Linux Mint Forums

I have an old PC with XP which isn't working. This is because of power problems and the PC now boots continuously. I got Linux Mint on a USB drive and have got all the data I need off the HDD, but Mint won't show the disk when I try to install them and using cfdisk gives a fatal error. I assume that the corruption it suffered has corrupted something in the MBR(?) of the disk so it can't be used as boot device, but I assume the disk is recoverable as I can see the files OK in Linux (it's how I got my files off it).

So what's the best way to deal with this please? I'm happy the whole disk can be wiped and reformatted, but it's not obvious to me (a home Linux newbie) how to go about it.

Malcolm

50034_furious wrote:So what's the best way to deal with this please?

Do you have a boat? It'll make a good anchor.

That's not very helpful - an anchor indeed. It would be better as a door stop.

Obviously a new hard disk is needed....

No new hard disk after all.
I used 'boot and nuke' to completely clear the disk. I then booted from the USB stick and used gparted to create a new partition. When I clicked install, it did so without problems. I'm now running the upgrade to the Linux Mint OS. Got a problem with the floppy, but I'll investigate that in due course.