Should OS-Uninstaller be run from a live session only?

[fruitkiller]

I have an old Mint partition that still shows up in grub since it is on a different hard drive than the one I'm currently using and since it is a broken beyond repair install of 17.3 and I want to upgrade this 17.1, months-long reconstruction of how I like my MATE themes and many other settings to be (I almost broke the thing down by going into Software Sources and purging old configuration, for some reason libgnutls and all the files related to it disappeared after that, had to download the file I needed back from Launchpad and install it in the terminal with sudo dpkg -i...that's the first time purging config from there caused this, the system had a hiccup. Then I had a strange message about method blah blah, short story I could not update anymore, Software Sources refused to open. I was in there to remove the Google Chrome PPA...I remember I had to do some trick to even get it to be allowed in, and it was just trying first at home to install it to know how to do it, quickly at that other person's desktop on 17.3...I forgot what it is, because I installed Chromium like almost anybody else if I need to use another browser than Firefox).

So that sent me into a scare and I'm looking into Timeshift and looking at how the thing works and if it's really as good as it's reported to be (as good as windows system restore...although, that thing sucks for me since I got 3 OS's and not only Windows 7 installed, save points disappear when windows isn't the only OS...of course).

Anyway, is it safe to use OS-Uninstaller in a non-live session in the current OS I have installed. I don't mind booting from a usb drive, I got a 17.3 usb with a bunch of utilities just for those situations, but I hate to reboot, I mine some crypto and I like taking advantage of my free electricity, other than hot water, cheap bastards, apartment. It's on a partition I don't even mount as everything I wanted to keep when I reinstalled, I backed up, like my home folder and even packages and ppa's and bookmarks, Aptik is a neat tool...I'd rather just be able to use OS-Uninstaller right now and then use the upgrade to 17.3 Rosa button asap. I figured out what was wrong, I was using kernel 4.2.0 with AMD Proprietary Driver 15.30.1025...apparently one can't do that.

Last question, when I upgrade back to Rosa, I remember that installing 17.3 straight up and not from an upgrade gives one 3.19.0.-29 or such kernel, or maybe 3.19.0-32, I'm looking at ukuu's list of kernels right now, and due to concerns regarding Spectre V2 (I have an AMDFX-9350 and I've hardened the system a little with Lynis, i've done the easier tasks to harden the system..I'm also running the very last 3.16 kernel, 3.16.56, it showed up as an update and info about it is that it does fix some Spectre concerns, but I hear one is really in the clear only when running 4.x), once I'm back in 17.3, I'll likely want to install a compatible kernel, which as I understand ukuu lists only ubuntu kernels, which is what is needed for Mint, that 3.16.56 didn't break anything so I trust it, can I run 4.0/4.1 kernels with 17.3. It seems like the answer is yes, but I'll take some of the expert's advice in here.

tl;dr, is it safe to run OS-Uninstaller in a non-live session, is 17.3 Rosa compatible with 4.0.x and 4.1.x kernels because I can't run 4.2.0 without breaking my very much needed proprietary driver, please do not suggest open source or amdgpu-pro, I've tried and my 7870+7850 Radeon HD's (crossfired) don't like those options. thnx

[Sir Charles]

I have never used OS-Uninstaller, but according to https://help.ubuntu.com/community/OS-Uninstaller it can be run from an installed OS as well.

[fruitkiller]

rtitoiWell...Ive suffered a cataclysm from doing this, when you start it, it offers what OS in a menu to choose that you want to remove, I picked the old 17.3 partition, and then I made sure that grub was reinstalled on all partitions and prevented the uninstalling of the OS from formatting the partition.

