev/sdb1) -- recovery mode" --class linuxmint --class gnu-linux --class gnu --class os {
   recordfail
   insmod ext2
   set root='(hd1,1)'
   search --no-floppy --fs-uuid --set e279205e-aa1e-4d7c-9f3c-6619de9a152d
   echo   'Loading Linux 2.6.32-22-generic ...'
   linux   /boot/vmlinuz-2.6.32-22-generic root=UUID=e279205e-aa1e-4d7c-9f3c-6619de9a152d ro single
   echo   'Loading initial ramdisk ...'
   initrd   /boot/initrd.img-2.6.32-22-generic
}
### END /etc/grub.d/10_linux ###

### BEGIN /etc/grub.d/10_lupin ###
### END /etc/grub.d/10_lupin ###

### BEGIN /etc/grub.d/20_memtest86+ ###
menuentry "Memory test (memtest86+)" {
   insmod ext2
   set root='(hd1,1)'
   search --no-floppy --fs-uuid --set e279205e-aa1e-4d7c-9f3c-6619de9a152d
   linux16   /boot/memtest86+.bin
}
menuentry "Memory test (memtest86+, serial console 115200)" {
   insmod ext2
   set root='(hd1,1)'
   search --no-floppy --fs-uuid --set e279205e-aa1e-4d7c-9f3c-6619de9a152d
   linux16   /boot/memtest86+.bin console=ttyS0,115200n8
}
### END /etc/grub.d/20_memtest86+ ###

### BEGIN /etc/grub.d/30_os-prober ###
if [ ${timeout} != -1 ]; then
  if keystatus; then
    if keystatus --shift; then
      set timeout=-1
    else
      set timeout=0
    fi
  else
    if sleep --interruptible 3 ; then
      set timeout=0
    fi
  fi
fi
### END /etc/grub.d/30_os-prober ###

### BEGIN /etc/grub.d/40_custom ###
# This file provides an easy way to add custom menu entries.  Simply type the
# menu entries you want to add after this comment.  Be careful not to change
# the 'exec tail' line above.
### END /etc/grub.d/40_custom ###

=============================== sdb1/etc/fstab: ===============================

# /etc/fstab: static file system information.
#
# Use 'blkid -o value -s UUID' to print the universally unique identifier
# for a device; this may be used with UUID= as a more robust way to name
# devices that works even if disks are added and removed. See fstab(5).
#
# <file system> <mount point>   <type>  <options>       <dump>  <pass>
proc            /proc           proc    nodev,noexec,nosuid 0       0
# / was on /dev/sdb1 during installation
UUID=e279205e-aa1e-4d7c-9f3c-6619de9a152d /               ext4    errors=remount-ro 0       1
# swap was on /dev/sdb5 during installation
UUID=c3aa4854-dce2-4b0d-837a-bcc487da48d1 none            swap    sw              0       0

=================== sdb1: Location of files loaded by Grub: ===================


  30.2GB: boot/grub/core.img
 116.7GB: boot/grub/grub.cfg
    .3GB: boot/initrd.img-2.6.32-22-generic
  30.2GB: boot/vmlinuz-2.6.32-22-generic
    .3GB: initrd.img
    .1GB: initrd.lz
  30.2GB: vmlinuz
=========================== Unknown MBRs/Boot Sectors/etc =======================

