How to burn Win 7 on install DVD into an image file with extension name IMG?

[Joya]

I have Win 7 install DVD and want to make it a live USB.  The live USB is going to be made by Win32DiscImager which does not recognize image files with ISO extension names, I therefore have to have an image file with IMG extension name.

How to burn the on-DVD-Win 7 into an image file with IMG extension name, please?

Thank you.

Edited December 4, 2022 by Joya

[ThaCrip]

A popular free program on Windows to make a bootable USB stick is https://rufus.ie/ ; which works with ISO's.

on a bit of a side note while I have used Rufus in the past, and it's good, I prefer Ventoy (ventoy.net) which allows you to boot ISO's directly from it's menu after you boot to it as I can boot Windows or Linux etc ISO's directly this way as it's convenient to have a single USB stick to load multiple ISO's from.

basically once Ventoy is installed to the USB stick, you just simply copy your ISO to the root of the USB stick, reboot computer, boot to USB stick, then select the ISO you want to boot from the Ventoy menu and then proceed to use like usual.

but as a alternative to making your own ISO from a DVD disc... if you know the official SHA-1 hash etc of Win7 ISO's (I know mine is fine if you are English USA 'en-us' ) you can obtain them online from random places and don't have to worry about viruses etc. hell, I even made a custom updated Win7 ISO that has updates included up to May 2021, although there is even newer updates like this since I made mine as the most current is up to Nov 2022 as I just checked. this makes it more convenient since it's not many years out of date like the official SP1 ISO is as you just install it and your pretty much up to date (and it even removed some of the junk in Win7 to with the method I used from the mydigitallife website with the 'Integrate7 script' by user 'wkeller'). but the official stock English(US) Win7 Pro x64 SP1 ISO's SHA-1 hash is "0bcfc54019ea175b1ee51f6d2b207a3d14dd2b58" (if you need the official SHA-1 hash of a different Win7 ISO I can probably find it). I still got the ISO on my hard drive but you can download it random places online if you search around. I pretty much don't use Win7 anymore since officially Microsoft stopped supporting it in Jan 2020, so it no longer will receive security updates etc (if you can't upgrade from Win7 to Win10 (which can be done for free assuming your hardware supports it) I suggest putting Linux (more specifically Linux Mint) on your computer since it's free and will keep your machine secure online (the newest Mint v21 series is supported until April 2027)). but I keep Win7 ISO around on the rare occasion I might need it as, for example, one old device I have (Zune 30GB) requires Win7 to be able to transfer any data to it. but thankfully I rarely use that device anymore anyways.

but in regards to that modified/custom Win7 ISO I made (which includes all Win7 updates etc to May 2021)... it's "5.0 GiB (5,353,363,456 bytes)" in size vs the official stock ISO of "3.1 GiB (3,320,903,680 bytes)". so it's basically a little over 2GB larger, which as you can see is too large to fit onto a standard 4.7GB DVD anyways (it's about 654MB too large), so you pretty much got to use a USB stick (or DVD+R DL which is too expensive to burn a ISO to anyways).

Edited December 4, 2022 by ThaCrip

[Joya]

Thank you, ThaCrip.

Ventoy makes "bootable" USB flash drives.  I need a flash drive that can run the OS, a live flash drive.

[ThaCrip]

1 hour ago, Joya said:

Ventoy makes "bootable" USB flash drives.  I need a flash drive that can run the OS, a live flash drive.

I see, you want to be able to actually run the entire OS itself strictly from a flash drive, correct?

if so, in that case, I can't say much since I never bothered to do that as I would imagine Windows would run quite slowly even if one could get it working.

but I know if you are just trying to get a basic live flash drive (without being able to save general OS configuration etc on reboots) OS's like Linux Mint do this by default as you boot into a live OS temporarily, as this is how you can optionally install it to a HDD, but from the live USB stick you can still browse your hard drives with file manager and browse the web with Firefox like this on Mint as it's basically the entire OS running from USB stick, but nothing gets saved on reboots by default. I don't know if this is sufficient for what you are trying to do though. I do know there are ways to run a Linux OS entirely from a bootable USB stick, while being able to save data to it so it's saved on reboots, but I never bothered to learn the details of how though.

but a quick look, apparently Rufus might work for creating a live USB stick for Windows... https://www.intowindows.com/rufus-to-create-windows-to-go-usb-drive/

Edited December 4, 2022 by ThaCrip

[Joya]

Thank you again.

The motherboard of this PC is damaged, an accident happened a few weeks ago and damaged the motherboard disabling hard drive drivers. The possibility of installing OS to a hard drive on this PC is next to none.  Both BIOS & MB are old, 15~17 years old.  The DVD drive is good, and also USB ports.  Have tried a live CD, but it is too slow and cannot go on internet.  The purpose of making a live USB flash drive is to be able to use Google Chrome so that I can watch and listen to news and music.  This is all what I hope, have no intention to run the OS for any other tasks.