Welll it ended up removing my, thankfully practically 90% backed up Mint 17.1 partition...I wanted to get rrid of that malfunctioning 17.3 that I did not log in in a year+....maybe I didn't what I've seen in bold before starting which OS it was going to remove but...now I'm just wondering if I can get that 17.1 back so I can upgrade it to 17.3 from there. I'm currently in a live 17.3 usb session, it basically moved all the files and config, everything to a folder named "deleted-OS" on the driver where this was, all the .something config folders, everything, I should have listened to myself and done it through the Boot-Repair OS disk, it's also got OS-Uninstaller. For some reason it left the broken 17.3 Rosa and at least it didn't break my WIn7. I didn't tempt the devil more than I already did, spent hours on end sending my home files and directories to my backup folder on an external, the only thing I had left to do, packages saved with Aptik, along with ppas, packages I've installed myself in their own list, browser bookmarks, themes, applicatiion settings, alll thankfully saved by Aptik. Just as I was getting used to Timeshift......anyway.

But, am I doomed? What's left on what was my 17.1, partition, there's the folder I told you about....also one thing I forgot to say is that I didn't get the chance either to save my Thunderbird settings, mail accounts etc., which I know one can do, as well as browser extensions and thunderbird extensions....it's a cataclysm, I click on Linux Mint 17.3 Rosa to remove, then the program jammed on installing grub on sdb2 and then all application shortcuts became white sheets with red X's..old school. Other folders left in the partition are a folder called /dev/ with some folders and a little files in it, /proc/ which has nothing in it..../run/ which contains folders such as :

Code: Select all

dnsmasq  lock  motd.dynamic  resolvconf  sendsigs.omit.d  speech-dispatcher
hplip    lvm   network       samba       shm              utmp

and /sys/ which has absolutely nothing in iit.

I've done what I do in those emergency situations, install and run testdisk, I've brought up partitions, of course I did not add any files on the partition where the good OS was, but all it would find was files showing up in red, meaning they were lost forever....I am backed up but I've spent the last 5-6 hours making sure the 17.3 usb I'm running on has a folder with all of my my important personal text files...those wiith all of my logins and passes, encrypted of course, I mean, I lost a lot of /Pictures and other stuff, it's a cataclysm. And it's because I followed that advice to run it on an installed linux, not a live session, I'm pretty sure. Am I screwed? What if I install 17.3 over that partition, and then add all the .acetoneiso or whatever, all of the config folders after I fix everything I can with Aptik...this is really hard on my morale I got to say, not going to do anything I normally would tonight since iit means I can't even get, I mean I could, but I'm drained of all lenergy. If some of you have a solution and one can explain what might have happened there with OS-Uninstaller....you'd be wellcome, I wouldl really appreciate it, because I selected the OS I wanted to remove, the 1 out of 3, so I could have more ext4 space after I just do the upgrade back to 17.3 in the Update Manager after everything was 100% stable and exactly the way I like it in the 17.1 install that got wiped out. I assume the fact they don't delete the home directory in its entirety if you tell iit not to....could be some saving grace there...I trusted them who make that software because, Boot-Repair I use since basically I learned to use Linux back in 2009-2011, which were pretty intense years when it comes to just study the whole thing because I got sick of MS when XP x64, which got updates longer than most, was finally discontinued, at least for regular personal computers, likely not the countries who paid MS to keep the updates going.

I'm reallly discouraged and I wish I just had waited a little more, but I tell myself that since months, Please chime in with your wonderful ideas....sigh (not sighing about you my friends, just the crappy evening I had to endure because of this, that 12 pack is gonna be drunk, I'll look in the morning if anybody can say if anything's salvageable from that 17.1 partition. Don't mind asking for details, although you might get them in a while, I'm so frustrated I'm actually going to take a long walk outside....

[fruitkiller]

So should I reinstall on the previous 17.1 partition where all the .something config files are, and install over it, tellling it not to format, or should I get rid of the 17.3 I wanted to get rid, and I'm doing it the old fashioned way, gParted after I saved everything I want out of that partition, which is very little, some more waste of time, as I remember dragging everything of value out of it, I never even mounted that partition or should I go ahead, format it away and install 17.3 over it, and now that I know what my video adapter driver issue was and how easy it is to fix, install it and spend the next 2 weeks with Aptik bringing everything back the way I like it, and that's just a tiny part of the whole config I have to do, at least most software and other essentials are covered by Aptik backups on an external, there's many other things I need to configure, I'm sick of this and I will definitely make images of my partitions from now on, all those other tools seems ridiculous when one can just do that, in Disks of all places.

