Errno 5 occuring when trying to reinstall OS

[jonezy187]

A little backstory:
The other day my system froze and i tried to reboot, which after rebooting just hung on a black screen. I have plugged in my bootdisc and can view all of my files on the HDD. I couldn't figure out what the problem was so i decided as the files i want to keep are on a separate partition to the OS that i would reinstall the OS. now i am getting either the Errno 5 when trying to reinstall the OS (Mint 12) or it just stops at either Configuring Hardward or removing packages. I've read it may be HDD failure but the HDD is less than a year old and i can still access the files on the drive through linux booting off a USB.

if anybody knows why this is happening and how to fix it please help me. I have been spending the entire day trying to get this fixed, that i'm starting to lose my tether!

[DrHu]

The files that are on a separate partition from the OS are not in any way assigned to the OS; that is the partition would be best if it was set as a primary partition (where your files are..), there are 4 primary partitionas available for a dos/windows/Linux hard drive (part of Intel + dos )history.

If you had extended patrtitions for the OS, that will complicate the reinstall, a primary partition is simple, you just reformat or delete it (since you can access the other separate (Primary 1..4) partition..

Gparted will show you the info you need..

Also error 5 is a Ubuntu installer bug type..
--other Linux distributions, such as Fedora don't have that issue..

[jonezy187]

Sorry but could you explain that a little more please? I've downloaded gparted. how do i get around the error 5 problem?