HELP PLEASE! Mint 19 install killed my computer [SOLVED]

[enfoprefect]

I tried Mint 19 live flash drive on my wife's Lenovo laptop and it seemed all right. So I started a permanent install. It partitioned the 450GB disk 50/50 and seemed to install everything. At the final end, it reported "Sorry, I couldn't install the grub loader..." Now it boots rather quickly to a grub prompt, grub> with a message, Minimal BASH-like line editing is supported.... This happens even with the flash drive inserted. I can't get past that. The laptop has a AMD 64 bit processor and UEFI instead of BIOS. It had Windows 10 installed which I told it to leave. Is there anything I can do to recover? Now I can't even try to reinstall Linux.

[JerryF]

First, don't panic and try this, that, and the other that you've read. What you've read may not apply to you.

Can you boot to the live Mint USB? If so, open a terminal and post the result of this command:

Code: Select all

parted -l

You said:

It had Windows 10 installed which I told it to leave.

Did you use the option, "Install alongside Windows"?

[michael louwe]

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Your problem is likely related to ... viewtopic.php?t=273058 (<FIXED> Installing Linux Mint 19 from ISO, please read, EFI installs only)
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If so, you can ...
1. download the new LM 19 v2 ISO and reinstall with the Internet connected.
2. use the same Live LM 19 USB/DVD and reinstall with the Internet disconnected.
3. just try to manually install Grub ... https://sites.google.com/site/easylinuxtipsproject/6

[Mute Ant]

Booting a Live Session USB or DVD of the installed OS is your number-one Linux panic-station. Live Session takes over before any 'broken' system gets a chance to start, even without a hard-drive fitted. From there you can access the tools and help to repair things while they are inert, or rescue anything unique and install again.

So get 'Boot a Live Session Mint' practiced and perfect. "It Won't Boot Live Session" is just you fighting your computer settings, not Mint fighting you. I like a DVD boot to start with, it's a bit slow, but Boot-From-Optical-Drive has been standard home-computer technology for over 30 years, it always works.

Often you can use the BIOS screen of a machine to switch off access to a drive... SATA-0 Disabled... so whatever state it's in is untouchable while you practice. Or you can disconnect the data cable to the drive, or remove the drive completely and put it somewhere safe, especially if it has unique data already stored in it.

You can run a full Mint OS installed to a 16GB USB3 stick for months... £8 each... and they are easy to duplicate too. Get a few removable stores and some practice. Decide whether you really need Windows, or if it's a habit you can do without.

ADVERT
My whole OS runs from SanDisk 16GB Ultra sticks through USB2 ports. They are fast, cheap, cool and silent. Filled with stuff I want to keep, they get duplicated whole in my 1TB removable drive and then retired to a little box at work... Air Gapped Backup... Then start a new one.

[enfoprefect]

JerryF, I can boot from the USB only by breaking into the UEFI then telling it to boot the USB. The output from parted -l is

Model: ATA TOSHIBA MQ01ABF0 (scsi)
Disk /dev/sda: 500GB
Sector size (logical/physical): 512B/4096B
Partition Table: gpt
Disk Flags:

Code: Select all

Number  Start     End        Size       File system  Name                                   Flags
 1          1049kB  1050MB  1049MB  ntfs             Basic data partition              hidden, diag
 2          1050MB  1322MB  273MB   fat32           EFI system partition             boot, hidden, esp
 3          1322MB  2371MB  1049MB fat32           Basic data partition              hidden
 4          2371MB  2505MB  134MB                      Microsoft reserved partition  msftres
 5          2505MB  231GB    228GB  ntfs              Basic data partition              msftdata
 8          231GB    459GB    229GB  ext4
 6          459GB    486GB    26.8GB ntfs             Basic data partition               msftdata
 7          486GB    500GB    13.8GB ntfs             Basic data partition               hidden, diag

Sorry, it looks like all the spacing is missing.

[enfoprefect]

Michael, this is a new ISO I just downloaded yesterday and did all the verification steps.

I also did your suggestion #3 which all went as described but I still get the same result. It almost immediately boots to the grub> prompt. It seems like the MBR is pointing to grub but even after reinstalling grub per #3, it still doesn't seem to have any information.

Interesting though if I get to the UEFI boot options, what used to be a reference to the disk is missing and replaced with one to "Windows loader." If I tell it to boot from that one it loads Windows. If I tell it to boot ubuntu, it goes to the grub prompt.

[JeremyB]

Try https://help.ubuntu.com/community/Boot- ... _in_Ubuntu. I think there is an option where it will just analyze the system and make a summary of the info, choose that and post URL

[JerryF]

...
It seems like the MBR is pointing to grub but even after reinstalling grub per #3, it still doesn't seem to have any information.
...

Good to hear that your Windows is not damaged.

Your disk is set up as GPT, so you don't have an MBR. For your disk, the bootloader must be placed in partition #2, the EFI partition. It looks like it is.

With Michael's suggestion and link here https://sites.google.com/site/easylinuxtipsproject/6 did you mount partition 8 as your root partition?

[enfoprefect]

My apologies Michael and Jerry. I went back and double checked. I seems I installed an older version of Tara, before v2. It complained a bit but I finally tried again with internet disconnected and it now works as expected. Meanwhile I am making a new flash with the ISO I downloaded yesterday. Thanks so much to all of you. You guys are awesome. Maybe some day I'll be able to offer help too instead of always asking for it.

[JerryF]

Good to hear!