Well, if it was me, I'd install Zorin on that partition.
What is the make and model of the PC? Is there a reason, given the PC, that they believe Zorin will not work on it? OR is it only that Best Buy does not want to accept any liability in installing Zorin OS?
I have an HP Pavilion. It has 1 Terabyte hard drive. The partition was split evenly. I think it's more that they don't want to accept the liability.
When you say that you'd install Zorin on that partition, which would be B:, how does that work? I followed the instructions to download balenaEtcher and created a boot drive on a USB.
Do I restart the computer and open the Boot Device Menu? And will it then ask which drive I want to install Zorin?
You would select boot from USB from your computer boot sequence.
Then you can choose Try or Install Zorin.
In installing Zorin, you will go through some prompts, such as location and language... Then arrive at a screen that says "Install Zorin Alongside..." If you read down that page, you will see an option for "Something Else."
Choose "Sometehing Else" and the installer will open a Partition Manager. From this, you can select that partition that you already have set aside.
Ensure that you set a Mount Point (You can choose just / as the mount point) and ext4 journaling.
Okay, I got it until "Ensure that you set a Mount Point . . . "
What's a mount point and ext4 journaling?
And I watched a video where the user was setting up a certain amount of space for /dev/sda, /dev/sda1 ext4 /, and free space. Not sure how much space I'm supposed to give to these devices.
Also, after I install Zorin, when I turn my computer on, will it give me the option of starting under Zorin or Windows? Which I assume it would.
Sorry if I'm belaboring every point, but I'm new at this.
The mount point is the directory to install within. If one is not set, this will halt the installation. I remind others to ensure they select one because in the gparted screen, it can be easy to miss.
ext4, fat, fat32 - all of these are Formatting Options. Here is more detailed information on ext4 journaling FS:
How much space is entirely up to you and depends on how you use the computer and what you tend to save, but generally on the forum, we seem to say a bare minimum of 60 gigs.
If the installation goes properly and smoothly, then at boot you should have the option of starting under Zorin OS or Windows.
If it does not, we can repair grub.
No apologies are necessary when you are ensuring that you have everything in order.
Just tried to install Zorin. Here's what I ran into:
As I stated in my previous comment, Best Buy had already partitioned the drive in half.
I got to the boot, it had the option of "Something else" which I checked.
Further along I came to installation type:
/dev/sdb
/dev/sdb2 3 MB unknown
free space 123056 MB
/dev/sdc
/free space 105MB
/dev/sdc1 NTFS 2000291 MB 874640 MB
(which is odd seeing as how I only have a terabyte of hard drive)
When I tried to install, I get:
No root file system
No root file system is defined
Please correct this from the partitioning menu
I change /dev/sdb2 to EXT4 and Mount Point to "/"
When I try to install, I get
Some of the partition are too small. Please make the following partitions at least this large: / 5.8 GB
So that's where I'm stuck. I can't seem to change anything to get the OS to install.
This is why. Delete it and make a new parition out of the ~ free space 123056 MB
Still not working. Made the changes and I get the following error message:
No EFI System Partition was found. This system will likely not be able to boot successfully, and the installation process may fail.
Please go back and add an EFI System Partition, or continue at your own risk.
Okay, no problem. Your computer uses UEFI.
delete the partition again.
Make a partition: FAT32 /boot/efi 512 MB
And then make a partition for / EXT4 with the rest of the MB
I'm certain the SDB is the flash boot drive, and the SDC is my external hard drive.
It appears as though neither partition on the internal hard drive is showing.
Okay, then it appears that Best Buy havn't made a partition.
I guess this is your Windows install? If so, you'll need to boot into Windows and resize its partition to make a new one. It's best to do this in Windows so you don't break Windows so to say.
No. My internal hard drive is 1 terabyte. And in windows I can see both C:\ and B:\
The /dev/sdc1 NTFS 2000291 MB 874640 MB is my external 2TB hard drive.
So, in the install process it's only showing my flash boot drive and my external hard drive.
I'm supposed to click on "Try something else" in order to get to the partitions, right?
I'm pondering why it can't see sda which would be your HDD on your computer.
Perhaps @Aravisian have an idea.
Could it be a BIOS problem?
EDIT: Is secure/fast boot disabled in BIOS?
See if it helps, @dave1
Also, what file system was used to format C:\ and B:? Windows has a partition manager utility as well and can be used to examine, reformat or repartition a hard drive.
It's all Greek to me.
Don't know how to do anything you suggested.
For C:, it's whatever Windows 10 uses.
B:\ is blank, I think.
Windows uses NTFS. You can reformat the partition or partitions you want to install Zorin OS on to FAT32 using the Windows Partition Manager
When your computer boots up, the first screen is usually brand logo with that (normally) says press [F2] or [F8] or [DEL] for BIOS or something like that, depending what computer brand you have. When you do this you'll get into BIOS settings.
But try the Windows partition suggestion first.
I'm going to try again tomorrow after I've had some time to think about it.
Thanks for the help.