After a short period a message will appear telling you to label your disc which is a good idea.A screen will appear asking you which drive to use to create the disc.The second option is to create a system image and the third is to create a system repair disc. The first option if you have never created a backup before is to set up backups. There are three options in the left hand pane.In the “View By” drop down in the top right corner select “Large icons”.It provides a way to boot so that you can recover from your system image. What would you do if your hard drive failed? First of all you would lose access to Microsoft Windows and more importantly all of your photos, videos, music files and documents would be either lost or very difficult to recover.īefore installing Linux Mint it is imperative that you backup Windows 7 in case something goes wrong with the partitioning of the hard drive or the installation of the “GRUB” bootloader which enables your system to dual boot between Microsoft Windows and Linux Mint.Ĭreate a recovery diskThe recovery disk is used when you don’t have access to Windows 7 at all.
Your computer may well be equipped with the best Antivirus software and the best Firewall software but one careless click on a link in an email could cause Malware to be installed on your computer which may trash your system rendering it useless.
Reviews If you are unsure whether Linux Mint is for you here are some reviews which might help: Linux Mint is currently the most popular version of Linux and boasts an impressive user interface and a great range of software and it can be installed and used for free.Ĭlick here if you just want to get rid of Windows 7 and replace it with Linux Mint. Installing Linux Mint is not that difficult and the rewards are incredible. If you fail to back up your system and something goes wrong with the installation you run the risk of losing data.ĭon’t let the last paragraph scare you. It is imperative that you follow every section especially the part about backing up your Microsoft Windows files.
Notice the recovery partition at the beginning of the drive.Click here if you would prefer to dual boot Linux Mint with Windows 8.1 This was from a test installation when the C drive was reduced after installation. Your home folder will be created under the partition mounted at / (root).įigure 1 shows the partitions on a self-installed computer as seen from the Windows 8 computer. If you don’t have enough disk space, you can skip the /home partition and just create two partitions. Only three partitions will created for Linux Mint 17.2. The unallocated space will be used for Linux Mint. And if you’re installing a fresh copy of Windows, you can specify how much of the disk space you want the Windows installer to use. If you have an existing installation of Windows 10, it’s best to shrink the C drive to free up enough space for Linux Mint. After downloading the installation image for your platform, transfer it to a USB stick or blank DVD. NOTE: This tutorial is for the Ubuntu-based version of Linux Mint, and not the Debian-based version, also known as LMDE.
You’ll also need an installation image of Linux Mint 17.2, which is available for download from here. You may choose to install your version of Windows anew.
To complete this tutorial, you’ll, of course, need a computer (desktop or laptop) with an existing installation of Windows 10 (or Windows 8). If you’re new to Linux, it’s recommended that you read A beginner’s guide to disks and disk partitions in Linux. Whichever version of Windows you use, the steps will be the same.
The other is a self-built desktop with a fresh installation of Windows 8 Pro upgraded to Windows 8.1. Two test computers were used: One is an OEM laptop upgraded from Windows 8.1 to Windows 10.
This tutorial shows how to dual-boot Linux Mint 17.2 and either Windows 10 or Windows 8.1 on a single hard disk drive and on a computer with UEFI firmware.