Linux, Anyone? In my ongoing saga of trying to install Windows 10, the latest advice form the MSDD tech is to make a Linux boot disc and boot from them. then I would delete the...

jerryc41 Loc: Catskill Mts of NY

In my ongoing saga of trying to install Windows 10, the latest advice form the MSDD tech is to make a Linux boot disc and boot from them. then I would delete the offending files in the EFI partition. I have to download Rufus, which took just seconds. Then I have to download Peppermint5. It looks like that will take over two hours. Nothing has ever taken that long to download, but that seems to be the way to make a Linux boot disc.

I tried making a bootable flash drive using Paragon, which is supposed to be good at deleting hard-to-get-at files, but the computer does not want to boot from the flash drive (Win8.1).

Any comments on making a Linux boot flash drive?

Peppermint is 713 MB. Pretty big.

bobmcculloch Loc: NYC, NY

jerryc41 wrote:

In my ongoing saga of trying to install Windows 10... (show quote)

The machine BIOS must allow booting from a USB port to boot from a flash drive, you can download a bootable copy of UBANTU and put it on a DVD, boot from there, your running LINUX, I do it when I have a severe problem, overides windows very well, BOB.

jerryc41 Loc: Catskill Mts of NY

bobmcculloch wrote:

The machine BIOS must allow booting from a USB port to boot from a flash drive, you can download a bootable copy of UBANTU and put it on a DVD, boot from there, your running LINUX, I do it when I have a severe problem, overides windows very well, BOB.

Thanks. Download time has just gone to 3 hours.

Four hours

melismus Loc: Chesapeake Bay Country

Instead of long downloads, you can buy many flavors of Linux on CD or DVD for a few dollars each from OSDisk.com. My favorite is PCLinuxOS/KDE

jerryc41 Loc: Catskill Mts of NY

bobmcculloch wrote:

The machine BIOS must allow booting from a USB port to boot from a flash drive, you can download a bootable copy of UBANTU and put it on a DVD, boot from there, your running LINUX, I do it when I have a severe problem, overides windows very well, BOB.

So with Ubuntu, I could boot into Linux and access other partitions?

jerryc41 Loc: Catskill Mts of NY

melismus wrote:

Instead of long downloads, you can buy many flavors of Linux on CD or DVD for a few dollars each from OSDisk.com. My favorite is PCLinuxOS/KDE

I hate to buy these things because after spending the money, they don't solve the problem. Going back several days, I could have paid $40 for a program, but I found a free alternative. That didn't work, either. I've been working with this MS tech for 11 days, and we're up to five pages of messages now. When he suggested Linux, I think that was a desperation move.

The problem is that I have backup folders in an EFI partition, although there's no logical way they could have gotten there. Apparently, this happens occasionally. I finally managed to access the partition and give it a letter name, but since Windows is protecting it, I have to get another program to delete those files. In order to do that, I have to boot from a flash drive using a program called Partition Assistant. I cannot boot from the flash drive.

lorenww Loc: St. Petersburg

I have done many installs with USB, windows and Linux.
in BIOS, change the boot order, USB first.

I googled "Ubuntu boot usb".

Should be painless and simple.

melismus Loc: Chesapeake Bay Country

Buy Parted Magic on bootable CD from OSDisc.com for $2.95. Complete control of partitions. Be careful, though, because you can do things irreversible.

Their Linux discs are $2.95 or $5.95.

jerryc41 wrote:

I hate to buy these things because after spending ... (show quote)

lorenww Loc: St. Petersburg

Better yet,

Google, hirens boot usb

It has windows xp portable which means it completely runs from a disk or USB drive.

It is crammed with disk utilities.
I have been told to get it from a torrent because most of what you find on Google are stripped down versions (copyright).

I would guess you can access anything using some of the utilities.

The XP portable saved my bacon many times when I had an OS crash.

Windows 7 would not load or start but it had important files I needed.

Hiren saved my life, all files recovered.

bobmcculloch Loc: NYC, NY

Should work, does on my machine, in fact I have Ubantu running on an old machine and can read off the HD that were installed on other machines, back when I was working one of the better computer guys had a copy on a CD that saved our bacon a couple of times, BTW we were all basically self taught, trial and error, Bob.

tbetress Loc: Skippack, Pa

i downloaded Peppermint to take a look and it is an .ISO file that is a bootable image. You can just open your favorite burning software and burn the .iso to disk and go or you can use Rufus if you wish to use a thumbdrive

pixbyjnjphotos Loc: Apache Junction,AZ

jerryc41 wrote:

In my ongoing saga of trying to install Windows 10... (show quote)

Why go to all the trouble of Linux. Linux will work but I think there is an easier way to eliminate the partition. Go to Freewarefiles.com and download EASEUS Partition Master Home Edition. Use that to repartition your hard drive and eliminate unwanted partition. That should make your HD all one drive (C:) except for the backup recovery drive. Format the whole drive leaving your backup recovery partition alone. Install Windows 10 on a clean install. Getting rid of the unwanted partition should be extremely simple and take about 10 minutes. Don't be scared of downloading from Freewarefiles.com. I have never contracted any bad software from them. However you should watch when installing any software for sneaky ways of installing toolbars and the like. You should already be aware of that. Hope this helps a little. Have a GREAT DAY!

pixbyjnjphotos Loc: Apache Junction,AZ

jerryc41 wrote:

Any comments on making a Linux boot flash drive?

As far as making a Linux bootable disk is concerned, just download any linux distribution ISO file. I would suggest UBUNTU, LUBUNTO, or Linux Mint 17.1. Once a file is downloaded, burn the ISO file to a DVD. Turn your computer off with the disc still in the DVD Drive. Make sure you computer boots from the DVD first (boot sequence). The Linux distribution you burned to the DVD will run in its entirety right from the DVD without disturbing your HD. I am not sure where to go from here to eliminate your problem.

lorenww Loc: St. Petersburg

This link is NSF and lists all of the utilities on the distro.

http://thepiratebay.la/torrent/5406547/Hirens_Boot_CD_10.2

The list is huge and something there should be able to fix your problem.

melismus Loc: Chesapeake Bay Country

What does NSF mean?

lorenww wrote:

This link is NSF and lists all of the utilities on the distro.

http://thepiratebay.la/torrent/5406547/Hirens_Boot_CD_10.2

The list is huge and something there should be able to fix your problem.