Installed Mint, but there are no drives visible...?

[mohitk117]

Hi!

I've installed linux mint on ym desktop... but there's a slight error..:

I had created a "new partition table" and made 3 partitions on the drive.
/ (root primary): 50gb
/home (logical): 107gb
swap (logical): 3gb



Now after booting from installed linux, it notified for updating linux, so I'm currently downloading the updates... This is a fresh installation so there's nothing else on the hard disk except mint.
error: There's no /HOME drive in "my computer" window. Just "160 harddisk" icon and CD and a file system icon.

I thought that having new partition table would create drives like C: , E:, etc... 2 drives are ext3 and one is swap, but none is visible... if something goes wrong after copying my files to this new installation then how can I take a backup of those files?

I didn't see any option to format these new drives during installation so I'm guessing I should reinstall mint, ... but don't know how to avoid this error even if I reinstall it again... the drives probably didn't format.

Could anyone provide help regarding this??


I tried searching on my own, and also asked on mint irc... i couldn't understand what they suggested, a gparted utility which i couldn't find on my mint... so I checked settings>disks and found the window in image below: I have no idea why it's an extended drive and not a real drive... how can i format it for it to be visible? In the image above (previous msg) the 160gb icon doesn't load anything and displays a error: Cannot mount this. The "file system" icon shows /home directory just like the "/user/ directory in windows 7...



Is the disk/drive handling in mint completely different from windows? Cause I thought that I could keep my media etc files all in a separate E:\ drive .... but this file system shows no similarity.
Please could you suggest what I should do? How to format during installation etc so that this drive is usable?

-Mohit.

[abnvolk]

Actually everything looks fine
The swap partition isn't visible to file managers. It's just like an additional RAM, so there's no need to access it and view its content.
The / drive is "File System"
The HOME drive is the "home" folder inside "/". Clicking the home icon will bring you there.
In Linux, disks are shown as /dev/sda, /dev/sdb... and partitions as /dev/sda1, /dev/sda2, just like in Windows where they are shown as C: or D:.

And you can install GParted using Software Manager.

[mohitk117]

hi! thanks for the reply..

I had created a separate partition for /home, and I think i made a mistake by making it a logical partition. I should have made it a primary partition.
Cause if anything goes wrong with the linux partition, atleast i'll have my files safely secured in different drive, like E: in windows...

Also, during the partitioning the option to format was crossed and greyed... does that mean that those new partitions will not be formatted? Or is there any option to format them? Does the swap partition need to be formatted?



The above image was found on another thread by xenopeek [ http://forums.linuxmint.com/viewtopic.php?f=42&t=122276 ]

[abnvolk]

You'll be able to format it by clicking on the partition and choose Change.
Don't worry about your current partitioning scheme - it looks quite healthy. When reinstalling you can format only the / partition, leaving the home and swap save. You won't need to format the swap partition.

[mohitk117]

thanks! I didn't know about that... maybe later if I install linux again, I'll keep that in mind... I thought the change button was to make changes to the partition table.. so I ignored it.

Thanks again! That solved my problem.

[mohitk117]

Hi!

I wasn't able to open the 160gb icon on my computer, so I thought of reinstalling the mint..

slight problem: The format option doesn't load effectively. I clicked on change, but still the option is greyed out... doesn't click to green...



I clicked on first partition / and then on change: after much fiddling around it got green.... but same is not happening with the second partition /home ...

I'm not continuing installation until you reply or someone else replies or I somehow figure out a way to format it...

I'm just curious to learn linux and have an eye candy desktop, that's all! So for that I need to use it as a regular machine to learn more... and cannot continue until my installation is successful.

Thanks for any help..

-Mohit.

[abnvolk]

Your /home partition seems unformatted, so the installer has to format it for you - that's all. You can't uncheck the box, that's why it's grey

[mohitk117]

ok! Thanks.

[cecar]

I would say 50GB is a bit oversized for root partition. 20GB should be more than enough.

[mohitk117]

I just clicked on install...
I kept more space so that I can install more programs... and I also use dropbox, which might handle files in the root drive only... so I thought I might need space..

[cecar]

Dropbox puts its files in your home partition.

[mohitk117]

Ok...

I just finished installing it again... and I think I should have checked /home directory before reinstalling...

I'm used to windows, so I thought that 160gb icon should show the 107gb /home directory while the "file system" should and was only showing 50gb.

I just checked the /home folder in the file system along with other folders, and the home folder's properties show that it's got 97gb free! That means that the partitioning was successful, only I hadn't noticed the home folder in the file system directory before...

Anyways, after reading your (cecar's) comment I need to ask: should I reinstall, or leave it like that only? I don't know where programs go and how much memory they take.. so I thought I should leave atleast 50gb for the linux root drive. If 50gb is a lot for my system, then should I reinstall? This would be the final reinstall... but only if Linux softwares "do not" take lots of space....

Thanks.

[cecar]

There is nothing wrong with keeping it 50 GB but i hardly believe you will ever fill that up. But what do i know. Maybe you are planning to install a huge amount of software to it.

[mohitk117]

That's correct...! I've been using many open source softwares on windows too... like songbird, Open Office, Avidemux, VLC etc etc....
Also, I was hoping to find some good eye candy apps for linux, which could be great!