Warning about HP Laptops - incompatibility with Win 10 Creators Update

[Straf]

Ah it hasn't set up GRUB for some reason. I'll take a look.

[Mouse]

I saw Grub in the list of folders and files and things that it was installing. I think I upset it by pulling the stick out at the wrong time.

I'm just going to get rid of these useless partitions first.

I re-downloaded the ISO file and the bit of software that creates the boot stick last night. The second copies were identical in size to the first time I downloaded them, so I don't think there was a download glitch, even though the ISO is 1.8GB and takes about 2 hours to download.

Having ruled that out as a potential problem, I have recreated my boot stick. Now I'm going to get rid of the partitions that were made by the installation that went wrong, and give it a second try.

If it doesn't work the second time around I'm going to stop trying. I think continually creating and erasing partitions is probably causing a lot of wear and tear on the disc.

[ChickPea]

Mouse, I might be too late with this now, but can you boot with the USB stick into the 'live' try-out version of Mint (what you used before you installed it). You should be able to navigate to the folders on your hard drive (don't confuse them with the USB folders). You should be able to see there that Linux has installed. It sounds an awful lot like something's gone wrong with grub (the bootloader) rather than the installation.

When you did the installation, did you wait till you saw the message at the end saying 'Please remove the installation media' (that might not be the exact wording - I can't quite recall - but it something along those lines).

EDIT: Anything in this thread help. Their situation sounds very similar...

https://forums.linuxmint.com/viewtopic.php?t=249148

[Mouse]

Hi ChickPea

I just attempted my second install. This time I gave it a bit more space because I know I can get rid of it if it doesn't work again.

It didn't work again.

There wasn't any 'remove the boot stick' message to be seen. I didn't think there was the first time around, and I was watching all the way through both times. The first time I did this I removed the stick when the screen went blank after clicking 'restart'. That did actually do some damage to the stick, apparently, which is why I re-created the boot stick before trying again.

The second time I just left the stick exactly where it was and allowed the machine to restart - knowing it would restart from the boot stick because I hadn't been asked to take it out, and it was still in the machine. Once it was rebooted on the boot stick I shut down the proper way and only then removed the stick.

When I rebooted again I got Windows, and no option to choose which OS

Thinking about this, there's no reason why the installation should have gone wrong, and the partitions that have been created are right there where they are supposed to be, and exactly the right size together.

I'm thinking... what if the adjustments to the BIOS that I made before the installation are affecting whether this GRUB thing starts?

I will have a read of that thread, but before I do that I'm just going to have a look at the boot order...

[ChickPea]

Yeah, I'm thinking there's nothing wrong with your Linux installation. It's that the laptop is looking in the wrong place for the OS. It's finding Windows and booting from that. That thread suggests some BIOS tweaks and that might be where the issue is.

Remember before when you were trying to boot from the USB and you had to hit a key a number of times? Was that to get into the BIOS or was it to launch a boot order menu. For instance, in my machine, I can press F12 repeatedly when I switch it on, and I'll get a boot menu and I can select a different thing to boot from (eg a USB drive, the Windows boot loader, a second hard drive etc.) Is there anything like that on your machine, just a quick thing to try?

[Mouse]

I just read that thread you linked to, and it seemed to be telling me that I could edit the actual OS boot Manager option in BIOS. The thing is that I tried it, and there were no options to edit it. So it might work on some machines, but not mine.

I will go off again and boot from the stick to see if I can find the newly installed Mint folder system (not the one on the stick), just to be sure that the installation really did work.

[Mouse]

And here's proof that the installation worked.

SDC12292.JPG

That's the 50GB partition I created in the second installation. You can see that it automatically sub-partitions 4GB (equal to the size of my RAM), presumably to create a swap file. That's why its showing as 46GB.

I am inclined to agree with one of the comments I saw on that thread, whether its true or not, it really does seem as if HP and MS have contrived to make it so damn difficult to create a dual boot system that most people give up.

However, I can live with this the way it is, if booting from the stick enables me to actually install new apps like Krita (which isn't included in Mint the way GIMP is), and work with the entire collection of system folders - Window included.

I didn't try it just now, but I confess to being more than a little bit tired.

Do you think there will be any problems with always using the stick to gain access to the Linux folders on my system?

[ChickPea]

You can run it from the USB stick, but it's always going to be slower. I'm trying to google just now for you to see if I can find a solution.

In your BIOS, have you got it set to legacy boot mode or UEFI? Whichever it is, try changing it to the other one and see if anything happens. (do this with your USB unplugged, so that it's booting from the hard drive only). You can always go back into the BIOS and change it back, so you're not going to break anything.

[Mouse]

LOL! I forgot what you said while I was busy re-examining the BIOS (only have one machine).

This is an annotated shot of the BIOS as is:

SDC12298.JPG

EDIT: I will now go and see if I can switch to Legacy boot

[Straf]

Try changing 'Legacy Support' to enabled.