[Pierre]

well technically speaking - - unlike any software programs, you don't "uninstall" an operating system.

generally you would overwrite / erase the existing operating system with the new operating system,
& which will usually format / erase the existing system, during the installation process.

you can then use this method to preserve the files that are in your separate /home partition,
and just format the / root partition, to enable the new system to be installed.

[fruitkiller]

Believe me I know, I've always just, you know, pulled out gParted or Minitools Partition Wizard Tech Edition in Windows to format away some ill-working OS, a partition that contained files that were moved elsewhere you know.

OS-Uninstaller really uninstalled the OS, after booting into Windows 7 with a SuperGrub disk (the OS I wanted to get rid of with this OS-Uninstaller application).

So, I don't know, maybe I went ahead, and clicked too fast, my mouse is having issues sometimes, next time I'll get a mouse with a cord, the cursor often moves at really bad times, and I could have clicked my working Linux Mint partition by accident, but I also would have to have looked at the screen that follows the OS-detection and selection of the OS one wants to uninstall (really, the program exists, look it up, OS-Uninstaller, and it is made by the same guy who makes Boot-Repair, Boot-Repair always fixed everything, like it just did now and now I got grub when booting, first choice is the broken Mint I wanted to remove without moving the data, or losing it even less so.

So the whole home folder, thanks to my choice of selecting not to format the partition and to keep the files. Basically my untouched OS' files other than what's in /, which is what OS-Uninstaller does, it gets rid of what makes an OS function and gets rid of its grub or in cases of Windows, MBR. Thank god I've kept Win7 x64 Ultimate, I keep it as my "okay, you've worked for about 20 hours straight trying to fix things, just boot into Windows for a while.

My question here, to those who are tl;dr, can I take all of my home folder files which are in that deleted-os folder, bring them back in / and install 17.3 over that partition without losing the data? I seem to remember unlike say, reinstalling a messed up Win7 partition, or maybe all of 'em, I wouldn't know, you can install a new system and the old /Windows/ becomes /windows.old/ keeping all of the user files. I think installing Mint or any Linux directly from DVD or USB forces you to format the partition you're telling it to use. Which is quite an issue right now, it would make things extremely easier to reinstall, as my configuration for all the apps I have installed would already be there, making the whole process less of a pain. Unless the Application Settings option in Aptik also works perfectly. In any case, there are files in /Documents /Downloads /Pictures /Videos even /Podcasts I have to take from there if they are facing annihilation once I install 17.3 from USB. I guess what I want is being able to use all of the .audacity and all of those config folders, at least, for my applications and make it as painless as possible. I was FUMING after OS-Uninstaller did away with the OS I was inside of, seeing the icons become sheets of paper with X's on it, on my upper panel etc. I knew I had f'd up big time. The only thing I had not done I should have was make an image of the partition, so I could have just restored it, reinstalled grub from CD and that would've been it. I thought Timeshift would make partition images on an external drive periodically, I haven't found anything that can do that....while in the actual OS when the partition is being used, it has to be done, even just from DIsks, while NOT using the OS on that drive/partition.

So yeah, I messed up, although inexplicably. yannubuntu PPA's manager will hear from me, they've always made quality apps in the past and still do, the latest Boot-Repair is the very best out there since I figured out what PPA's were, back in 2010 when I gave myself a crash linux learning job, when it was my last nothing-to-do summer in college (which thankfully was 5 minutes by foot from my mother's house, didn't know dorm life or massive debt from having to live away from home because the program you're in is in the university my mother picked for me and my brother so that we wouldn't have an excuse not to go to over there to college)....I had a bunch of leftover Dexedrine (study aid) and I knew more that I could imagine the year before about Linux, surpassing my online friends who would "speak chinese" a bit too often in that IRC channel of ours. I'm definitely not a pro, you couldn't get me to start learning how to use Selinux or Lukes, that's a bridge too far, I know how to implement grsecurity but unfortunately...it doesn't work with Mint, I unfortunately learned, at least it was in virtual machine, when the additional password grsecurity adds to the login window would work but then it would load for infinity....

