delete data,reformat,clean install

[davo]

thanks joey,i just have to find the usb i backed info up  on,yesterday i launched the new browser that doesnt record an ip,then overlaped it with a fake/hidden ip.
i had the best intenet experiance i have ever had,as nobody was bogging down my connection,i was able to actualy see what this old pc was capable of,its performance is as good as any new pc on the market.

[Joey]

Great news! 

[davo]

hi
just changed internet companys,its fast. doing final scans on my back up USB's.
almost ready to go.

[davo]

hi joey,
your vid you offered,umm
2nd partition swap 512mb,
will this be my boot partition,meaning it gives me the choice of which os to boot from?
my internal drive is 37GB,should i split this evenly?
im planning on getting an external h/drive to save all data,so my internal will only be used for os and programes.

[Joey]

What operating system or systems are you installing on your computer?

[davo]

XP pro and linyx mint,im planning to have less programes on xp than i do now,my total used space re-programes is 15gig at moment

[Joey]

 

Partition 1 - NTFS (for Windows), this will be the largest partition
Partition 2 - Ext3 (for Linux), Ext4 is newer but I heard there were a few problems with it
Partition 3 - Linux Swap. Make is 2048 MB

[davo]

great thanks,
re-Ext4,i dont want more problems hehe.
awesome thanks joey,
xp    19g
linux 16
swap 2g

total 37gig

sound good to you?
if i can use linux to also save files,would be great.

[Joey]

Take off 6 GB from Linux and give it to XP 

[davo]

great thanks joey,the last thing i dont want is not enough memory to clean my disc/defrag,this will also give me free space to shift files.
thanks again

[davo]

hi joey,ive installed xp,its in safe mode?
mouse and keyboard worked fine,i figured i needed to install my drivers before i could get graphics,one of my backups is from a programe called double driver,i tried to restore the drivers,windows wizard took over,started a heap of warnings,wouldnt let me cancel,now my keyboard and mouse(wireless) wont work,im frozen,after i had to crash,i rebooted and cant get back in without keyboard to type my password
so ill probably have to format again.
is it normal to have loaded with a safe mode image screen?
or do i have a bad disc?

[davo]

even my plugin keyboard wont work
ok i crashed again,in bios,so it has to be the os,
loaded to safe mode(real safe mode)
last known good configuration.
im back on a new os,still with bad graphics,ill try a different driver backup program.
i only have 3 different backup programs,so 2 left to try.
i cant see why i have a safemode image tho?
every tutorial ive watched hasnt looked like this.

[davo]

haha, chily driver backup says this is an evaluation version,please purchase.
how do they expect me to get to there website?
chily wernt thinking when they made this software,perhaps they expect customers to restor backups on system that already has the drivers.quite ironic...
everybody boycot chily device driver back up.

[davo]

ive installed antivirus,win updates,my prod key worked,and am running a driver diagnostic and plan to get my drivers online,hopefully.
ive got no sound,and am running on 4bit graphics.next time i buy a computer ill be making sure it comes with its drivers. lol.
will i still be able to do my duel boot?
havnt even started installing mint yet.

[davo]

woohoo all's good,xp fully installed,had to use a wireless broad band stick,as it comes with its own drivers.second round of updates gave me pro/ve network driver,also graphics and sound.prob was i was running off a minni port and windows would not exept it,but they did during updates.
i was a little worried for a while,but pushed on.now i have a clean OS (minus driver detective) just got to get my programs now

thanks for pushing me into this joey

in doing this, can i still run linux on the free space i havnt partitioned?
and could you please give advice in doing so,
i dont just want to stick the disc in only to find out i have destroyed my hard work.

thanks again joey

[Joey]

Great to hear all is well now 

You don't have to install Linux immediately. As long as you already created the 3 partitions during the Windows install you should be good.

I believe Linux Mint is a lot easier than the Linux versions I have installed and they were not that hard. Just make sure that Linux gets installed to the 2nd partition. Linux Mint may automate that part for you.

Here is a YouTube video I found. The audio and video is not that great but it shows you the full process

http://youtu.be/GAK5WouJzYY

[davo]

im about to wach the vid,
i created 1 (c-drive) partition like the vid you offered said,
the swap and mint partitions are suposse to be done when i boot linux disc,at least from what i gather.
so the steps on vid say, create xp partition.load os,
after xp,insert linux disc and reboot.
using linux create the swap,then load linux os.(with remaining free space),
is this correct?
ill watch the new vid you offered now,
my pc is so responsive at the moment.
if i missinturpreted the vid,its ok as i can format again,this time with out any stress.
this was all done with only the xp disc and updates,no other drivers nessesary.

