New harddrive install advice.

[JustBen]

My son dropped his computer which led to the death of his hard drive. It came with Win 7 and 8 installed. I bought an upgraded version of his original HD. This is my first time installing an OS to a clean hard drive. Anything I should do before attempting to install the latest version of Mint? I plan to do the install from a flash drive because his computer doesn't have an optical drive.

The computer is an Asus x551m with a new 500gb Seagate ST500LM021. The old drive was the same except the model number was ST500LM012

[Mute Ant]

To get out of the factory, the drive has been through a complete sequence of low-level write-and-verify to make the tracks and sectors, so Seagate say it's ready to go. Once you are up-and-running in a Live Session, have a quick look at the drive's SMART report. You can use the Disks accessory or install the gsmartcontrol package. Just to see what it looks like new, hopefully a few hours on-time and near-zero bad sectors.

[michael louwe]

@ JustBen, .......

My son dropped his computer which led to the death of his hard drive. It came with Win 7 and 8 installed. I bought an upgraded version of his original HD. This is my first time installing an OS to a clean hard drive. Anything I should do before attempting to install the latest version of Mint? I plan to do the install from a flash drive because his computer doesn't have an optical drive.

The computer is an Asus x551m with a new 500gb Seagate ST500LM021. The old drive was the same except the model number was ST500LM012

.

Have a look at ... http://www.linuxandubuntu.com/home/how- ... t-from-usb
... The easy and automatic "Erase disk and install LM" method is not ideal for a large 500GB HDD because a large / or Root(= System) partition will be auto-created = slower system. The EFI Boot Partition will also be auto-created and the bootloader auto-installed on it.
.

My recommendation for your UEFI computer(= requires GPT disks and 64bit OS) is ...

[-1.] Disable Fast Boot and Secure Boot in BIOS setup. Do a test-drive of your computer with the Live LM USB.
[0.] Ensure that the internal HDD is in GPT disk mode. Confirm this by running the Live LM DVD and go to >Accessories >Disk >external HDD/sdb. Check the Partition type, ie GPT or MBR/ms-dos.? If MBR/ms-dos, launch the built-in GParted program and convert the disk to GPT, ie >external HDD/sdb >Device >Create new partition table >GPT >Apply.
[1.] Opt for the manual "Something else" install method.
[2.] On the internal HDD(= /sda >free space), create an EFI Boot Partition = fat32/550MB/mount point is /boot/efi, at the beginning of the disk/space.
[3.] Next create a / or Root partition of about 50GB(= Primary partition), a Swap partition of about 1.5X RAM size at the "end of this space" and a large Home partition with the rest of the disk space for data storage.
[4.] Ensure that the "Device for boot loader installation" is the EFI Boot Partition, which is usually /sda1.
[5.] After installation of LM has completed, go into BIOS setup and change the Boot menu to boot first from the internal HDD, if needed. There is a One-Time Boot F-key that can also be used to select the boot device for one-time only.

For some guidance ... viewtopic.php?f=42&t=122276 (manual partitioning Tutorial for Legacy BIOS mode and ms-dos disks)


P S - UEFI's GPT disks are not limited to 4 Primary partitions and 2TB in size = practically unlimited.
_ _ _ _ _ _ _

You can also set the BIOS to Legacy BIOS mode and install LM in this mode, which is much easier = CSM(Compatibility Support Module) or Legacy BIOS enabled. Legacy BIOS uses ms-dos/MBR disks which are limited to 4 Primary partitions and 2TB in size. It can use 32bit or 64bit OS.

P S - Certain high-end OEM Win 8.x/10 computers, eg Acer, Asus and HP, have an obstructive or pro-M$ BIOS setting for "select an UEFI file as trusted for executing",(= Linux cannot boot) .......
https://itsfoss.com/no-bootable-device-found-ubuntu/
viewtopic.php?t=236560
... The above latest(= 2017) OEM laptops, eg Acer E and S series, may have even removed this BIOS setting(eg "No bootable device" after installing Linux and cannot be fixed), but may be restored by a new BIOS firmware update from the OEMs = update through Windows only. This was after many complaints from affected users. ...
viewtopic.php?f=46&t=254948

[JustBen]

@ JustBen, .......

My son dropped his computer which led to the death of his hard drive. It came with Win 7 and 8 installed. I bought an upgraded version of his original HD. This is my first time installing an OS to a clean hard drive. Anything I should do before attempting to install the latest version of Mint? I plan to do the install from a flash drive because his computer doesn't have an optical drive.

