Linux Mint Forums

Our emachines eM350 Netbook came with Windows XP. We use it when travelling and I started to use it with a USB stick with Mint on it for, hopefully, greater security. It has since had memory doubled and the hard disk replaced with SSD, a Kingston 120GB, hopefully to make it more drop proof, if needed. The latest system on it is now Linux Mint Mate 18.1. Never had any problems with it anywhere in the world.

As for Mint, it goes on anything that "crosses my desk" and has done for near a decade. Probably near 2 dozen computers have been loaded for various people or an organisation I belong to. The last big upload was on to 8 laptops, Toshiba Tecra M10s which were donated with blank disks.

Problem -
The only machine without Linux in the "office" is an Acer Veriton X4630G which originally had Win8 but when I came across it had Win10. When trying to put Linux on it, it couldn't see the whole disk. It could see there was Windows to be loaded alongside but on a disk much smaller than was actually there. It sits in a corner (without Linux), sometimes being used for checking Windows problems (software).

can you boot that Acer with your LinuxMint Live Media,,
& then use the Gparted program to grab a screen_shot of that drive & paste that back here - on your reply ?

Namf_Mint wrote: ⤴Sat Jan 12, 2019 10:35 pm Ubuntu put a lot of work into having wide hardware support and Mint is based on Ubuntu. However, I have found that Mint worked on hardware that Ubuntu did not .

This.
MInt has been stable and simple easy install for me since 17.1, on all our hardware at home (2006 and newer) , that Ubuntu just was a problem. Mint just installs and works, never had issues. Windows free household here, me and my girl have 18.2 on our daliy machines. heck 19.1 cinnamon on a 2008 HP laptop and it works great.

RollyShed wrote: ⤴Sat Jan 12, 2019 11:09 pm
Problem -
The only machine without Linux in the "office" is an Acer Veriton X4630G which originally had Win8 but when I came across it had Win10. When trying to put Linux on it, it couldn't see the whole disk. It could see there was Windows to be loaded alongside but on a disk much smaller than was actually there. It sits in a corner (without Linux), sometimes being used for checking Windows problems (software).

My main machine is an X4360G. No problem installing and running Mint. Originally set up as dual boot with Windows, now a dedicated Linux box. The other poster's suggestion about gparted from a live usb is good.

Pierre wrote: ⤴Sun Jan 13, 2019 12:55 am can you boot that Acer with your LinuxMint Live Media,,
& then use the Gparted program to grab a screen_shot of that drive & paste that back here - on your reply ?

A "quick & dirty" off my camera.

so - Gparted is seeing that drive,, so what is the installer seeing?

can you post some screen_shot(s) of the Installer's version of that drive?
- use the drop box in the bottom left corner, to display that.
from the appropriate screen, of course.

also2: what happened when you chose the 'install alongside of windows' option,
from the installer's menu ? did it not install alongside ? did it try to erase windows, instead?

yertchuk wrote: ⤴Sun Jan 13, 2019 9:36 pm My main machine is an X4630G. No problem installing and running Mint. Originally set up as dual boot with Windows, now a dedicated Linux box. The other poster's suggestion about Gparted from a live usb is good.

so - on your machine - the installer did install alongside - correctly ?.

[/quote]
so - on your machine - the installer did install alongside - correctly ?.
[/quote]

Yes. It was maybe 3 years ago that I did the dual boot install. I can't remember exactly what I did, but the process went smoothly. More recently, I selected the 'erase disk' option, so all trace of windows is gone!

I am using legacy boot, which may be relevant.

Pierre wrote: ⤴Mon Jan 14, 2019 10:40 pm so - Gparted is seeing that drive,, so what is the installer seeing?

can you post some screen_shot(s) of the Installer's version of that drive?

also2: what happened when you chose the 'install alongside of windows' option,
from the installer's menu ? did it not install alongside ? did it try to erase windows, instead?

Note - this is the first out of a couple of dozen installations that don't seem to see things as I'd expect. It is also not very important as that machine will probably be used for Windows diagnostics.
However, it is always interesting to find out why it wants to use a small part of what appears to be largely "empty" disk. The 2 pictures are what comes up - and then what is seen if "advanced partitioning tool" is opened at that point - If 3 pictures are seen, that's odd as only 2 are see in editing.

according to those pic's - the installer is trying to use SDA6 & not SDA4, for some reason.
- what happens, when you do proceed, with the option, in the 1st two pic's which are the same pic. ..
try using a split of about 50/50 - you can still adjust that, later, if necessary.

Pierre wrote: ⤴Tue Jan 15, 2019 7:03 am according to those pic's - the installer is trying to use SDA6 & not SDA4, for some reason.

sda4 is inaccessible (encrypted, damaged, etc.) as you can see in the gparted screenshot, so the installer cannot choose it. But Pierre, you should really split this off-topic discussion off, it has nothing to do with the thread.

I think gm10 has the answer. I actually, if one analyses it, told half the story, sorry, I apologise. The machine had been used for Windows security camera software checking and I suspect that is where the umpteen GB of disk has gone and got locked. It would certainly be a logical answer.

So thanks gm10, it would seem to be the logical answer.