Trying to install 15.10 on a Laptop

Question

I have a Gateway laptop that runs Ubuntu 14.04 from a external hard drive(long story). I am trying to install 15.10 from a usb drive to the windows 7 partition on the laptop so I can do away with the hard drive. I made the boot usb with the 15.10 iso and booted it, but when I go to erase and encrypt the disk it aborts and restarts. What am I doing wrong?

Answer 1

Boot into the windows 7 partition and start setup from within windows then choose the "alongside windows" option

Answer 2

Well, it's difficult to say what you are doing wrong if you don't show any of your actual commands and none of the results (i.e. error messages). I assume that you don't want to keep the Windows 7 partition.

• The USB method

  To boot from USB used to be a challenge to say the least. More recent PC's are generally capable of USB boot. But if the Laptop is slightly older, that might be an issue. I'd try to avoid it if possible. Second problem: encryption. If it boots ok and the problems start with the encryption, then don't select encryption. It is easier to reinstall with encryption later if you have already "excercised" the "normal" install. It is also simpler to add an encrypted home partition later if you need one.

• Why don't you try a simple format and copy method, since you seem to have a working Ubuntu 14.04 (although an external drive)? This is a bit a "risky" operation, but if you already have some experience with ubuntu/linux it may be a good alternative. (I've done it this way a couple of times) If you anyway don't want to keep the Windows partition, then your not risking anything (except some spare time).

You need to do most of these commands as root. If you don't understand the commands well enough, I'd suggest that you read up on them first.

1. start the Laptop from the external drive

2. partition the internal drive. (replace sda with your actual drive. I'm assuming sda0 here)

       fdisk /dev/sda
   

   If you prefer this with a graphical interface you can use gparted. If it's not installed you can install it with sudo apt-get install gparted. I suggest you create one "normal" partition as ext4 and a swap partition. Mark the "normal" partition as "bootable".

3. create a filesystem on your "normal" partition

       mkfs -t ext4 /dev/sda0
   

4. mount the newly created partition (here to /mnt/new)

       mkdir /mnt/new
       mount -t ext4 -o rw /dev/sda0 /mnt/new
   

5. copy the complete externa harddrive (here assumed to be /) to the internal drive recursively (so all files and subdirectories are copied)

       cp -R / /mnt/new
   

   Depending on the size of the external harddrive, this may take some time. The directories dev proc and sys are not required, and can be deleted afterwards.

6. install grub on the internal drive

       grub-install --boot-directory=/mnt/new/boot /dev/sda
   

7. edit the file /mnt/new/etc/fstab

   This file needs to contain the correct configuration of your actual drives. Since you copied it from the external drive, it still contains the paths to the external drive. These need to be changed to the internal drive.

8. reboot