I can't believe I've done this, I know I double clicked on the partition that's on /sdc5/, that damn broken mint 17.3 because it's running a kernel over 4.2.x which I installed without knowing amd video drivers do not work, so in 17.3,to get the best protection from the kernel, what kernel in 4.0.x or 4.1.x will I be able to use? or should I stay with the 3.19 family, at least I never had problem in there, except the Sceptre V2, which is the main issue for me, I got an AMD processor and it's saving my butt from a lot, but Sceptre V2 (and I hear there's V3 now?), hence why that linux mint 17.1 I removed was running the emergency kernel 3.16.56, which has mostly high-level security changes from .55 . I guess I can find answers on my own about that, but I'm taking a break right now from fiddling around with my main desktop...all that I think I could have lost right now is almost impossible to take, hence why I made a copy of those home files and also uploaded it to my VPS, because there's some stuff I simply cannot lose in there, thankfully it's mostly just data, so salvageable, I can read it right now in Windows...

[fruitkiller]

Please, I'm already so damn ill from having to use windows. The only thing I want to do right now still is remove the Linux Mint 17.3, formatting the partition it is one, as all files on there had been transfered to my Mint 17.1 install I've destroyed...well OS-Uninstaller destroyed...I looked at the os-uninstaller.log files and I can't make sense of it at all, so that's another cul-de-sac.

Should I take all of my home folder, which has the config for most (some programs are touchy on that front, with installs in /opt/ and such but I'll get there once, well. Right now I don't know if it's a good idea to just format the partition with the broken Mint install on it, since grub has been repaired after the complete horror that happened to me, and whoever maintains the yannubuntu PPA, you'll hear from me, I had give you my trust because Boot-Repair and Y-PPA Source Managers have been around since I was a novice linux user. Boot-Repair, everytime, has worked wonderfully and I was praising the rescue disk you guys made, that Boot-Repair OS, other than a missing (but I founbd my way around) lack of "open folder in terminal" option, has been great, and maybe I should have booted from the disc and used OS-Uninstaller that comes with it instead of in retrospect...alll guides regarding that application, it said to use it by booting through Boot-Repair OS, not to do it when in an actual installed linux OS. If anybody wants to see the log file os-uninstaller produced, it put the thing in my Windows 7 partition in the root folder, my guess is it did the same and put it in the 17.3 installl, the one I actually selected for removal.

Some people question why one would want to just remove the OS...well that's one reason, I've never used Boot-Repair in a situation where I would end up with just Windows, if I did it right now, I got the broken OS as first choice then Windows 7. Oh yeah, the options are different, and I guess "Restore MBR" would be one option that needs to remain checked. But I'd rather just install from usb 17.3 on the partition that got wiped of its OS, it left me os-deleted as a folder with my home folder in it and those other folders I mentioned, especially since I had checked the box not to format the partition and only remove the OS, so I would not have 2 Mint 17.3 in grub, I'm not sure how that would've turned out so I stayed away from that prospect, I' think I've read it was a bad idea to do this, have 2 of the same linux distro and having both show up in grub, some issues...although now, I can't take think that it would have been any worse than the mountain of issues i'm dealing with, nonwithstanding having to be stuck in Windows 7 not for gaming and doing 6 months worth of updates while making sure I do not Win10-ify the thing with those 4 updates that are all about telemetry with very lacking documentation about their purpose.

