Help
 

Hi.

Before I begin, everyone should be aware that I am completely out of my element when it comes to linux and computers. I have no experience with coding or anything. For all practical purposes, assume I know about as much as a three-year-old when it comes to computer programming. That being said, I own a Toshiba NB205 netbook which came with Windows 7 starter package. I tried to run the little guy with Windows 7, but eventually it always just seemed bogged down...and I couldn't even have more than one tab opened at a time in my web browser.

I've downloaded and installed Peppermint onto my computer, but I noticed during start up that it asks me if I want to run the computer using unetbootin or windows. I'm assuming that this means that I still have windows on my computer, and I'm not sure how to remove it. Any advice?

Hi & Welcome to Linux Questions!

Congratulations on your Peppermint installation-:)

You can use your Peppermint OS to see if the Windows partitions are still there.
Run this command in the terminal as 'root'
To do that, after you open the terminal type, sudo and than type in your root password and hit the Enter key. Than type the command above and hit the Enter key. Post the output of what the terminal gives you. (in code tags)

Do you want to remove Win's 7?

peppermint@peppermint ~ $ sudo
usage: sudo [-D level] -h | -K | -k | -V
usage: sudo -v [-AknS] [-D level] [-g groupname|#gid] [-p prompt] [-u user
name|#uid]
usage: sudo -l[l] [-AknS] [-D level] [-g groupname|#gid] [-p prompt] [-U user
name] [-u user name|#uid] [-g groupname|#gid] [command]
usage: sudo [-AbEHknPS] [-r role] [-t type] [-C fd] [-D level] [-g
groupname|#gid] [-p prompt] [-u user name|#uid] [-g groupname|#gid]
[VAR=value] [-i|-s] [<command>]
usage: sudo -e [-AknS] [-r role] [-t type] [-C fd] [-D level] [-g
groupname|#gid] [-p prompt] [-u user name|#uid] file ...
peppermint@peppermint ~ $ fdisk -l
peppermint@peppermint ~ $

Above is everything that happened. I'm not sure if I did what you said to do correctly. Yes, I would like to remove Windows 7 from this computer entirely.

This is ok but the rest of the output I have never seen before.
After you type sudo and press enter and you should see the word password.
During the whole time that you type in your password it will not show in the terminal.

Here is how I run it in my terminal so you can see:
The first 3 are my Windows 7 partitions (sda1,2&3)
The last 2 partitions are my Linux partitions-



Try sudo fdisk -l hit Enter-
Type in your password and hit Enter than:
You should get something close to what I have.

Okay. That time seemed to produce more positive results. Here's what happened:

peppermint@peppermint ~ $ sudo fdisk -l

Disk /dev/sda: 160.0 GB, 160041885696 bytes
255 heads, 63 sectors/track, 19457 cylinders, total 312581808 sectors
Units = sectors of 1 * 512 = 512 bytes
Sector size (logical/physical): 512 bytes / 512 bytes
I/O size (minimum/optimal): 512 bytes / 512 bytes
Disk identifier: 0x74457445

Device Boot Start End Blocks Id System
/dev/sda1 * 2048 3074047 1536000 27 Hidden NTFS WinRE
/dev/sda2 3074048 296998911 146962432 7 HPFS/NTFS/exFAT
/dev/sda3 296998912 312580095 7790592 17 Hidden HPFS/NTFS
peppermint@peppermint ~ $

Now, you keep mentioning a password. I don't think I have a password for this computer.

Member Response
 

Hi,

Welcome to LQ!

In the future, please provide a descriptive title for your thread to help members to understand your needs.

Please consider reading the following to aid in composition of your posts;I do like to provide the following for new users;
Hope this helps.
Have fun & enjoy!
:hattip:

There is not indication in your fdisk output that you have installed Peppermint to your computer. It's possible that you did a frugal install on the computer but,??

