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reinstallation.

gleneagles
Aspiring Legend
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Registered: ‎02-08-2007

reinstallation.

Decided to move up to Mint 13 today after trying it out on disk a few times, the long term support was also a factor so wiped my disk drive, reinstalled windows and then installed Mint 13, everything looked ok and the installation clearly recognized Windows 7  was installed and gave an option to keep.
Updated mint and all seemed ok but when I came to reboot it rebooted  directly into windows, no option of a menu or anything.
Fortunately I had a copy of Rescatux which sorted the problem out but I was curious as to why this might have happened. I have installed Mint 11 & 12 with windows on previous occasions with no problems so wondered what might have caused this.
At what point of the installation process is Grub fully installed, is it at the end or beginning of the installation ?
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15 REPLIES 15
Heloman
Grafter
Posts: 519
Registered: ‎30-07-2007

Re: reinstallation.

Normally it's the very last thing, right at the end.
I also have Mint installed alongside PCLOS, but can't remember the precise install sequence. I'm fairly sure there was a "Ready to install Grub" panel, with a yes/no type option. But I could be wrong.........
VileReynard
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Re: reinstallation.

I hope you don't forget to make yourself a separate /home partition, for future use...
BTW Did you reach the point at which Mint asked you to reboot after removing the DVD?

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HairyMcbiker
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Re: reinstallation.

The grub is installed right at the end, but your old grub loader should still have been active and failed. Try a grub reinstall from the live cd.
gleneagles
Aspiring Legend
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Re: reinstallation.

I Have a second computer and if all goes well with mint 13 over the next few weeks will make the same changes to that computer as well.
One question I have a 250 HD & 80 HD. would it make sense to install Windows on the 80 HD & Linux on the 250 HD (I Hardly use windows for much) or are they better both being on the 250 HD ?
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HairyMcbiker
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Re: reinstallation.

Wolnt make any difference to Linux,I would put xp on the 80 and use the whole 250 for linux.
w23
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Re: reinstallation.

80 should be more than enough to accomodate a basic windows install and Linux, why not partition the 80GB drive and put both OSes on it then use the entire 250GB for your 'Home'?
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VileReynard
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Re: reinstallation.

Or create a partition on the 80GB disk big enough to use to backup the important parts of your /home on the 250GB disk.

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gleneagles
Aspiring Legend
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Re: reinstallation.

Thanks for the responses, any important information is moved to an external drive so my Home does not contain anything of importance.
Not sure what was meant by making a separate/home partition for future use. Why would I need that ? Or if I did need it use Gparted to make an extra partition if I need it at some future date ?
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ejs
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Re: reinstallation.

A separate /home partition means you can keep it while deleting the Linux root partition for future re-installs. You could also make it an encrypted partition. Doesn't really matter if you keep your stuff elsewhere - if you're re-installing then you might prefer having all your settings wiped anyway.
I never bother re-installing Linux every 6 months, I just keep upgrading the current installation. My laptop started with Fedora 10 when it was new over 3 years ago.
Waldo
Grafter
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Registered: ‎01-08-2007

Re: reinstallation.

Quote from: ejs
I never bother re-installing Linux every 6 months, I just keep upgrading the current installation.

That's not what Mint recommends though (it is possible to dist-upgrade but in my experience requires more in the way of manual intervention than Ubuntu or Debian).
HairyMcbiker
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Registered: ‎16-02-2009

Re: reinstallation.

I tried a dist-upgrade ONCE. It trashed my system after downloading about 1Gb of data.
Now I use y-ppa-manager to backup my ppa's. Mint-backup to backup my app list and do a fresh install with my existing /home.
Then reinstall y-ppa-manager, restore and update the ppa's to the new version using it, then mint-backup to restore my apps - checking what is installed as there can be a lot of trub.
Waldo
Grafter
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Registered: ‎01-08-2007

Re: reinstallation.

Quote from: Hairy
I tried a dist-upgrade ONCE. It trashed my system after downloading about 1Gb of data.

I've never had anything that drastic on the couple of times I've done it.
A couple of GRUB files went AWOL during the dist-upgrade from Mint 12 to 13 causing a failure of the GRUB package to configure itself (i copied the missing files from an Ubuntu 12.04 system) but other than that it was mostly niggling apt errors; more tedious and time-consuming than anything else.
HairyMcbiker
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Registered: ‎16-02-2009

Re: reinstallation.

I think it ran out of space, I keep my root to 10gb and that has been enough for past 5 years, but when doing a upgrade like that it downloads loads of apps before it starts.
Over all it is quicker to format and re-install than to upgrade.
Waldo
Grafter
Posts: 473
Registered: ‎01-08-2007

Re: reinstallation.

Kinda goes against the grain for me to reinstall when it's not strictly necessary.
I have a 6 years old desktop which has been running Debian Sid since the day I got it, Arch (netbook) and aptosid (MacBook) installs are both about 3 years old; all  three are effectively 'rolling' distributions - I guess I'm just in the habit of keeping an install going unless I want to wipe it and try something new.