Unknown BootLoader  on sda1

00000000  eb 58 90 53 59 53 4c 49  4e 55 58 00 02 08 20 00  |.X.SYSLINUX... .|
00000010  02 00 00 00 00 f8 00 00  3e 00 20 00 00 00 00 00  |........>. .....|
00000020  c0 bf 1e 00 b0 07 00 00  00 00 00 00 02 00 00 00  |................|
00000030  01 00 06 00 00 00 00 00  00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00  |................|
00000040  00 00 29 7e 3f de b8 20  20 20 20 20 20 20 20 20  |..)~?..         |
00000050  20 20 46 41 54 33 32 20  20 20 fa fc 31 c9 8e d1  |  FAT32   ..1...|
00000060  bc 76 7b 52 06 57 8e c1  b1 26 bf 78 7b f3 a5 8e  |.v{R.W...&.x{...|
00000070  d9 bb 78 00 0f b4 37 0f  a0 56 20 d2 78 1b 31 c0  |..x...7..V .x.1.|
00000080  b1 06 89 3f 89 47 02 f3  64 a5 8a 0e 18 7c 88 4d  |...?.G..d....|.M|
00000090  bc 50 50 50 50 cd 13 eb  4b f6 45 b4 7f 75 25 38  |.PPPP...K.E..u%8|
000000a0  4d b8 74 20 66 3d 21 47  50 54 75 10 80 7d b8 ed  |M.t f=!GPTu..}..|
000000b0  75 0a 66 ff 75 ec 66 ff  75 e8 eb 0f 51 51 66 ff  |u.f.u.f.u...QQf.|
000000c0  75 bc eb 07 51 51 66 ff  36 1c 7c b4 08 cd 13 72  |u...QQf.6.|....r|
000000d0  13 20 e4 75 0f c1 ea 08  42 89 16 1a 7c 83 e1 3f  |. .u....B...|..?|
000000e0  89 0e 18 7c fb bb aa 55  b4 41 8a 16 74 7b cd 13  |...|...U.A..t{..|
000000f0  72 10 81 fb 55 aa 75 0a  f6 c1 01 74 05 c6 06 32  |r...U.u....t...2|
00000100  7d 00 66 b8 18 ca 13 00  66 ba 00 00 00 00 bb 00  |}.f.....f.......|
00000110  7e e8 10 00 66 81 3e 2c  7e 99 96 05 72 75 76 ea  |~...f.>,~...ruv.|
00000120  40 7e 00 00 66 03 06 64  7b 66 13 16 68 7b b9 10  |@~..f..d{f..h{..|
00000130  00 eb 2b 66 52 66 50 06  53 6a 01 6a 10 89 e6 66  |..+fRfP.Sj.j...f|
00000140  60 b4 42 e8 7f 00 66 61  8d 64 10 72 01 c3 66 60  |`.B...fa.d.r..f`|
00000150  31 c0 e8 70 00 66 61 e2  da c6 06 32 7d 2b 66 60  |1..p.fa....2}+f`|
00000160  66 0f b7 36 18 7c 66 0f  b7 3e 1a 7c 66 f7 f6 31  |f..6.|f..>.|f..1|
00000170  c9 87 ca 66 f7 f7 66 3d  ff 03 00 00 77 17 c0 e4  |...f..f=....w...|
00000180  06 41 08 e1 88 c5 88 d6  b8 01 02 e8 37 00 66 61  |.A..........7.fa|
00000190  72 01 c3 e2 c9 31 f6 8e  d6 bc 6c 7b 8e de 66 8f  |r....1....l{..f.|
000001a0  06 78 00 be cc 7d e8 09  00 31 c0 cd 16 cd 19 f4  |.x...}...1......|
000001b0  eb fd 66 60 ac 20 c0 74  09 b4 0e bb 07 00 cd 10  |..f`. .t........|
000001c0  eb f2 66 61 c3 8a 16 74  7b cd 13 c3 42 6f 6f 74  |..fa...t{...Boot|
000001d0  20 65 72 72 6f 72 0d 0a  00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00  | error..........|
000001e0  00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00  00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00  |................|
000001f0  00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00  00 00 00 00 00 00 55 aa  |..............U.|
00000200

Unknown BootLoader  on sdb2

00000000  ff ff ff ff ff ff ff ff  ff ff ff ff ff ff ff ff  |................|
*
000001b0  ff ff ff ff ff ff ff ff  ff ff ff ff ff ff 00 fe  |................|
000001c0  ff ff 82 fe ff ff 02 00  00 00 00 70 5a 00 00 00  |...........pZ...|
000001d0  00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00  00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00  |................|
*
000001f0  00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00  00 00 00 00 00 00 55 aa  |..............U.|
00000200


Ummm. . . ?

[wayne128]

I believe your issue is similar to this post, except he tried on USB drive, yours target boot drive is internal drive.

viewtopic.php?f=46&t=67934

This is only my guess, could be wrong,
when you use USB flash as the 'media' to install Linux OS, it is seen as /dev/sda because you boot up directly from USB flash.

Then when you install Linux OS to internal drive, as it was seen as /dev/sdb1, all the grub commands become related to second disk, first partition, /dev/sdb1 or (hd1,1)
Look at the grub.cfg you had:

menuentry "Linux Mint 9, 2.6.32-22-generic (/dev/sdb1)" --class linuxmint --class gnu-linux --class gnu --class os {
recordfail
insmod ext2
set root='(hd1,1)'
search --no-floppy --fs-uuid --set e279205e-aa1e-4d7c-9f3c-6619de9a152d
linux /boot/vmlinuz-2.6.32-22-generic root=UUID=e279205e-aa1e-4d7c-9f3c-6619de9a152d ro quiet splash
initrd /boot/initrd.img-2.6.32-22-generic
}

So you need to change it to read below and follow by sudo update-grub

menuentry "Linux Mint 9, 2.6.32-22-generic " --class linuxmint --class gnu-linux --class gnu --class os {
recordfail
insmod ext2
set root='(hd0,1)'
search --no-floppy --fs-uuid --set e279205e-aa1e-4d7c-9f3c-6619de9a152d
linux /boot/vmlinuz-2.6.32-22-generic root=UUID=e279205e-aa1e-4d7c-9f3c-6619de9a152d ro quiet splash
initrd /boot/initrd.img-2.6.32-22-generic
}

[Microcord]

Thank you, wayne128. I did exactly as you suggested . . . and it made no difference.