[ThaCrip]

If the motherboard is not physically damaged or some sort of static electricity damage that stops the SATA ports from working etc, or just failed from old age, I would imagine you can just put in another hard drive and it will work? ; did you ever try another hard drive in it (did you try all of the SATA ports(?), or if it's the old IDE, did you try these?) temporarily just to see if it would install a OS to it? or are you certain it's definitely damaged?

but I get your basic point now though.

my backup PC, which is the first PC I built in March 2006 (although my first PC I had was in 1995), so 16 years and 9 months now (the BIOS on that I think is from early 2007, which is the newest available), I still have that as within about the last year or two or so I replaced most of the capacitors on the motherboard (ASUS A8N32-SLI Deluxe (this is a high end board in it's day which has 4 SATA ports and some IDE connections to)) since a good portion of them were bulging etc. but this computer cannot run anything newer than Windows 7 in regards to Microsoft OS's (technically Win10 32bit will install but it's unstable and the 64bit version won't install outright due to lack of nx-bit. but Win7 runs fine and so does Linux). but it runs Linux Mint 21.0-Xfce well which is supported until April 2027.

but if you are basically just trying to get online, which appears to be the case, I suggest giving Linux Mint 21.0-Xfce (which the ISO you download is 2.2 GiB (2,415,585,280 bytes)) a try as once you boot to this you will have immediate access to the Firefox browser even though it will be slightly outdated given Mint 21 was released about 6 months ago (although if you actually installed the OS you can update it to the newest browser etc like expected). you can install the official Chrome on Linux to but I use the alternative Chromium as on my Mint install I use Firefox as my primary browser with Chromium as a backup. but Linux is nice on older underpowered computers (it will run well on fast one to obviously though) as I got a laptop (which I don't really use much) that clearly has a underpowered CPU (AMD E-300 (which besides that the laptop ain't bad)) and you can tell Mint runs overall smoother than Win10 does.

but trying Mint is easy enough as you just create a standard bootable USB stick (or DVD) and boot to it and it will take you to the desktop to play with it a bit. it will be a bit slower vs running from a HDD or SSD since it's a USB stick but you can get a half way decent feel for it though. if you want Chrome, when you are on Linux load up Firefox and go to... https://www.google.com/chrome/ then 'download chrome' and you will see a popup showing "64 bit .deb (For Debian/Ubuntu)" as you download that file and run it basically.

how much RAM does that computer have? ; because on my board I mentioned here it maxes out at 4GB of RAM (4x 1GB), which is what I got in it. but nowadays 2GB of RAM is a bare minimum (as once you load the OS and a browser, shortly after it will blow past 2GB of RAM) even though a more realistic usable minimum is 4GB of RAM for a usable computer since you can load the OS and have some RAM left for the browser for a while. come to think of it, Firefox is a bit more RAM friendly to, but you can still use Chrome if you want to.

another thing is... I hope that computer is at least some form of dual-core CPU (the ASUS board I mentioned above currently has a Athlon X2 3600+ CPU in it which is dual-core at 2.0GHz but is currently overclocked to 2.3GHz and it's passable for internet etc) as single core CPU's at this point, even the faster ones, are probably pushing ancient status as I had a old computer from 2001 with a Athlon 1.2GHz and even years ago you could tell that was pretty much shot as doing simple tasks would routinely push the CPU to full load etc.

but depending on your options we shall see

Edited December 4, 2022 by ThaCrip

[Joya]

Thank you.

"physically damaged or some sort of static electricity damage"
I am an amateur photographer. And I like listening to music while working on post processing. The PC the one we are talking about was for that only, news and music. Around a month ago, it did not start regularly, didn't start sometimes. I bout a second hand PSU, Corsair RM650x, and a second hand MB, G45T AM2 V:1.0 identical to the OEM MB
, and set them up for testing. The PC started if HDD was not connected to SATA power connector. Had the HDD connected to a connector on the shorter peripheral cable, the one designed for optical drive, the PC started and ran half a day normally just as any good PC.  Connectors were not inserted tightly, I thought. Had the HDD connected back to the longer cable designed for hard drives and inserted them tight & turned power on. A sharp burst and a smell and the HDD was burning hot... the HDD was burnt. Had another HDD inserted to a connector on the short cable as did a few minutes before and tried to reinstall OS, installer started working normally until it came to selecting hard drive. There was no hard drive and installer found no any drivers for hard drive.  Checked BIOS. No HDD data, just a blank space. Removed CPU, RAM, and CR2032 and put them back to the OEM MB and tried to install OS.  Absurdly strange, the same thing happened to this MB, installer found no HDD, no any drivers, and the BIOS on this MB had no HDD data either. Now, cannot use HDD on either one of these 2 motherboards. The possibilities of running this PC are (1) the optical drive and (2) USB flash drive.  Optical drive, I have tried, a live CD.  Too slow and almost impossible to go on internet. This is why I want to try a live USB flash drive.  