[Joey]

I normally create the partitions in the beginning of the Windows XP install process. But I saw the beginning of the Mint video. I saw that that version is pretty smart and may created the partitions for you. So it will be really easy.

[davo]

from what i can gather he has ubuntu on hard drive(total space),can also be windows.
then mint splits the remaining space from the hard drive,no previous partition nesasary.
did you get that from watching the vid aslo?
so both vids are a little different,(confused).but its ok as i can try as many attempts i need to have success.now that i know how do do this,
and am enjoying the format proccess as apose to the tweeking i usual do.
at the moment i have 25600mb c-drive.
and 12554mb empty free space (thats floating somewere in my hard drive)
not partitioned.
also if i boot up using xp disc,i should also be able to create new partitions,without another install xp.
or perhaps download a partition manager,what do you think i should try?

[Joey]

Don't install XP again. Just use Mint like in the video to create the partitions. I am guessing the way I have done it i the past is "old school", haha. So the new way seems much easier with Mint 

[davo]

so do you think it will be able to find my free space thats not partitioned?

[Joey]

From BigBobsh2o's video, Linux mind does all the work for you. No need to do the extra steps I normally do.

[davo]

ok great,ill load mint and see if it finds my lost space.
i can always do a complete format later if it doesnt.
this can also be a trouble shooter try, for future information.

[davo]

ok im in mint,
install side by side will give me 5.5g for mint,not recognising my free space from what i see.also taking 5.4g from windows.

use the largest continuous free space will give me back my 13.2g of space.

but does not specify if it will give me a choice between them on start up.

so ill probably have to boot from bios every time(perhaps),still unsure tho.

creating NO partition would have been better as i could install side by side,choosing between them at start up.

ok,after setting password,user name.
i have partition *5  of SCSI1  as  ext4 (no choice available)
then   partition *6  of SCSI1  as  swap

there is an advance button but ill stick with default.

so i looks like 'install boot loader' will be  /dev/sda (advance options)
also offering http proxy.

default sounds best for me.

install...

[davo]

installation failed.
the installer encountered an error copying files to the hard disc.
[Errno 5] input/output error.

this is often due to faulty CD/DVD disk or drive,or faulty hard disc.it may help to clean the CD/DVD,to burn the CD/DVD at a lower speed,to clean the the CD/DVD drive lense,
or move to a cooler environment.

*!$@*!#   not happy!!!

lets hope it hasnt affected my xp os, as ill need to download another one.

i burnt it slow,cleaned the CD and checked my drive for errors before i started.
possibly a crap download or my lens needs cleaning.

[davo]

ok just burnt a fresh copy of mint.
it says theres already an existing partition of mint.
rebooted to XP,cant see any partition.
tried bios,boot from,0(usual xp c/drive) all good.
1,2,3 with no partition,there just spaces already assigned i imagine,never really tried them.
no OS on any of them.
back in mint now im installing side by side,which hopefully deletes the error partition.
the original CD i used is over a month old,so perhaps this new one is slightly different.
if not ill be doing a total format. lol
hope this works.

[davo]

DONE!!!
looking through properties on mint,i seem to be missing 10gig.
it all boots from the c-drive with options to choose prefered OS.
im going to reboot and check properties in XP.
hopefully it can tell me were that 10g went.

[davo]

XP is now 14GB instead of 26GB
theres 2 memory test options,
linux mint recovery mode
and linux mint OS
im still yet to find to missing 10GB from XP.

recovery mode is kinda like f8 safe mode giving options for,
make free space,repair broken packages,failsafe graphic mode,update grub boot loader,drop shell prompt.

getting out of that area requires knowlage of comand prompts,
ctrl+alt+del worked fine

ok back in mint,my computer,properties.
mint 13GB hard disk.
XP   15GB hard disk.
file system 7GB free space.
add the swap 2GB
total = 37GB

i should have tried to allocate more space for XP.
its all good, ill play around and learn the system then reformat.
next time without setting a partition,as mint will do this automaticly when it splits the primary oprating system.

[Joey]

Nice documentation of the install 

[davo]

thanks,i couldnt have done it with out running 2 computers,as i was able to quote word for word,as it was happening.
im really glad you convinced me to do this,ive learnt so much and am enjoying every minute of it.
thanks heaps joey.

so how does mint work? lol

ive been on it for a little while now,i need a better graphics card if im going to want to use the spinning box app,
but it all works great the way it is,just depends on how fancy you want to get with it.

only prob i have had is going on youtube within the first few minutes of playing.
i opened vid to full screen and wouldnt close for a while.

so thats not bad,considering xp is full of errors throughout its system.