LM 14 KDE installer won't allow me to select the correct HD

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mykec
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LM 14 KDE installer won't allow me to select the correct HD

Post by mykec »

Hi. I am trying to install Mint 14 KDE on a dual-boot setup with an external USB drive attached.

WinXP is installed on one of my two internal drives. (Lord knows why.)

My Linux drive has a 320GB capacity with Mint 11 Gnome taking up half of it.
The other half is for my experimentation. It currently contains Mint 14 MATE and Mint 14 Xfce.
I am *trying* to also install Mint 14 KDE there as well but the installer only gives me incorrect hard drive options.

The first time I tried installing it, my only target drive option was my 500GB USB external drive. Nope! So I unmounted and unplugged it completely.

The second time I tried installing it, my only target drive option was my 80GB WinXP drive. Nope! So I exited the installer entirely and came here to create this topic.

Both times, I was completely unable to select my 320GB Linux drive in the select list which is *supposed* to allow me to choose a drive. It simply was not there. When it was eyeing my 500GB external drive, my internal WinXP drive was also not an option. So, for whatever reason it seems to get an idea of which drive I want and doesn't let me override its choice.

What's up with that?
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.
741cc

Re: LM 14 KDE installer won't allow me to select the correct

Post by 741cc »

The installer asks you what type of set-up you require. There are three choices (whole disk, install alongside and something else/manual iirc). Try the lower one, manual install, and it should find all your partitions.
mykec
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Re: LM 14 KDE installer won't allow me to select the correct

Post by mykec »

Yes, I *used* to do manual partitioning like that 10+ years ago because it was the only way to do it. I've since abandoned that practice for the most part because - especially when installing only one copy of Linux to an entirely blank hard drive - the installers have improved tremendously and it simply hasn't been necessary to do more in that regard. Over the weekend, however, I had a rare opportunity to experiment with multiple installations on a single drive and was trying to explore all six versions of Mint, etc., while learning how to solve the "remove Nouveau / install nVidia" riddle for which there is an embarrassing lack of useful tutorials on the 'net for solving such a mission-critical issue that's been adversely affecting a lot of people during the past couple of years. Anyway... while manually partitioning the drive may have solved my "big picture" problem, it doesn't address the issue of why the KDE installer doesn't provide 3 drive options when 3 drives are available. Both times, it chose an incorrect drive and acted like the other 2 drives didn't exist. That's just wrong.
741cc

Re: LM 14 KDE installer won't allow me to select the correct

Post by 741cc »

Just a thought, but your 320 hd already has three OS partitions on it, plus a swap partition? That *probably* makes four primary partitions, the maximum allowed on a MBR system if that is what you are using. If so, there is no room for the KDE installer to utilise unless you go down the extended/logical route.
mykec
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Re: LM 14 KDE installer won't allow me to select the correct

Post by mykec »

What I remember seeing last month when I was doing all of that was one large primary partition with another large extended partition followed by a swap partition which, I assumed, was shared amongst all the versions of Linux on the drive. I ultimately gave up on trying to install so many different versions of Mint on a single drive because the final installation completely resized my primary partition to something way smaller than I initially created it to be - and a couple of the other partitions actually contained different installations than I initiall believed they did which caused me to use gparted to try and fix it - only to find that was going to take over 9 hours to correct... So I just said "fuhgeddaboutit" and started all over with a much more sane configuration. :)
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