LINUX CHALLENGE

[Victoria Boccassini]

Hi everybody! You may remember me a year ago trying to install Linux, well, here I´m a year later still trying... I went to one of the repairs cafè and after some goes, one of you enter into a kind of 'DOS' and modify some things and told me: you would be able now to install Linux... but no... my problem is that I get into the installation, but no Hard drive appear! So, I get stuck there... any suggestion? Anyone want to sit with me for (I guess some hours) to try to install Linux?? I have an old Mint version... I'm free next Friday, Sat, Sun! My computer is an Dell inspiron 15z, windows 8.

=/

Viki

Ps. I think can be something like this, but not sure how to do this things... http://askubuntu.com/questions/696413/ubuntu-installer-cant-find-any-disk-on-dell-xps-13-9350

[David Zilberberg]

likely be round this evening, happy to assist 

[victoria boccassini]

Oh! I'm sorry, I should said next Friday, Sat and Sunday =/ I'm not in the area now...

Let me know if you are around next weekend! Cheers!

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[Stuart Ward]

On 26 November 2016 at 11:10, Victoria Boccassini <vickyhu...@gmail.com> wrote:

Ps. I think can be something like this, but not sure how to do this things... http://askubuntu.com/questions/696413/ubuntu-installer-cant-find-any-disk-on-dell-xps-13-9350

Vicky

What is the exact model number and version of the machine you are trying to install on. can you take a picture of the BIOS screen showing the disks

Stuart

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Stuart Ward M +44 7782325143

[Victoria Boccassini]

Hi Stuart! I will do it today! I'm sorry I've been sick and not able to manage to reply! X

[Stuart Ward]

Vicki

This may be your answer:
http://surrey.lug.org.uk/bab20161210

Stuart

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Stuart Ward M +44 7782325143

On 5 December 2016 at 08:03, Victoria Boccassini <vickyhu...@gmail.com> wrote:

Hi Stuart! I will do it today! I'm sorry I've been sick and not able to manage to reply! X

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[Gavinder Alburino]

The problem is almost certainly either:

NTFS partitioned and formatted HHD

or

UEFI has been turned on in BIOS

The latter is a simple switch in the BIOS.  The former would require some minor fiddling with partitioning.

[victoria boccassini]

So, shall I go to the Bios and try the second one? Shall I turn OFF the UEFI?

Thanks again,

Viki

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[victoria boccassini]

Here is a picture of my BIOS... and yes, it seems UEFI is on...

On 20 December 2016 at 00:35, victoria boccassini <vbocc...@gmail.com> wrote:

So, shall I go to the Bios and try the second one? Shall I turn OFF the UEFI?

Thanks again,

Viki

[Gavinder Alburino]

Yes, try turning off UEFI.

[Marcus]

Just incase it's not clear from the bios, that might be setting the "Secure Boot" option to disabled.

Apologies if you've already figured that out :)

If it's not too much hassle, I'd recommend installing the latest version of Mint you can get your hands on, or upgrading immediately after installing.

From your photo the boot devices don't show a USB disk as a boot option.

It might be that the option appears magically after you insert a USB key, or you might have to swap one of the options over to USB (at least temporarily) too.

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[Stuart Ward]

On 22 December 2016 at 11:44, Marcus <letha...@gmail.com> wrote:

From your photo the boot devices don't show a USB disk as a boot option.

I think you might need to go into the "Add Boot Option" to add USB boot, make this the first option. It wont use it if there is no USB inserted, once you are happy with the installation you can move this down from the first option.

[victoria boccassini]

Great, I will try tonight, although, can I ask you something stupid? Will I be able after trying all this things to turn on again the eufi and come back to Windows? 

Xx

V.

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[Marcus]

That's not a stupid question at all, it's a very important one :)

Forgive me if you know some of the below, but I wouldn't want you to lose your windows environment unexpectedly.

If you only change that option, (and don't install linux) I think windows will still be happy to boot.

If you do boot linux, so long as you are booting a "Live USB" disk (i.e. not an automagic install disk (those are not common)), and DO NOT choose to install linux to your hard disk, then windows should continue to boot fine.

Live CD/USB disks usually let you play around with a linux environment, but where no changes will be saved beyond a reboot.

If you do wish to install linux, you can either overwrite the whole disk (which will destroy windows, all files & apps) or, with some preparation you can split your hard disk into partitions to "Dual boot" windows & linux. You'd have a DOS-like screen to choose which to boot when you power up.

You might find your laptop came with re-install disks for windows, or perhaps Dell or Microsoft have tools to let you make one. I'm no expert on backing up a windows environment, but you should consider stuff like your files, applications, and any product keys for software like office etc. I'm sure there's a bunch of good stuff on the internet covering what you'd need to back up.

If there's nothing you want to keep from windows, then you're fine ;)

Its been a long time since I've tried to dual boot, it was never as simple as it ought to be.

Dual booting with two separate disks was usually simpler, but might probably not possible in a laptop, unless you add a usb HDD and install to & boot from that.

If you want to keep both windows and linux, a Virtual Machine might be a good alternative, but the performance of linux will be slower (how much slower depends on how powerful the machine is).

VirtualBox is free software for running Virtual Machines; performance shouldn't be that bad if you just want to play around.

With VMs you won't risk losing anything from windows, and also won't need to change the boot options.

Good luck :)

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[victoria boccassini]

I understood -almost- everything and thanks for your promptly reply!

I would like to try VM, I will have a look in YouTube and I may have a go, otherwise, I will use Linux from my USB stick!

I will let you know the results and just in case I will do a backup as it's been 2 months since the last one!

Xx

Viki

[Marcus]

Thats's great. Hopefully the things I gave you enough starting places to google from and figure out the gaps :)

Best of luck & Merry Christmas,

Marcus

[mikethebee]

Hello Viki, 

I'm using VirtualBox on a Windows 10 host, with Lubuntu (a lite version of Ubuntu) as a guest OS in the VM. It works pretty well for the things I want to do with Linux. WIN10 came with the new laptop and was installed in a form that took up all the hard disk and prevented a dual boot option.. I have also used VirtualBox on Lubuntu to host Win XP and that worked well too. One advantage with a VM is that you can clone the guest OS easily for backups. 

I needed to create my own Windows Recovery DVD's as Lenovo did not supply any, they do provide a utility to create the DVD's, it took 6 DVD's and some time to do, but allowed me to reinstate the disk image as when new.

You could swap your disk drive for a spare one and install Linux on that. 

Good Luck and Happy New Year, Mike

[victoria boccassini]

Thanks to share your exprience Mike!

I have Windows 8, I will try as soon as I get a free time.

Best wishes and happy new year to everyone!

Viki

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