I think I'll just try: reading up on the installation of Mint (or some alternative) from a pen drive, and installing afresh.

[SimonTS]

If those suggestions haven't worked then there's something else going on. I think that you may well be right in your idea to just re-install from scratch. Before you do, it's worth downloading Parted Magic http://partedmagic.com/doku.php and burning that to CD/DVD. You can boot of that, create all the partitions that you want on your hard-drive, run Unetbootin to create bootable USBs etc.
I'd also seriously consider your partioning table before you re-install. Using 95% of a 160GB drive for your / partition and a small amount for swap is not the best way to do it. You are far better off with separate partitions for /, /boot, /usr, /var, /var/log, /home - everyone has their own ideas, but there are plenty of web-sites out there that can point you in the right direction.
An example for your system (based on mine which is also a 160GB, but with 3 OS), would be to use GParted to create;-
/dev/sda1 Extended 60.00GB EXT4 LinuxMint10
/dev/sda2 Primary 100.0GB EXT4 Documents
Do not select to format the partitions in GParted though. Then, once you've Booted from the Mint10 Live, into the installation phase, set up the following;-
Add Logical Partitions inside /dev/sda1 - add in this order. (You will notice there is a block of about 18GB unused in the middle of the extended partition, but this will allow you to expand any of the partitions if you find you need to later.)
256MB /boot EXT2 At Beginning
15000MB / EXT4 At Beginning
15000MB /usr EXT4 At Beginning
2000MB swap swap At End
256MB /var/log EXT4 At End
10000MB /var EXT4 At End
Set /home to live inside your /dev/sda2 partition - that way if things crash then you can recover your documents, mail folder etc a lot easier.
Just my thoughts on doing it anyway.

[Microcord]

Thank you for the thoughtful advice, Simon.

I'd thought previously that it would be a good idea to have a separate partition for /home at least, and I've been surprised by the way in which fairly recent installation procedures -- Debian on each of two unrelated computers, plus CrunchBang and then Mint Fluxbox on this one -- have advised the noob to put everything together. But I figured that an algorithm created by people who know what they're doing is more reliable than my own noob brain with half-understood, half-remembered factoids jangling around in it.

I'm not going to do the installation for 12 hours or longer (I want time to read and think about matters you've raised above and also expect the power hereabouts to be cut at any time). Back then.

[wayne128]

Thank you for the thoughtful advice, Simon.

I'd thought previously that it would be a good idea to have a separate partition for /home at least, and I've been surprised by the way in which fairly recent installation procedures -- Debian on each of two unrelated computers, plus CrunchBang and then Mint Fluxbox on this one -- have advised the noob to put everything together. But I figured that an algorithm created by people who know what they're doing is more reliable than my own noob brain with half-understood, half-remembered factoids jangling around in it.

I'm not going to do the installation for 12 hours or longer (I want time to read and think about matters you've raised above and also expect the power hereabouts to be cut at any time). Back then.

There are many method of partitioning.
Many of them are working well, all depends on your requirement

Mine is very simple, one partition one OS, share all Linux OS with one Swap partition, share all files with all windows and all Linux OSes with one NTFS partition.

Then I multi boot many OSes

Each time one OS did upgrade, such as crunchbang, LMDE, Aptosid, they only disturb its own partition, sometime they do break, if that happens, I lose only one OS partition while the rest are still working.

I think just choose what suit you most.

[SimonTS]

Wayne, I agree with you. There are many ways of partitioning. I just advised based on my system which works for me, but the example I gave wasn't my complete system. The Extended partition with the LVMs is almost identical to mine, except that I actually don't choose to install a separate /home partition. I then have a second EXT4 Primary partition which I use as a test-bed for new versions of Linux or for testing out new packages before installing them to my 'live' system. I have two NTFS Primary partitions as well - one with my Windows XP on it (only used for my mobile phone backup (can't be done on Linux) and so I can support my Dad, who won't migrate to Linux, the second is my 'Data' partition where I store everything important. Rather than making it the pointer for my /home and getting all sorts of settings etc sat there which I don't want or need, I simply set up symbolic links with Linux to point my /home/Documents etc, my .thunderbird, .mozilla, and anything else I need so that I don't lose anything if I rebuild Linux and so that I can simply back up the entire partition on a regular basis with no losses.