Yesterday a man brought me a laptop [ASUS X712F notebook i5] with Windows11. he wanted Zorin total install, which I proceeded to do. The laptop had an extra internal drive D:/ for data. I selected non dual boot option for just Zorin18 alone. The install took like forever, and upon completion, the following had occurred - Drive D:/ had been re-named to"OS" (no asking) and the re-start post installation had the grub menu with an extra option for Windows boot manager. Long story short, Windows11 said stuff you Bruce, I'm going to move to D:/ drive and you are not going to delete me!!!
I went to files and right clicked on "OS" and un-mounted it. I am hoping I can re-format with Disks or similar.
Any advice welcome?
As long as you're doing a fresh install with the assumption that absolutely nothing will be preserved, you should be able to handle this several ways. The easiest would be to boot Zorin from USB, as if you were installing, choose "Try Zorin" rather than install, run Disks, and manually delete every partition EXCEPT the USB you're running from. (It'll be mounted--you won't be able to delete the USB, and it'll throw errors if you try.)
With all partitions deleted, there should be nothing left of Windows or its EFI data to cause this. At that point, you should be free to do the normal install... uh, normally, and have it be a Zorin only machine.
2 Likes
If I get another machine with Windows11 onboard I will definitely get rid of all partitions like you suggest. This never happened to me from Windows10 machines.
I can't speak to what actually caused the machine to do that, but it's pretty well known that Windows 11 is more insidious than 10, as you yourself mentioned with the title. I wouldn't be surprised by trouble that "never happened on Windows 10," no matter what that trouble might be.
2 Likes
Were all te usual pre-installation things done (e.g. BIOS/UEFI Secure Boot, Fast Boot, TPM disabled etc) before installing ZorinOS. See: Before you install
Looking here, I cannot see any additional security features that would hinder installing Zorin instead of Win11. https://www.asus.com/laptops/for-home/vivobook/vivobook-17-x712/techspec/
When You installed Zorin, waht Install Option in the Installer did You choose ''Install Zorin alongside Windows'', ''erase disk'' or ''Something else''? If it should be ''Something else'': How did You set up the Partitions?
I would not know where TPM is in Windows11? I turned off secure boot though ans fast boot.
I did not choose alongside, erase disk totally to Zorin18 was chosen.
TPM is in the BIOS settings and not clearly labeled.
It would be in the Security tab and labeled as... "TPM Device," "Intel Platform Trust Technology (PTT)," or "AMD fTPM"... There may be other names for out there...
3 Likes
Okay. with more than one Drive, the ''Something else'' Option would be a good Choice. Then you could create the Partitions manually on the Drive You want. Yes, it is not automatically but so You can set it up more individually for the Drives.
1 Like
Good to know, thanking you.
Yes, point taken. I do believe that I would need to do a learning tutorial on that so that I knew what I was doing?
Less a whole tutorial and more a short list of which partitions must exist, what the minimum size needs to be, and what the mount point is. A whole tutorial would be beneficial for greater understanding of Linux as an OS, but you could get by with a quick and dirty answer. I'm refraining from offering one here because I'd have to dig up a list myself, as I usually use default partitions personally.
Before installing any GNU/Linux for a client who wants to replace Windows I ask them to backup their critical data beforehand. Yes Windows 10 can be insidious too. I searched through all the BIOS settings and could not find any Fast Boot or Secure Boot and definitely no TPM on the Acer Notebook I installed LMDE 7 to. The bugbear was EFI. Fortunately, Ventoy has a MOK enrolment file which the machine asked for, then I could install LMDE 7, obliterating Windows 10 that had been there before.
We all started at one Point and had to learn about this new Stuff. That is normal. And to not know what to do, too.
For this Partition Thing, You could keep it simple. In the ''Something else'' Option, choose the Drive where You want to install Zorin. There create 2 Partitions:
- An EFI-Partition with ... let's say ... 300mb in FAT32.
- For the Rest of the Drive, You choose the Mount Point
/and format it toext4
That would be the simple Way to partitioning the Drive. Of Course, You could create more seperate Partitions but to keep it simple, this would be enough.
I can do a youtube lookup and a "Grok" quiz and educate myself. Definitely a learning curve for me.
I don't know the term EFI unless it's a type without the "U"?
OK, and no NTFS needs to be there for Zorin alone?
EFI= Extensible Firmware Interface
UEFI = Unified Extensible Firmware Interface
UEFI makes use of GPT (GUID Partition Table). It is the current standard.
Just as we still say BIOS, when we refer to what is properly called UEFI, we also say EFI when referring to it.
This is not slapdash, however. When we say "BIOS", the average person immediately associates that with the BIOS settings and process they are familiar with as the Motherboards Operating System.
When we say "EFI", they associate that with the EFI partition they see, dealing with bootable media.
When we say UEFI, they associate that with the entirety of the Motherboard's Operating System.
This is helpful, since these differentiate what otherwise would be all be called "UEFI" creating confusion.
1 Like
BIOS = Basic Input/Output System, not Operating System. 
UEFI was instigated by Intel, due to the BIOS limited ROM space of 128 Kb. This is why EFI partitions are large in comparison to cope with computers with lots hardware installed to make the computer boot faster.
AMI has its own, APTIO, and is committed to Open Source.