Mint Booting problem!

[maxcorrigan]

Being a bit of a PC noob especially regarding Linux Mint, the problem i have is after running a 15 hr dban nuke, i have tried to get Linux Mint (latest version) running on an old ASUS laptop which formerly before dban was running windows vista, it starts up running in the USB boot sequence OK then gets as far as Mint icon with the 5 dots underneath, and then after a couple of seconds (with a couple of the little flashes top left hand screen) goes back to BSOD. i have tried several apps for burning to a USB stick all seemingly successful, and also tried booting from a DVD which i also burned successfully does'nt respond at all even though CD/DVD shows in the boot sequence, does anybody have any pointers to what i can do next (keeping it simple) at the moment all i've got is an ASUS brick!

[timendres]

Since you are seeing the Mint icon, that suggests that Mint is getting started. The most likely problem, in my experience, is issues with hardware drivers. If there is a method to get Mint to boot with the console displayed, then this might provide you with better information on where the problem is:

 

   https://forums.linuxmint.com/viewtopic.php?t=210285

 

Otherwise, you might try installing another flavor of Linux (e.g., Ubuntu) to see if that is more successful.

[maxcorrigan]

17 minutes ago, timendres said:

Since you are seeing the Mint icon, that suggests that Mint is getting started. The most likely problem, in my experience, is issues with hardware drivers. If there is a method to get Mint to boot with the console displayed, then this might provide you with better information on where the problem is:

 

   https://forums.linuxmint.com/viewtopic.php?t=210285

 

Otherwise, you might try installing another flavor of Linux (e.g., Ubuntu) to see if that is more successful.

Thanks for your quick response, the reason i went for Mint is it's resemblance to Win 10 desktop which i have got used too, other flavours of linux i can't comment on, The boot does'nt get as far as the console stage unfortunately so no help there!

[timendres]

If you have another machine available to test with, you might try booting it with the same USB/DVD to see if it gets farther, but not actually installing. The point being to decide if it is the medium or the machine that is the issue.

[maxcorrigan]

36 minutes ago, timendres said:

If you have another machine available to test with, you might try booting it with the same USB/DVD to see if it gets farther, but not actually installing. The point being to decide if it is the medium or the machine that is the issue.

Yes OK i'll give it a go, would prove that it might be the machine, will get back!

[maxcorrigan]

14 minutes ago, maxcorrigan said:

Yes OK i'll give it a go, would prove that it might be the machine, will get back!

OK Just did that, and Mint loaded up OK got the page with three icons, install mint, Home page which opened up with various icons etc. so fault must lie in my other laptop!

[maxcorrigan]

26 minutes ago, maxcorrigan said:

OK Just did that, and Mint loaded up OK got the page with three icons, install mint, Home page which opened up with various icons etc. so fault must lie in my other laptop!

OK Got it, tapped enter on the screen with the five dots (mentioned) and one of the options that came up was compatibility a whole load of text scrolled up and that was it, got mint!

Thanks for your help!

[Tayaout]

Depending on your hardware you might want to install proprietary graphic driver. It will give you proper video acceleration and longer battery life. 

 

Open a console and type: "lspci -k". Post the output here and we could help you optimize your installation. 

 

The reason mint graphical interface sometimes fail to boot is because cinnamon uses composition. 

[maxcorrigan]

31 minutes ago, Tayaout said:

Depending on your hardware you might want to install proprietary graphic driver. It will give you proper video acceleration and longer battery life. 

 

Open a console and type: "lspci -k". Post the output here and we could help you optimize your installation. 

 

The reason mint graphical interface sometimes fail to boot is because cinnamon uses composition. 

Ok i'll try when i get it going again seems to have reverted to the old way again i spoke too soon!

[Tayaout]

1 minute ago, maxcorrigan said:

Ok i'll try when i get it going again seems to have reverted to the old way again i spoke too soon!

If the OS has installed but you lose the graphic then you will need to boot in console mode. From there you can install proprietary graphic drivers. You could also try another windows manager that doesnt use composition by default.

[maxcorrigan]

12 hours ago, Tayaout said:

If the OS has installed but you lose the graphic then you will need to boot in console mode. From there you can install proprietary graphic drivers. You could also try another windows manager that doesnt use composition by default.

As an update i got it going again and set about installing on my PC, this is the second time i have tried, the install gets as far as the last part "restarting", then seems to get stuck, last night i left it on this restarting part and 3 hrs later it was still there, so turned off and am now running a dban (2nd time) to clear the junk that has happened with my two partly installed efforts so far!

[Tayaout]

Maybe you should install Ubuntu Desktop (more user friendly).

 

If you like the look and feels of Cinnamon (default Linux mint windows manager) you can still install it on ubuntu: https://itsfoss.com/install-cinnamon-on-ubuntu/

 

When you login on your device you can then choose which Windows manager you want and can install as many as you want. Here is a list: https://www.makeuseof.com/tag/best-linux-desktop-environments/

 

My guess is you have an old laptop with a Nvidia graphic card. They were a common source of problem on older systems. 

[Stocky]

17 hours ago, timendres said:

Otherwise, you might try installing another flavor of Linux (e.g., Ubuntu) to see if that is more successful.

Or an earlier version of Mint try Mint 18 rather than 19.

[Tayaout]

Also using dban is an unnecessary step. When you install Linux it ask if you want to delete everything and install Linux or run Linux alongside an existing installation. Simply deleting everything and installing Linux will wipe the disk. dban is more usefull if you need to delete sensitive data before hand. There is better alternative on SSD and also full disk encryption. 

[maxcorrigan]

On 9/9/2019 at 9:07 AM, Tayaout said:

Maybe you should install Ubuntu Desktop (more user friendly).

 

If you like the look and feels of Cinnamon (default Linux mint windows manager) you can still install it on ubuntu: https://itsfoss.com/install-cinnamon-on-ubuntu/

 

When you login on your device you can then choose which Windows manager you want and can install as many as you want. Here is a list: https://www.makeuseof.com/tag/best-linux-desktop-environments/

 

My guess is you have an old laptop with a Nvidia graphic card. They were a common source of problem on older systems. 

Been away for a couple of weeks, I am quite happy with mint 19.2 so far better than i thought i would be, other than the booting that is, which i have to do at the moment via boot sequence then alt. etc. after switching on pc, The graphics according to a label on the laptop read ATI RADEON HD 3470 BTW. I have tried boot repair app. a couple of times the results are seen below, so if i can get help in simpleton terms to alter the partition i will be very happy, sorry for crappy pix but i'm not PC minded enough to post otherwise   PS everything seems to be in triplicate, sorry for that!

below, so if anyone can help in simpleton terms how to alter the partition setup might make a difference in the booting problem

[Stocky]

Gaah! Mod needs to edit that post and delete the duplicate images.

 

When you installed Mint you did a clean install and had Mint wipe the drive and install as the only OS?

[Tayaout]

Are you installing on a fresh system? 

 

Check that the BIOS is not using MBR for booting instead of EFI or UEFI. You can change this in the BIOS menu when the computer boot. 

 

Your problem seems that you are missing the boot partition. It is usually done for you unless you manually partioned the partition. Boot repair are not that good. Usually to fix this you need to boot into Linux from a USB stick. Mount and chroot into the broken Linux install then reinstall grub. Unless you understand what I just said it's easier to do a fresh install. 

[Stocky]

1 hour ago, Tayaout said:

it's easier to do a fresh install. 

+1 

[maxcorrigan]

8 minutes ago, Stocky said:

+1 

Thanks for your replies, trouble is trying to boot from a USB is not that easy it does not respond quickly have to keep trying over and over again many times before it suddenly opens, usually it goes straight to HDD which also does'nt start DVD does'nt seem to work at all!

As i said previously at the moment i can only start by going to BOOT >HDD >ENTER >ALT >ADVANCED >RECOVERY >START LINUX MINT 

[Tayaout]

8 minutes ago, maxcorrigan said:

Thanks for your replies, trouble is trying to boot from a USB is not that easy it does not respond quickly have to keep trying over and over again many times before it suddenly opens, usually it goes straight to HDD which also does'nt start DVD does'nt seem to work at all!

As i said previously at the moment i can only start by going to BOOT >HDD >ENTER >ALT >ADVANCED >RECOVERY >START LINUX MINT 

If you can enter the BIOS menu then you can boot from USB. Usually there is also a boot menu that can be accessed directly. 

 

What is the laptop model? 

[maxcorrigan]

3 hours ago, Stocky said:

Gaah! Mod needs to edit that post and delete the duplicate images.

 

When you installed Mint you did a clean install and had Mint wipe the drive and install as the only OS?

Yes after dban!

[maxcorrigan]

24 minutes ago, Tayaout said:

If you can enter the BIOS menu then you can boot from USB. Usually there is also a boot menu that can be accessed directly. 

 

What is the laptop model? 

Asus X59SL series

[maxcorrigan]

2 hours ago, Tayaout said:

Are you installing on a fresh system? 