Please guys, I'll leave you alone for a while after this, when I get some answers as to how to proceed.The only benefit I have to be in Windows is to do a couple things I could not pull right while in Mint 17.x....Audacity works so much better with my updated as much as possible sound card. It used to work great at what I wanted to do, but that and NTFS externals that need chkdsk done to them (I haven't had much luck with ntfs-3g since like Ubuntu 11.10, the last Ubuntu I used until it was past its life circle, then I went with Mint 15 and I don't remember using that very much, but I know I've often thought "oh great, that external's actiing strange, dont wanna reboot in win7. Well, fate made it so. But as soon as I have done everything I wanted to do in here, I want to get out asap., as I'm sure you understand lol.

Have a good day everyone, I'll try to have fun watching progress bars and listening to music from my turntable while it's being ripped by Audacity 2.2.2...I know my version was getting real old, so, at least I'm on paid vacation, I'll be playing some records and making complicated lineage files for the rips a good part of the day.

[Sir Charles]

Hi fruitkiller,

Could you post the ouput from:

Code: Select all

sudo parted -l

and if possible a screenshot of gparted showing your partitions' set-up?

[fruitkiller]

As I said, I am in windows 7 right now to be able to use the desktop. Can't perform this.

I wonder why you want to see my internal hard drives and their partitions....I got a tool pretty much like gParted in Windows 7 called Minitools Partition Wizard Tech Edition....it does the same.

But really all I need to know now is if it's possible to take my old home directory after that cllusterf**k caused by OS-Uninstallelr, at least I was wise enough to tell it not to format the partition. I've said what was left other than the "deleted-OS" directory where it left all of my very much loved perfect (thankfully I knew I was about to have it upgrade back to Rosa, so I've done everything to make it as painless as possible when I have a clean new 17.3, I'll turn on Aptik and bring back everything, and add my exported bookmarks for a couple of browsers.

I can't boot into a live session of Mint or any other linux distro I got on DVD or some usb drives or Boot-Repair OS, I'm taking the time off Linux, to do what it's failing to do correctly, well sometimes it will work fine, others, it will not work at all, recording and encoding vinyls from my not-so-cheap phono turntable that happens to have a USB and even composite red-white exits (those suck other than on some high end sound system, and even then one will use the phono jack).

Here's a screengrab of Partition Wizard, you'll see whatever it is you want to see, although that does not help me, I'll satisfy your curiosity. All external drives are turned off, of course, if you don't see letters attributed to the ext3/4 partitions, it's because I have not started Ext2Fsd yet (a windows program that allows one to mount ext2/3/4 partitions and to give them windows letter identifiers.

Sorry, not used to not have a non crappy image editor, Pinta works my screengrabs very well, I always even before my linux awakening suck with MSPaint...but I think that's the expected level. If the site allowed pictures with height higher than 400 it would have been easier, anyway, can make out most of it. So there you Had to make me suffer with Paint.exe did ya? :p



the 17.3 partition I wanted to remove the OS from is what would be "sdc1" and the Mint 17.1 partition I was ready to upgrade after months of playing around and getting everything perfectly the way I wanted (oh this happened before, but I didn't know about Aptik then, it was easy, I decided to go with a 17.1 iso put on a usb stick because the issue was that I was running kernel 4.2.0 and had no idea that AMD Proprietary driver, the best for me is 15.30.1025...I know there's a 15.32 that came out last before amdgpu-pro (something I'm not ready to learn how it works...) anyway, I need that driver to function and since I learned how to make debs out of the .run files, it's a breeze to install them, .run files worked on a brand new install but after that, give it 3 weeks and installation will fail at 93% due to a DKMS error and you know when that happens and you are not an expert, just an above-average linux user that this is some error,w hich I've shared here and elsewhere, on kernels previous to 4.2.0....it's a pain, the debs one can make out of the run files are a real life-saver.

