Mint not installable on some computers?

[vintagepen]

Problem is that gparted during install can't see HDD at all on my Vaio

I am trying to install 18.1 mate 32 bit on elderly Sony Vaio VGN170 using live CD. I can boot (though very slowly), use mint without problems; I can INSTALL NOW and the 18.1 install process proceeds but either gives interminable error 141 messages on partman, each one taking more time to report than the last. (and each is linked to incomprehensible syslog notes telling me something failed to intitialise for concantenation issues whatever that means)

I was getting this error 141 before on one attempt to install in four but now all attempted installations fail. None get as far as gparted. I have also tried 18 KDE, 17KDE, Mate & Cinnamon and none of them can see any hard drive. Pressing either + or CHANGE at the drive option screen results in the installer crashing immediately.

Interestingly, this problem is getting worse, it did in fact originally see one recognised drive, but couldnt see any OS on it and offered just to wipe: I note that the computer's POST shows 2 Fujisu hard drives with similar but not identical hard drives of 150 gb each. [But when I get into windows XP, the C: drive shows 300 gb in properties??]

I have applied all firmware/BIOS updates when I started to see things getting worse, I did various hdd tests, which report no problems. The Fujitsu test program in fact sees two HDDs!

I tried asking on installation and newbie forum but noone had any ideas. Can it be that Mint is not installable on some hardware?

[jimallyn]

Can it be that Mint is not installable on some hardware?

I can't imagine why it would be uninstallable.

[daveinuk]

Have you tried various boot options, turn UEFI / secure boot / on/ off / boot in legacy mode all a or any of that ? You haven't stated your machines specs so the best anyone can do is guess, no obvious reason why it shouldn't install though ................

[Neil Edmond]

I am trying to install 18.1 mate 32 bit on elderly Sony Vaio VGN170 using live CD.

If true, this could be the problem. Mint 18.1 will not fit on a CD. If you indeed used a DVD, it could indicate a bad burn. Maybe at too high a speed for the media.

Interestingly, this problem is getting worse,

Failing hardware can give all kinds of symptoms, including progressing from bad to worse. If the hard drive tested OK, maybe the optical drive is failing. Have you tried installing using a USB flash drive?

The Fujitsu test program in fact sees two HDDs!

Since this is a laptop we're talking about, I doubt there are two HDDs. Could it have shown two partitions instead?

Can it be that Mint is not installable on some hardware?

Sure...but your laptop is not such a device.

[vintagepen]

Thanks for the advice guys: I hadnt considered boot options to get the install process to see the hard drive(s).

Could a failing optical drive do this or is it relevant that the computer will not boot from a flash drive despite the BIOS options saying this should be possible?

And I definitely hadnt considered that there might be two partitions of 150 gb each where file explorers show one C drive of 300 gb??

[BG405]

It sounds to me like you have Windows set up to use both partitions as one "dynamic disk" (assuming I've gotten the terminology right!); this could be the issue here. It's worth posting the output of sudo parted -l so we can see the existing partitions on the hard disk.

[vintagepen]

Well I got back to my computer and tried to run the gparted command but not surprisingly for box which doesnt identify its hard drives, all it returned is

Error: Can't have a partition outside the disk!

Error: /dev/sdb: unrecognised disk label

Warning: Unable to open /dev/sr0 read-write (Read-only file system). /dev/sr0
has been opened read-only.
Error: Invalid partition table - recursive partition on /dev/sr0.
Ignore/Cancel? i
Model: MATSHITA UJ-850D (scsi)
Disk /dev/sr0: 1455MB
Sector size (logical/physical): 2048B/2048B
Partition Table: msdos

Number Start End Size Type File system Flags

[vintagepen]

And I tried to run chkdsk (with the /f /r options) but terminal just returned command not found

[grumpy_geek]

None get as far as gparted.

In similar situations, I went back to GParted live CD/USB to get the harddisk(s) sorted...

HTH

[vintagepen]

Thanks for that, I will give it a try but in circumstances where windows seems to boot OK, which utility do I need to get whatever situation I have got rectified please? Or would just running parted do the trick?

[hrmcrm]

And I tried to run chkdsk (with the /f /r options) but terminal just returned command not found

It appears something has gone very wrong with the Windows XP installation.

When booted into XP, try getting to Disk Management (To open Computer Management, click Start, point to Settings, and then click Control Panel. Double-click Administrative Tools, and then double-click Computer Management.
In the console tree, click Disk Management.)
Do a Print Screen there, paste into Paint, save the file as jpg, and post it here.

[vintagepen]

There dont seem to be any utilities on the gparted cd to cure this problem though when I boot up, initially I get an error message that I cannot have this partition outside the disc, whatever that means! The most I can identify is that my hard drive is a /dev/md126 (which seems to comprise a /dev/sda of 149gb and a /dev/sdb of 149db) along with a possibly hidden partition of 7gb, which could be some sort of xp boot partition?

Sorry, I didn't mean to mention that I couldn't do a chkdsk from within xp, just that I cant check the disc from the liveDVD. [Haven't tried fsck -y]

[hrmcrm]

Do you want this laptop to dual-boot Windows XP and Mint, or delete XP and have Mint as the only operating system?

[vintagepen]

I wanted to dual boot. Is there no utility which can correct this partition outside disk error message?

BTW the putative /dev/sdc is actually 8 meg of unallocated space, not some sort of 7gb hidden partition

[grumpy_geek]

Is there no utility which can correct this partition outside disk error message?

There is: http://gparted.org/h2-fix-msdos-pt.php

[hrmcrm]

BTW the putative /dev/sdc is actually 8 meg of unallocated space, not some sort of 7gb hidden partition

Actually, /dev/sdc is most likely a physically separate device, probably a USB flash drive for gparted live.

[vintagepen]

No, I am afraid it isn't, it is a known problem, 'partition end cannot exist outside partition' coupled with a mysteriously appearing 7mb of unallocated space.

And there doesn't seem to be a utility to correct it, or I have been struggling with it for over a week with no end in sight!

There IS a horrendously complicated manual procedure which I have been evading all week but other than that, there is only the promise of some utility that works in something called windows which I do have on this computer but there is no documentation on it