Ricker wrote:When I select Something Else I see a menu table with three options
1) The 80GB HD
2) Windows XP Pro
3) Linux Mint 12
So apparently I select the Mint 12 partition and click the install button....
I'm guessing you are just using words to simplify what you saw. Normally after clicking "Something Else" there is not something that asks whether you want to then replace numbers 1, 2, or 3 that you listed above. (At least it's never done that on any install I've performed.) You should see a list of all the partitions on the drive (some of which might have labels similar to what you described). Then you manually select the one(s) you want to use and you need to set mount point(s) before installing. I have a feeling you might have just clicked on the old mint root partition, but didn't set the mount point as root for the new install. Hopefully you didn't accidentally wipe out your Windows install.
Boot again with your live Mint DVD/USB, open a terminal and run this command to see list of current partitions on the drive:
Take a look at the partitions to see if Windows is still there -- any partitions with "File System" type "ntfs" and/or "fat32" are your Windows partitions. If not, that's bad and I hope you have a backup somewhere that you can restore from.
If they are still there, great! Before closing terminal, look at output and find any partition with "File System" type "ext4" and make a note of what it is called -- probably something like "
/dev/sda5". Write that down. If you have more than one "ext4" partition, copy/paste the full output of that command back here for us to see before attempting new install. (Directions for doing that are
here.)
Assuming Windows is still there and you only saw one partition with "ext4" file system on the drive, close the terminal and start the installation as you did before. Select "Something Else" again. On partition selection page, look for the partition you wrote down (which is your old Mint 12 root partition). Either double-click on it, or click once to highlight it, then click "Change" button. A dialog box will then show where you can make proper settings before installing.
- Use as = ext4 file system
- Size = keep size as it is, don't change
- Mount Point = "/" (for root)
- Check box to Format the partition.
- Hit "OK" or "Apply" when done (can't remember exact wording).
- If it pops-up a warning complaining that you changed the size of the partition, even though you did not, ignore warning and just hit the "Go Back" button. All will be fine.
When done setting that partition, no need to do anything with the old Swap partition -- installer will handle that automatically.
Near bottom of page,
"Device for boot loader installation" should be set to "
/dev/sda".
Now you should be able to finish install and system should boot properly afterwards.