I just want to reinstall on that old first drive, still works but I guess even though it's a jokingly small drive, 200GB, it's a black caviar WD and benchmark tests a few years ago were showing it was still in better health than sdb here,when I got it, brand new. Install 17.3, have my home directory be everything that was in that 17.1 home directory,and go from there, install everything back,and they'll have configs for them awaiting already. Sure I'd expect some issues, but it's nowhere like losing your entire perfectly working and updated...hell I had updated a package a few hours before the whole dumb idea of starting OS-Uninstaller while in a normal session,but Boot-Repair from the same guys can be installed permanently and works like a charm. This last paragraph is my big question,willI be able to use the home folder that OS-U put in a folder called deleted-OS. Everything else is tangential. Not meaning to sound like a dick, but I'm pretty pissed off at that program which I have seen with my own eyes being used, although on a usb live session...and it worked. I had to follow the advice of someone here who did not say if they had used the thing, but that it should work for X reason,I forgot what, it aint long ago, one can find it through my profile's post list.

[JerryF]

@fruitkiller,

Your pic is too small to read properly. You can create larger resolution pics, but use jpg and compression levels of about 50 (depending on the program).

Try running a live session of Mint and then perform the sudo parted -l as Marziano suggested.

As a word of humble advice: Keep the posts short. TMI. Very hard to read.

[Sir Charles]

Hi fruitkiller,

In the midst of this terrible loss, you have had some luck that the home directory has been preserved. It is perfectly feasible to copy back the content of your old home to the new one. Make sure that you’re copying over all of the contents of the home folder, and not the home folder itself. Otherwise, when everything is done, all of your stuff will be in “/home/home/user”, which won’t work.

[fruitkiller]

Thanks for the actual helpful post Marziano. Could I install 17.1 (I mean that home folder comes from 17.1), then reboot in a live session, delete the new home folder, and copy my old home folder back where that one was?

I know that all of the settings in system folders in / are lost, but I got all of that saved, luckily a few hours before the terrible accident, I had backed up everything with Aptik, applications, application settings, packages of apps that are not in the repos, themes and downloaded themes and their settings, ppa's, bookmarks for firefox and chromium, all of my home directory...directories on an external. So I guess I would need to make a 17.1 iso, and then do what I wanted to do, finally, do the upgrade to 17.3. I don't know if it's safe to use that home folder in 17.3 since all those .config folders in the home folder were installed on 17.1

If it makes no difference, cool. But please, be certain of your answer or say nothing. I have followed someone's advice when I ran OS-Uninstaller while in an installed regular hard drive session. First time ever I have gotten bad advice in here, I should give that person remote access and watch them do the whole aggravating process of reinstalling all of this. I'm definitely reinstalling it over that broken (with no files I want in it) 17.3 partition, so that this grub is cleaner and doesn't have 3 OS's and multiple sub options to previous kernels.

Thanks Marziano, now if you or someone else can answer this very last question of mine, I can stop this really annoying usage of Win7 for something elsle than play a few games I can't get to play over Wine or CrossOver, the only reason I keep it...also as an OS to fall back on as I never ever modify it, I know it won't break on me and actually, if I got the home folder still, it's because I went deep into the options and told it not to format the partition, as it was already ext4, and it left the deleted-OS folder and those 4 other folders, 3 of them empty, with this other one, I've shown you.

Sorry for the long posts, but it's a complex issue and I rather throw everything that comes to mind in one post rather than have a series of questions that do not get anywhere for a few days before an actual answer is given. Lots of people are fans of ignoring your 90% of people's OPs and then ask a question or offer to use a command that OP likely knows about and already tried when they lay out their issue and not speaking like a noob...

[fruitkiller]

@fruitkiller,

Your pic is too small to read properly. You can create larger resolution pics, but use jpg and compression levels of about 50 (depending on the program).

Try running a live session of Mint and then perform the sudo parted -l as Marziano suggested.

As a word of humble advice: Keep the posts short. TMI. Very hard to read.

I'll explain it to you

sda1 is where Mint 17.1 that worked was and where 'deleted-OS' containing my home folder and 4 other folders, 3 of them empty, the one that isn't, I've shown what they contain.
sdb is a drive I use only for data
sdc1 is where the broken 17.3 Mint is, the one I tried to uninstall using this tool OS-Uninstaller, likely where I will reinstall a working linux once I know about my very last question, posted above
sdc2 is a linux swap
sdc3 is where Windows 7 is
sdc4 is some 15mb that wouldn't fit in any partition and there was no reason to create a 30mb swap.

