But the way it is reading it is a 26GB Linux Install, because a usb sick Linux does not take that much room.
Maybe that cloudbook uses an sd card signature for its hard drive. This is making so sense whatsoever to me.
Do you have an SD Card in your slot?


if yes take it out.....



You go this brand new? what does it say on box for Hard Drive size?

can you still boot windows? you can use windows disk manager to see what it has in it too.

flip to the bottom and post model and make numbers

Scratch what I said before. I think that 7.7 GB partition might be your hard drive's efi system partition. That would explain why it's so small, and it's the right kind of file system too. Since it's already mounted, you can examine it. Check the contents of /mnt and of any subdirectories.

Ok hazel. To pull up that dir, do I type sudo /mnt? Also, BW, windows is no longer available in my boot processing order in the bios

Some bioses (UEFIs) don't SAVE your boot USB first priority. I have a gateway desktop like that.

If you have grub installed on several installations, the one you installed last is likely the grub that is actually used. You could chainload the other grub.cfg with configfile from the "c"ommand mode.

GRUB> ls
GRUB> configfile (hd0,3)/boot/grub/grub.cfg

And maybe some insmod of .mod type things to be able to read the storage devices and partitions before doing ls. YMMV

And I use the terminal to pull up that grub info correct?

Nope! /mnt isn't a command, it's a directory. We know you've got something mounted on /mnt because the system told you so; we just don't know what it is yet. Try this:
Since it's only a directory listing, which any user is allowed to do, you won't have to use sudo. If it turns out to be a Linux file system mounted there, that's brilliant news. It means your Linux install really did work. Then we can get that mysterious fat32 partition mounted and find out what's in it. And if that turns out to be an efi system partition, it shouldn't be too difficult to get grub installed onto it.

Once you have grub, you can boot Windows from it.

Wow. GiantMcBig: This is looking to me like you've got Linux installed but not a bootloader. A couple of suggestions:

1) Boot your live Linux ISO from your USB drive and then run the program GParted (GParted comes with most live Linux distributions). It's a partition editor like the native Windows Disk Manager applet or the old Partition Magic application. Choose what looks most like your main hard drive in the upper right selection box and see what the partitions contain. If I'm reading one of the above posts correctly, your main hard disk is 32Gb, partitioned into 3 primary partitions: your ESP (EFI System Partition - where your bootloader must reside), your main Linux install partition and a linux swap partition. Windows seems to have been completely removed during your linux install. If this is the case, you can try reinstalling Grub or whatever bootloader you've decided to use once you're in your live session. Follow your distribution's instructions for ensuring it installs correctly.

2) If no luck with the above, there exists a neat little utility called Boot-Repair-Disk available in live ISO form. Create a USB or CD with it, much the same way you probably created your live Linux installation medium. Boot it up and follow the repair instructions - usually pretty simple if there actually IS a bootable OS installed on the computer.

3) Worst case ... reinstall Linux all over *again* from scratch and be *real* careful to choose the right option when it gets to the part about your bootloader (Grub, for example). Sometimes after installing a bootloader, you need to edit (and/or sometimes regenerate) the config file it created in order to make sure it is looking in the proper place for your operating system. It usually has to do with the device nomenclature (ex. /dev/sda1 ... etc.). By using GParted before rebooting, it would be useful for you to take down the partition names and make sure your bootloader's config file (ex. /etc/default/grub.cfg for GRUB, /boot/syslinux/syslinux.cfg for Syslinux) is correct.

Hope this helps. By the way, it's totally normal that you're running into these types of problems starting out with Linux - don't give up !! Things will eventually work and it'll be worth it.

First things first! We need to find out what is on those partitions. He can use the graphical file manager to explore if he feels more comfortable with it than with the command line.

What's on /mnt? Is it a Linux filesystem? If it is, a quick check of directories like /bin and /lib to confirm that they're fully populated. Which partition is this actually? mount should show that. And then hopefully he's identified his Linux root partition.

Then what's in /mnt/boot? There should be a kernel, an initrd, a grub directory and perhaps an efi directory. If there isn't an efi directory, he should create one. Then mount that mysterious fat32 partition (/dev/sda1) on /mnt/boot/efi and look at its contents.

Here's an important principle: if things go wrong in Linux, calm systematic investigation will nearly always show what needs to be done to fix it. And that's a more valuable lesson than you get when everything runs smoothly.

you boot list off of BIOS should be if you are making it auto boot in a sequence to get your USB Port first.

1. USB hdd Port (or something like that) that is all that matters to boot your USB Stick to install Linux.
2. on board main hdd

insert USB Stick with Linux on it.

boot into Linux go into install script. Answer whatever questions it has on your settings. for where to install it.

Pick /dev/sda it should go into a partition step. If it has an auto-partition for you to use then use it. being that your space is only 32 to 64 GB I'd put everything (reluctantly) onto root / not splitting my home and root.

then it should know if you are in EFI boot mode, and install grub accordingly.

you just need to (most of the time, if not always. I have not tried every installer out there for every distro out there). So you may 99% chance of you might have to tell it where you want Grub installed to. If it is EFI then I have only installed EFI once on someone else laptop for them, (and had no issues on doing it) but still my experience with that is limted to only that one time. so being you have a cloud book being a newer "laptop" their is a 99.9% chance it is EFI.

so look to the others in here how to install that. but it shouldn't be any harder then to MBR way.

I'm still wondering what was this all about?


Because that, what is highlighted is reading as an SD Card with three partitions on it. Like a full blown EFI Linux Install.


Not a normal hard drive, or USB Port. Where it looks like you have a 26.7G Linux OS installed to.

There wasn't anything in /mnt.

I figued I'd go into My Computerand look around on my harddrive. This is what i found in the Boot folder:




So I know i have EFI and GRUB. The EFI folderis empty, but the GRUB folder looks like this:



Hopefully this helps clear some fog.


I take that back, that wasn't in my harddrve. Thats in my media devices. when i go to my harddrive and view the Boot folder, the isn't an EFI, but there is a GRUB folder.

Another question, GiantMcBig : when you try booting without any device plugged into the computer, does GRUB actually try to start before you get your "no operating system" message ? You can usually tell this because the word GRUB will show on the screen at one point.

I'll check

I'm not familiar with eMMC drives, but I'm guessing that's what you have that you call a hard drive. They may sometimes be called a SSD, but they may look a little more like a SD card to GRUB (so /dev/mmcblk0p1 may be your internal drive).

Also, Linux Mint recommends that you turn off Secure Boot in your UEFI settings, and I don't think anyone else suggested that yet (if you haven't already). UEFI often creates headaches, even with UEFI-friendly distros. Even though Mint is UEFI-friendly, I would try reinstalling after turning off Secure Boot and Fast Boot, and turning on Legacy Mode (or CSM). There may be other UEFI settings too... Google for anything UEFI that affects Linux installs.

Since you're booting on a USB stick, I'm fairly sure you can get it installed too. The rEFInd Boot Manager may help you, or at least give you more information about how EFI and UEFI works.

If you figure out how to get it installed, you may consider not using a swap partition if you have enough RAM, and look at some methods of setting TRIM to protect the drive. I don't know if eMMC drives need this like is recommended for SSD, but it'd be worth researching.

Good luck, and let us hear how you're doing with it.