Lack of support for multiple hard drives during install

Archived topics about LMDE 1 and LMDE 2
Locked
Runaway1956

Lack of support for multiple hard drives during install

Post by Runaway1956 »

I have searched the forum, and it seems that other people have run into this.

During installation, the installer asks you to pick a hard drive for the system to be installed onto. You must pick one, or another hard drive, you cannot pick two or more drives.

Raw rookies aren't likely to want to use more than one drive - in fact, many of them want to keep a Windows installation, and dual boot to their new Linux installation.

Others of us, with a bit more experience, have various reasons for spreading an installation across several partitions, located on two or more hard drive. In my own case, I've got a brand new SSD hard drive that I want to use as my system drive, but I want the swap, tmp, and var files on an older hard disk with spinning platters.

Despite the fact that I had already partitioned the older hard drive, labeled and formatted the three partitions, the installer would only allow me to choose the platters, OR the SSD - not both. During installation, there is no option to relocate any of the folders, and no opportunity to tell the installer that I want any partitions mounted automagically for me.

I'm searching for methods to automount partitions from that second hard drive - but I really think the installer needs to be made more flexible, to better meet people's needs.

I gave a thought to using an LVM setup, but I'm unsure whether Mint will support it. More, I'm unsure how LVM will position those partitions on the drives. The goal here is, of course, to prevent often-changed data from being written to the SSD, thereby extending the life of the SSD.

Hope something can be done with the installer!!
Last edited by LockBot on Wed Dec 28, 2022 7:16 am, edited 1 time in total.
Reason: Topic automatically closed 6 months after creation. New replies are no longer allowed.
cwsnyder

Re: Lack of support for multiple hard drives during install

Post by cwsnyder »

You are looking at a custom installation, which may probably require you to use symlinks and a revised /etc/fstab to make work. The guides which I found all are for a text mode installer, such as the old Ubuntu Alternate Installation disk or a Debian installation. You can try with gparted partitioning your disks before going into the installer and using the installer to select which partitions are used for the various folders, /, /home, /var, /boot, etc. The Gentoo wiki article http://en.gentoo-wiki.com/wiki/Solid_State_Disk is probably the most complete guide which I found in looking.
remoulder
Level 17
Level 17
Posts: 7621
Joined: Fri May 09, 2008 1:14 pm

Re: Lack of support for multiple hard drives during install

Post by remoulder »

What version of mint?
[Edit] your original post and add [SOLVED] once your question is resolved.

“The people are my God” stressing the factor determining man’s destiny lies within man not in anything outside man, and thereby defining man as the dominator and remoulder of the world.
Runaway1956

Re: Lack of support for multiple hard drives during install

Post by Runaway1956 »

remoulder wrote:What version of mint?
LMDE 64 bit April 2012 DVD


It's the latest LMDE ISO in the repositories.
Monsta
Level 10
Level 10
Posts: 3071
Joined: Fri Aug 19, 2011 3:46 am

Re: Lack of support for multiple hard drives during install

Post by Monsta »

This pull request has been merged into the installer's code today. Looks like it'll be possible to install to multiple drives after all.
zerozero

Re: Lack of support for multiple hard drives during install

Post by zerozero »

Monsta wrote:This pull request has been merged into the installer's code today. Looks like it'll be possible to install to multiple drives after all.
cool :D this was the most desired feature in live-installer
Monsta
Level 10
Level 10
Posts: 3071
Joined: Fri Aug 19, 2011 3:46 am

Re: Lack of support for multiple hard drives during install

Post by Monsta »

zerozero wrote:cool :D this was the most desired feature in live-installer
Yeah, people were asking for it quite often :)
Locked

Return to “LMDE Archive”