I'm trying to install Zorin OS to an M.2 drive and I think I’ve hit a roadblock.
Creating a partition in the installer turned out to be a bad idea since I kept getting the ’ubi-partman’ error. So I took the advice of most other users and tried to partition the drive with Gparted in Ubuntu Live.
And here’s where I got stuck. I created a 200MB FAT32 partition. I tried to flag it as ’boot’ (which automatically selects ’esp’ as well.) It would not let me apply my operations after that. When I checked the partition information, it showed a warning that the computer is unable to read the contents of the file system.
The warning also mentions that dosfstools and mtools are required for FAT32 files. I have installed dosfstools in the terminal, but nothing has changed even after rebooting. When I try to install mtools, I receive an error saying it has no installation candidate.
And that's where I am now. Hopefully, someone can help me get through this.
Hi, a /boot/efi partition should be 512 Mb in size. I've had weird experience on other distros using GParted only to be told in a different window to change FAT32 to VFAT! Zorin comes with GParted during install, you don't need to use GParted live for this. Choose the something else option at point of install.
When GParted launches after choosing 'something else' at point of install,
Delete all partitions.
Create 512 Mb FAT32 partition and edit the flag as /boot/efi
Create 80 Gb Ext4 partition for '/' (root file partition.
Format the rest of the drive Ext4 and mark as '/home'.
After install you will need to setup TRIM or check if fstrim is already available.
Do You want to install only Zorin on Your Machine? If yes, You could use in the Installer the ''Erase disk'' Option. Then the Installer cares about the Partitions and make them automatically.
If above suggestions will still not work, try re-creating the partition table. As far as the size, 300mb is a good boot partition size for me. Never had an issue. I just installed Zorin today actually and thats exactly what I have.
Just a fair warning though. Re-creating the partition table will delete everything.
Hello again, everyone. First of all, I need to apologize for disappearing for over a month. At the same time that I was trying to create the partition back in April, I was also dealing with some financial difficulties which later on left me with little time to work on the installation. I never should have posted without knowing if I would have the time to work on the issue later. Fortunately, taking time away from my PC did allow me to clear my head a bit.
I'm happy to say that I successfully installed Zorin OS 17.3 onto my M.2. Ponce-De-Leon's comment ended up giving me an epiphany. To answer the question "do you want to install only Zorin onto your machine?" both yes and no. I had previously partitioned a 1TB Samsung Evo SSD (one that is about the size of a credit card) into equally into Zorin and Windows. Later I bought two M.2 drives and cloned Windows to the first. I went back to the Zorin OS on the Samsung Evo to try to format the second M.2, which led to the headache I originally posted about in April.
After reading the replies, I recently realized I can simply remove the Windows M.2 and Samsung Evo SSD (so I wouldn't accidentally nuke any of my stuff) and did a clean install of the second M.2. Now, everything is working better than ever.
Big thank you to everyone who commented for their help, knowledge, and patience!