So,that's it for now, while I have tasks to do even if it has to be while in WIndows, waiting for the final answer to my question, and I know there's real smart helpful people here, I will do the task you ask for when I start back a boot-repair OS or once I got my answer and 17.1 will be reinstalled with the home directory left behind pasted over the empty...I guess I will have to do that in second live session, if it is what I have to do, if I can install 17.3 and past the same home directory in place of the one currently there, it will save me a hell lot of time. But if it has to be from a 17.1 install...well, I just need to know if that home directory is compatible. An answer to that question will solve this thread.

[Sir Charles]

If you have chosen to backup everything with Aptik, including your home where all the .config folders/files reside, from your previous 17.1, I would personally re-install 17.1 and run Aptik to bring it all back to the new install. Make sure that you copy the home folder from the deleted OS into another medium first. If you haven't done extensive changes in those few hours between backing up with Aptik and the deletion of the OS, then everything (or most of it I hope) should be in order with your new install.

[fruitkiller]

Alright, gotcha, I'm moving the home folder with a similar tool was siimilar, maybe it is, in Ubuntu/Mint, TeraCopy, it 's so much faster than cut-pasting with explorer or caja, and I run MATE...least resources ever when on idle even if I have a fairly powderful by 2018 standards, in summer 2015 when I bought that mobo and the 3 times as expensive as the mobo AMD-FX9350 Black Edition octore edition, at least this time in Windows wasn't wasted, I've learned how to overclock with AMD Overdrive efficiently, the stock fan was horrible and I stuck with it until 6 months ago when I got sick of the cpu getting to 78c when burning a DVD. That EVO cooler is as efficient as some water based cooling, mint 17.3 (when my install was fine) and 17.1 were at around 17-21c idling which is amazing, never had it go higher than 45c while mining both through CPU and GPU some ETH or DSH. I've also learned how to make win7 faster by disabling many scheduled tasks nobody really ever needs (thanks CCleaner, never look elsewherein Startup than the first tab....alright, it's gonna take a while still, move all those files to my internal data drive,it should be faster than to an external drive, both are plugged to the gray 6gb/s SATA entries, not on the regular red ones which are what, 3.5gb/s? That 200gb hard drive you've seen as sda was where mint 17.1 and the swap...I installed it there because I dunno, I thought Mint 17.3 not being on its own drive and sharing the same drive as windows 7 was maybe the cause of my problems,unlikely but eh..I read about this a long time ago.

I'll likely installit back on it...what sucks is Ihave a 500gb crappy because it's blue, a blue caviar WD HD, 500gb whose circuit board broke, and only a couple of people on ebay have the very same serial number circuit board..I unscrewed the weird working one...(while in BIOS, it would appear and disappear again and again, thats when I figured out what's wrong with me...I got imp. files iin there. gotta get a circuit board for it asap, 200GB and thefact that HD is 13 years old and had a better health profile than a brand new 1TB Red Caviar WD HD, which I tested right away with the SpeedFan hard drive testing utility, I guess it's because back then they only bothered to sell Black Caviar HD's in stores...after that factory that produced 80% of the world's hard drives was flooded in a typhoon (more reason to bring a factory like this in Canada,we don't have natural disasters, other than Earthquakes in very remote regions, although Iived through a 6.3 back in 1988 as a kid, I was pretty scared, but that Canadian Shield is so solid that nothing broke anywhere.The scariest thing was that electricity went out before it happened...which my mom thought was a nuke going off, but we'll discuss geological effects on electricity on some social boardor something....just saying we got less natural disasters in Canada and a big chunk of the northern part of the US).

