I started a different tread trying to get my zorin os 16.3 pro to work again on my asus vivobook but without success, or rather started a tedious route to fix my issue but it's becoming more urgent to get my computer going so I'm going to try the new download.
My first question is: I have a copy of zorin os 16.3 pro on a thumb drive that was sent to me as a link in an email when I bought it. Should I use that copy or get a download of the copy on the zorin website. My thinking is that one may be more up to date than the other, or not.....
Support for Zorin 16 has expired. There will be no further updates.
Since the license for Zorin 16 pro is not valid for Zorin 17 pro, it makes more sense to either buy a new license for Zorin 17 (it would probably be better to wait until Zorin 18 is released and buy it then), or to install 17.3 core (or lite).
Which Vivobook do you have? I've got a Zenbook 14 with the touchpad screen deal and got it working and all; not like with Windows, but working at least.
I'm almost willing to bet if you boot Windows, issue a shutdown instead of restarting, and giving it another go with SecureBoot and fast startup and all that noise disabled.. you might get a lil further! I was pulling my hair out with no sound with my Zenbook after install lol.. Windows takes over some devices, probably some bus link in BIOS somehow that's kept alive through a restart. Totally new to me - might work, might not.. worth a shot though.
To directly answer this question: Either would be same as far as its latest updated packages (Though now no longer supported for regular patches).
So it would not matter which you chose in that regard.
The only difference would be if you want the Pro version with it's additional software and layouts.
Do still experience this with my Zenbook - maybe a TPM or SOC security kinda thing? Not sure but, do still see that with Win11 and all the disabled things.
I don't have windows. I got rid of that and only have zorin 16.3 pro on the computer.
The computer is an asus vivobook S533ea. I have maybe 5 games on Steam on it and my personal files and bookmarks since I downloaded the OS.
I bought the 17.3 now and have a link to download it.
I accessed the Brave AI and it says to lsblk and find name of the thumb drive and it says to:
Backup my personal files in case they are destroyed during installation. It says to mount the filesystem and then mount and to mount the thumb drive. I'm to identify the thumb drive by running lsblk. Then I go to the home directory, copy personal files to thumb drive, replace your username with your actual username, verify the backup, unmount the drive and reboot the computer and then remove the thumb drive.
I asked for instructions in how to get my personal files by using the recovery terminal.
Is this right? Any changes to be made?
What was your full process of installation; from making the flash drive and booting the Zorin installer step-by-step?
My newer machines, as far as I have learned with Win preinstalled, if I 'restart' rather than shutting down and booting the installer - no sound, no WiFi, video isn't recognized and get a generic display driver, all kinds of weird stuff.. Boot into Windows, issue a 'shutdown' instead of a 'reboot', boot Zorin - all is well..
Backups - if you can't access your currently installed HDD / SSD, do you have another copy of your data somewhere else that you can copy from?.. Don't want to say it, but might just be good to start fresh, if you can just copy from another back up -- or if they're easily obtained via web access from somewhere..
Another thing to consider is kernel version and supported devices in that kernel.. if it's a new, new, machine..... there may be issues with HW, as it may not see support, just yet..
I found this:
Shows a different way to install?.. But, with Ubuntu - you will select Zorin in place of Ubuntu..
I followed the instructions on the forum here on how to install, step by step.
My computer is probably 3-4 years old now. I didn't have any problem when I installed it. It was pretty uneventful.
And I must have followed some part of the instructions because I wrote asus flash on one disk and asus backup on another though I can't tell any difference between the two. I could only compare them by the amount of data on it.
So I'm going to go by the instructions I saw on Brave AI search. They speak in a simple way which matches my simple brain matter when it comes to this.
But I asked the question "how do i backup my personal files from a computer that can't access zorin to boot. Can I do it from the recovery terminal."
They said to go into the grum BIOS, to recovery terminal I need to mount the filesystem then plug in the thumb drive, identify the storage device. When I run lsblk in the recovery terminal with the thumb drive in it has under NAME: sda then a bracket that drops down that says SDA1. Under that is nvme0n1 with a drop down brackets that say nvme0n1p1 and nvme0n1p6.
Which of these denote my external storage device? Their example shows an option /dev/sdb1. The only outcome on my lsblk output that shows any mountpoint is /boot/efi. I don't have anything about dev/sdb1.
Flash drive would be sda1, your internal disk is an NVME - denoted by nvme0n1p1, and your probably looking to copy from nvme0n1p6.
Also, tread lightly with AI results.. many times have people used AI and kind of blindly copy / pasted commands into terminal without any direction on what just happened lol..
Another thing to watch for is your disk management - do you have RAID settings in BIOS anywhere? If so, use AHCI instead - RAID will cause issues upon booting; takes a specific setup..
Do consider - this is likely an Ext4 partition, being a Linux installed SSD, which will not let you mount within a live environment; without it matching the user / machine data when the partition was created (Zorin installed). . . . Which.. I'm a little curious as to what may be on the partition since you've not been able to get into the desktop environment after installed ...........
Still not sure if you did a 'reboot' or 'shutdown' before beginning installation though - was your machine 'rebooted' or 'shutdown' before any installs began? (Please advise)
I just read your reply but now i ave a different problem
On my old computer that I'm using to copy the fresh install of 17.3 with the thumb drive i realized i only have one usb port that works and i had my wireless mouse taking it up.
I tried to set it so i could use the touchpad instead but i managed to lose the setting for my mouse first before enabling the touchpad. Now i can't get past the login, the mouse will work for that, but for nothing else.
I can get a terminal to come up but how do i fix this? Right now i want the touch pad to work.
You can use Disks if you're using Zorin or Ubuntu btw - make sure to select the external first, then use the menu to select 'Restore Disk Image' and select your Zorin installer .iso file: