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Your installation medium is on dev/sdb1. You will not be able to create, delete, or resize partitions on this disk, but you may be able to install to existing partitions there.

I have gotten the above message while trying to install Ubuntu. I am reinstalling Ubuntu because of a crash that rendered me unable to boot Ubuntu so I decided to restart the reinstallation process only days after installing for the first time. This message appeared after I tried to change dev/sdb1 fat32 to ext2 in order to install Ubuntu to that partition. After I got this message I tried to select dev/sdb1 and press change but nothing happens no matter how long I wait for a response. I can’t format to fat32 as no root file system is defined. It tells me to correct this from the partitioning menu.

To be honest, I am completely new to Ubuntu and have no idea how to proceed at this point. I can’t install Ubuntu and can’t click change on dev/sdb1 fat32. Maybe I should try to completely wipe my disk clean? If needed I am able to access the terminal by entering try Ubuntu. Any help at all would be appreciated, thanks :)

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    You will probably want to format to ext4 instead of ext2 on the disk you install to.
    – crip659
    Jun 19, 2019 at 15:26
  • If sdb1 was FAT32 was it an UEFI install? You should install in same boot mode as previous install, unless you had BIOS install but have UEFI hardware & want to upgrade to UEFI boot.
    – oldfred
    Jun 19, 2019 at 17:45

1 Answer 1

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When you make an installation, the installer detects two disks (or more): the live USB you are running from and the hard disk of your computer.

More often than not* the names of the disks will be:

USB: /dev/sdb

HARD DISK: /dev/sda

And the partitions of each disk is a number added to the name /dev/sda1, /dev/sdb1, etc.

When performing the installation, you have to ensure that you select your HARD DISK (/dev/sda), not your USB (/dev/sdb), and ensure that the boot loader (GRUB) is installed on your sda.

* In some situations, the installer may detect the USB as /dev/sda, and the hard disk as something else.

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