Only Toshiba, Intel and some other brand I forgot about I think barely exist anymore hard drives were not touched, but when that factory in asia was drowned in late 2009, HDD prices haves shot through the roof for a long time and it seems that although they have reduced their prices after a while when the factory was repaired or whatever, HDD prices didn't continue to reduce in price, at the rate it was going in 2007-2009, nobody would pay almost 300 dollars for a 3TB drive, when a 1TB internal drive was 59.99 (the Seagate I got..I don't know if they have an easy recognizable way of knowing quality, but the guy said it was equivalentin quality as a Red caviar WD HD,so just a notch under Black Caviar.

[Moem]

if I can install 17.3 and past the same home directory in place of the one currently there, it will save me a hell lot of time. But if it has to be from a 17.1 install...well, I just need to know if that home directory is compatible. An answer to that question will solve this thread.

I've reused a home directory from 17.3 32-bits for a new installation of 18.1 64-bits with remarkably little trouble (some duplicates in the menu, easily resolved). No guarantee, just anecdata, but here it is: my answer is "yes, you can most likely do that".

I haven't read everything else but this jumped out at me as an actual answerable question. I concur with JerryF. You'd get a LOT more help if you reduced your postings to the relevant 20% of what you're writing now.

[JerryF]

Thank you Moem for confirming my post.

@fruitkiller

Because of your snide and condescending remarks, I'm unsubscribing from this post and I do hope to remember not to respond to another one of your posts ever again.

[fruitkiller]

If I appeared annoyed, I'm sorry. I am definitely annoyed, yes I type too much but my mind works like that and I type a good 85-90 words a minute and I do on tangents, believe me, I often review my posts to shorten them most of the time. But this is quite an aggravating time for me right now, hope you can take an apology JerryF, but as you've seen, I do thank people who help me move forward. Strangely others who replied to me with very helpful posts did not find me to be a snide mofo....but what can you do? I guess when this frustrated, it comes out itself. So, I'm not even sure what it is I said that got you angry, but please disregard it, nothing's personal on the internet for me, hence my avoidance of social media, I've only ever stuck by good old forums like this, since way back in 97.

Now, I have to move that 'deleted-OS' folder, at least the home folder, should I grab /opt/ and some others too?

Because here lies the simple but extremely annoying and long problem. All those folders and files are marked Read-Only. Should I move them with TeraCopy Pro (way faster than explorer.exe), but still, that .cache folder in /home/ has an enormous .cache\chromium\Default\Cache folder that has 60k files iin it. Can I move them as read-only, and I mean all of this? I remember using Bleachbit a few days before, why would there be 60k files there. Anyway, I would really like to know that if these attributes are to be kept for all folders and files, for me to use them and replace the new home folder. Because I couldn't find an answer to that online, that happens when you search for windows operations on linux files..., because even this Attribute Changer, which is faster than doing it with the explorer function to change attributes and checking the box to do it to all subfolders and files. It's been removing the read-only attribute of those chromium cache files for the last 4 hours...that's right, so much that I put a stop to it and almost went and selected other folders to perform that operation but then, I just thought,I should ask you all here, should I keep the folders and files read-only? I already faced moving the whole thing which is 107gb total...and since it's practically empty other than that folder, I'm starting to think that copying that partition , if the files need to stay read-only directly into a new partition on an external drive,so that partition can get be formatted already, I can reinstall mint 17.1,do the changes, if needed in a live session and skip this whole headache.

tl;dr Those files in my nicely kept for me which is my own File System for the wrong OS OS-Uninstaller deleted are all read-only, should I keep them this way or have to painfully batch change everyone of them for hours on end and what's with the huge "hidden" chromium cache, why is there 60k files in there when I perform cache cleaning regularly? I ask because I can't copy a ton of folders because they are read only, for example the virtualboxVM folder, teracopy can't read it so it won't copy it, same would happen with regular copy paste. I'm trying Ultracopier soon to see if it works better, its freeware and apparently is better than Teracopy Pro, can't believe I paid 24 dollars in Monero for that thing 6 months ago.

I'm just so close...