Let's start at the beginning. You say you downloaded Peppermint and you mention unetbootin. Unetbootin is software which is used to put an iso file on a flash drive to make it bootable. After going through that process, you reboot the computer with the newly created flash drive plugged into the computer and go into the BIOS on staartup to set the flash drive to first boot priority. Once you boot from the flash drive, you will be taken to the Peppermint Desktop and there will be an Install Peppermint icon. You click that icon to open the installer and go through the process of installing it. Did you go through all these steps? I'm wondering because you say you have not password yet the Peppermint installer will not complete unless you create at least one user and that user must have a password.

More details on the steps you took would help us to help you. Also, did you download from the Peppermint site and is this Peppermint 4?

Herein lies the problem. You see, my brother-in-law helped me get the whole thing set up. I don't remember having to use a flash drive for unetbootin, but I may have. Due to certain medical issues, my memory is definitely not the best. Another reason that I don't remember is because he helped me set all of this up and then my charger broke...so I couldn't use the computer until I could manage to buy a new charger. So now I have a new charger, but it has been a few months since all of this took place. I'm not purposefully leaving information out, I just didn't realize that there was more information to give so I apologize.

Anyways, here's what happens.

When I turn on my computer, I get a message the basically looks like this:

"Choose an Operating System to start, or press TAB to select a tool
Windows 7
Unetbootin

Tools:
Windows Memory Diagnostic"

I've just been clicking Unetbootin for the past few days since I got the charger and have only used it for web browsing. Anyways, when I click Unetbootin, it brings me a desktop page that obviously isn't windows so I assumed it was peppermint, but it does have an icon on the desktop that says "Install Peppermint 4." Are you telling me that we didn't even figure out how to get it all installed correctly? Oh goodness...

So I guess I should locate a flash drive in my house if I hope to continue. I'm not going to start on this process until I hear back from someone about what my next step is because I don't want to screw something up.

Thank you guys for helping me out. I really am clueless about all of this.

Oh, and yes. I did download this from the actual peppermint website.

The reason the system asks if you want to boot to windows or unetbootin is that you used u.etbootin to burn iso to hdd. I would assume that ppermint is a live-cd with option to install but I would be hesitant installing because your installation meia is probably on the partition that you need to resize to create space for a true hdd install. I would try burning pm to a usb again & trying again. Also you can remove the unetbootin entry from within Wins.

Okay. I think I understand. So basically, unetbootin is this thing where I put the peppermint install file to install from, but my brother-in-law must have moved the file from the jump drive onto the computer rather than installing it from the jump drive and removing the rest of the computers contents, basically that's what you're saying?

So now I need to reinstall unetbootin and peppermint to a jump drive at this point? Can I just move the file back over from the computer to the jump drive?

Also, how do I go about removing the unetbootin entry in Windows?

Thank you so much. I think I'm finally beginning to understand what I need to do to actually fix this thing! (:

unetbootin is a program that is used, in Windows or Linux, to write an ISO to a USB stick to create a bootable disk. Why and how it appears on your boot up screen is beyond me.

The basic steps are: download an ISO for the distro you want, use unetbootin to write the ISO to a USB stick, boot from the USB stick to a live system, install from the live system...

It's better to just run unetbootin to install to flash because it does also loads the bootloader to the flash. Also unetbootin doesn't choose the drive to install to, you select it. There's a button at the bottom labeled usb.

Okay. I'm pretty much just going to assume that I need to boot my computer up using Windows 7 and start over completely. Do I need to remove the aforementioned unetbootin entry? If so, then how do I go about doing this?

The current version of Peppermint OS is 5:-
Download Peppermint OS from here-
http://peppermintos.com/

Before you download check that you have the right iso. (32-bit or 64-bit)

Upon doing so you should get a description that looks similar to this:
peppermint5- (32 or 64 bit)
Which is: raw CD image (how many MB)

-:-Than proceed to installing like yancek, our Guru: Eddy1 and NGIB suggested.-:-

-:-After the Live Peppermint iso image loads the os on your machine just double click on the "Install Peppermint" icon and that will start the installation process.
***Don't forget during your installation to write down your username and password and your "root" password.***

If you don't want to keep Windows just allow Peppermint OS to take over the entire drive.