The computer is an Asus x551m with a new 500gb Seagate ST500LM021. The old drive was the same except the model number was ST500LM012

.

Have a look at ... http://www.linuxandubuntu.com/home/how- ... t-from-usb
... The easy and automatic "Erase disk and install LM" method is not ideal for a large 500GB HDD because a large / or Root(= System) partition will be auto-created = slower system. The EFI Boot Partition will also be auto-created and the bootloader auto-installed on it.
.

My recommendation for your UEFI computer(= requires GPT disks and 64bit OS) is ...

[-1.] Disable Fast Boot and Secure Boot in BIOS setup. Do a test-drive of your computer with the Live LM USB.
[0.] Ensure that the internal HDD is in GPT disk mode. Confirm this by running the Live LM DVD and go to >Accessories >Disk >external HDD/sdb. Check the Partition type, ie GPT or MBR/ms-dos.? If MBR/ms-dos, launch the built-in GParted program and convert the disk to GPT, ie >external HDD/sdb >Device >Create new partition table >GPT >Apply.
[1.] Opt for the manual "Something else" install method.
[2.] On the internal HDD(= /sda >free space), create an EFI Boot Partition = fat32/550MB/mount point is /boot/efi, at the beginning of the disk/space.
[3.] Next create a / or Root partition of about 50GB(= Primary partition), a Swap partition of about 1.5X RAM size at the "end of this space" and a large Home partition with the rest of the disk space for data storage.
[4.] Ensure that the "Device for boot loader installation" is the EFI Boot Partition, which is usually /sda1.
[5.] After installation of LM has completed, go into BIOS setup and change the Boot menu to boot first from the internal HDD, if needed. There is a One-Time Boot F-key that can also be used to select the boot device for one-time only.

For some guidance ... viewtopic.php?f=42&t=122276 (manual partitioning Tutorial for Legacy BIOS mode and ms-dos disks)


P S - UEFI's GPT disks are not limited to 4 Primary partitions and 2TB in size = practically unlimited.
_ _ _ _ _ _ _

You can also set the BIOS to Legacy BIOS mode and install LM in this mode, which is much easier = CSM(Compatibility Support Module) or Legacy BIOS enabled. Legacy BIOS uses ms-dos/MBR disks which are limited to 4 Primary partitions and 2TB in size. It can use 32bit or 64bit OS.

P S - Certain high-end OEM Win 8.x/10 computers, eg Acer, Asus and HP, have an obstructive or pro-M$ BIOS setting for "select an UEFI file as trusted for executing",(= Linux cannot boot) .......
https://itsfoss.com/no-bootable-device-found-ubuntu/
viewtopic.php?t=236560
... The above latest(= 2017) OEM laptops, eg Acer E and S series, may have even removed this BIOS setting(eg "No bootable device" after installing Linux and cannot be fixed), but may be restored by a new BIOS firmware update from the OEMs = update through Windows only. This was after many complaints from affected users. ...
viewtopic.php?f=46&t=254948

I can't get the partion type from the HD. So I tried gparted. I get a warning from Libparted," The driver descriptor says the physical block size is 2048 bytes, but Linux says it is 512 bytes." Should I cancel or ignore this warning?

[michael louwe]

@ JustBen, .......

I can't get the partion type from the HD. So I tried gparted. I get a warning from Libparted," The driver descriptor says the physical block size is 2048 bytes, but Linux says it is 512 bytes." Should I cancel or ignore this warning?

.
You can safely ignore the warning.

Or, from the Live LM USB, >Try LM, launch the Terminal and type sudo parted -l

Correction on my previous post; ... should be internal HDD/sda and not external HDD/sdb.

[JustBen]

@ JustBen, .......

I can't get the partion type from the HD. So I tried gparted. I get a warning from Libparted," The driver descriptor says the physical block size is 2048 bytes, but Linux says it is 512 bytes." Should I cancel or ignore this warning?

.
You can safely ignore the warning.

Or, from the Live LM USB, >Try LM, launch the Terminal and type sudo parted -l

Correction on my previous post; ... should be internal HDD/sda and not external HDD/sdb.

Thanks. I will give it a go again.

[Mute Ant]

Unless you are responding to an outrageous post that the author might want to delete, you don't need to repeatedly quote the whole thread. The phpBB software takes care of presenting the Q and A in a sane order.

[JustBen]

ok