 

Check that the BIOS is not using MBR for booting instead of EFI or UEFI. You can change this in the BIOS menu when the computer boot. 

 

Your problem seems that you are missing the boot partition. It is usually done for you unless you manually partioned the partition. Boot repair are not that good. Usually to fix this you need to boot into Linux from a USB stick. Mount and chroot into the broken Linux install then reinstall grub. Unless you understand what I just said it's easier to do a fresh install. 

I have done some of the things you suggest update grub etc. and update everything else as far as i know!

[maxcorrigan]

I don't know if this tells you anything from the BIOS

[Tayaout]

33 minutes ago, maxcorrigan said:

Asus X59SL series

The Notebook PC's power-ON message appears on the screen when you turn it ON. If necessary, you

may adjust the brightness by using the hot keys. If you need to run the BIOS Setup to set or modify the

system configuration, press [F2] upon bootup to enter the BIOS Setup. If you press [Tab] during the

splash screen, standard boot information such as the BIOS version can be seen. Press [ESC] and you will

be presented with a boot menu with selections to boot from your available drives.

https://www.manualslib.com/manual/234029/Asus-F5gl.html?page=24#manual

 

Edit: Might have posted the wrong manual link. You can download the right one here: https://www.asus.com/supportonly/X59SL/HelpDesk_Manual/

[Tayaout]

9 minutes ago, maxcorrigan said:

I don't know if this tells you anything from the BIOS

Take a picture of the security and boot tab. 

[maxcorrigan]

4 minutes ago, Tayaout said:

The Notebook PC's power-ON message appears on the screen when you turn it ON. If necessary, you

may adjust the brightness by using the hot keys. If you need to run the BIOS Setup to set or modify the

system configuration, press [F2] upon bootup to enter the BIOS Setup. If you press [Tab] during the

splash screen, standard boot information such as the BIOS version can be seen. Press [ESC] and you will

be presented with a boot menu with selections to boot from your available drives.

https://www.manualslib.com/manual/234029/Asus-F5gl.html?page=24#manual

I just went to the main boot setup menu picked removable usb drive as main clicked enter then F10 ie keep settings and exit, it hangs for about 5 seconds then goes to normal HDD boot which brings up mint emblem this lasts for about another 5 or 6 seconds then black screen!

[Tayaout]

16 minutes ago, maxcorrigan said:

I just went to the main boot setup menu picked removable usb drive as main clicked enter then F10 ie keep settings and exit, it hangs for about 5 seconds then goes to normal HDD boot which brings up mint emblem this lasts for about another 5 or 6 seconds then black screen!

For the USB not booting try disabling secure boot in the security tab of your BIOS. 

 

For the black screen after boot this looks like video driver issue but hard to tell. 

 

If I was you I would simply install Ubuntu see if it fixes your issues. You can install the Linux mint desktop on Ubuntu it is called cinnamon. Linux mint is derived from Ubuntu which is derived from Debian. Debian has the option to install cinnamon directly from the installer but the distro is the least user friendly of the 3.

[maxcorrigan]

14 minutes ago, Tayaout said:

For the USB not booting try disabling secure boot in the security tab of your BIOS. 

 

For the black screen after boot this looks like video driver issue but hard to tell. 

 

If I was you I would simply install Ubuntu see if it fixes your issues. You can install the Linux mint desktop on Ubuntu it is called cinnamon. Linux mint is derived from Ubuntu which is derived from Debian. Debian has the option to install cinnamon directly from the installer but the distro is the least user friendly of the 3.

Referring to your post above this, pressing "tab" at the startup and after American Megatrends (or something) now goes straight to the screen below which is what i was using before, to get into mint, using "tab" cuts out the need of having to go to the boot menu select, then hit "alt" which then brings up the same option below, so have gained a little, a bit wary bout installing ubunto, as i presume it will wipe the mint i have already got which i said before took a hell of a long time to get to the position of installing! goes straight to

[maxcorrigan]

32 minutes ago, Tayaout said:

For the USB not booting try disabling secure boot in the security tab of your BIOS. 

 

For the black screen after boot this looks like video driver issue but hard to tell. 

 

If I was you I would simply install Ubuntu see if it fixes your issues. You can install the Linux mint desktop on Ubuntu it is called cinnamon. Linux mint is derived from Ubuntu which is derived from Debian. Debian has the option to install cinnamon directly from the installer but the distro is the least user friendly of the 3.

I've tried looking for the secure boot option and cannot seem to find it anywhere, something i've wanted to do all along, if you know how please let me know!