"(did you try all of the SATA ports(?)"
Yes, I did and tried 4 different SATA cables.

"the old IDE"
Doesn't matter whether it's an old IDE or a new SATA, you can not do anything if there is no driver and no hard drive data in BIOS.

"or are you certain it's definitely damaged?"
The hard drive?  Yes, certainly is is burnt. The motherboard? Do not know. Windows installer finds no any drivers. Drivers are usually stored on motherboard, I assume. Is this right?

"how much RAM does that computer have?"
Originally, the PC's OS was Vista and had 2GB RAM. I increased it to 8GB 7 months after the purchase and installed Win 7 pro. When I bought new PCs in 2015, I had the GPU and floppy drive and the fan on rear end wall removed and reduced RAM to 4GB, 2 x 2GB. The PC was running with the case open since 2015. Here are some of the specs:

PC : Acer aspire M5700
OS : Windows 7 Pro. 32b.
CPU: Intel Core2 Quad CPU
RAM: DDR2 800 SDRAM 4G
GPU: Removed & use on board Intel® G45
PSU: Liteon 6301-08Ak, replaced by RM650x for test.
MB : G45T AM2 V:1.0 
HDD: WD600BEVS Scorpio 60GB
BIOS:American Megatrends V.02.16 

"Linux Mint 21.0-Xfce"
In 2010, someone suggested using Ubuntu. For 3 reasons: Simple, Safe, and Free. I tried and found it was not simple, and hard to run, for me. I quit a few months later. Simply because I could not remember that many commands to run it. Have not tried anything else since. I do not have much knowledge and technology as you do. I am just a common PC user.  Excuse me for asking the following questions:
1.It is a "bootable" USB stick. Does it require installation?
2.What size of a USB drive it requires?    
3.Suggestion where to download?

[ThaCrip]

10 hours ago, Joya said:

A sharp burst and a smell and the HDD was burning hot... the HDD was burnt.

Given what you said there it sounds like your hard drive is dead (like got fried etc) is why the PC's BIOS does not see it, not that the PC hardware itself (like motherboard etc) is faulty (assuming your power supply did not fry it etc). I would try running a different hard drive on it temporarily to see if the BIOS can see it. if it can, I would imagine you can install a OS to it.

assuming you don't think there is anything faulty with the PSU (power supply) you connect to it, it should be safe to test another hard drive you might have laying around (power off PC, connect SATA data/power cables, power on and check). any typical SATA hard drive will do, desktop or laptop, even a laptops 2.5" type (desktops are of the 3.5" kind) just to see if it can detect the hard drive in BIOS etc. if it can I would think the odds are you can install a OS to it and everything will be great.

another thing that comes to mind that just popped into my head which MAY BE IMPORTANT IF IT APPLIES TO YOU... on your hard drive, make sure you ONLY connect ONE power connector to it as one of my old Western Digital 250GB HDD's (which I had in March 2006(it's still in use in my old computer today)) has TWO power connectors to it, the old molex kind (white plastic looking with four prongs or so in it) and the modern SATA kind but you ONLY use one of the two along with the SATA data cable. so if you have two power connectors make sure NOT to connect two as that 'might' damage the hard drive etc!!! but I don't think this kind of hard drive setup is too common as far as I am aware since all of the rest of my hard drive only have the usual ONE sata(or IDE) connection and ONE way to power it be it the usual SATA power connector OR the older 'molex' power connector, not both.

 

10 hours ago, Joya said:

"or are you certain it's definitely damaged?"
The hard drive?  Yes, certainly is is burnt. The motherboard? Do not know. Windows installer finds no any drivers. Drivers are usually stored on motherboard, I assume. Is this right?

No. the OS (Windows or Linux etc) basically takes care of all of this stuff as the BIOS basically just see's the hardware and then the OS pretty much does the rest.

 

10 hours ago, Joya said:

"how much RAM does that computer have?"
Originally, the PC's OS was Vista and had 2GB RAM. I increased it to 8GB 7 months after the purchase and installed Win 7 pro. When I bought new PCs in 2015, I had the GPU and floppy drive and the fan on rear end wall removed and reduced RAM to 4GB, 2 x 2GB. The PC was running with the case open since 2015. Here are some of the specs:

PC : Acer aspire M5700
OS : Windows 7 Pro. 32b.
CPU: Intel Core2 Quad CPU
RAM: DDR2 800 SDRAM 4G
GPU: Removed & use on board Intel® G45
PSU: Liteon 6301-08Ak, replaced by RM650x for test.
MB : G45T AM2 V:1.0 
HDD: WD600BEVS Scorpio 60GB
BIOS:American Megatrends V.02.16 

I see. nowadays 4GB of RAM is what I would call a realistic minimum for a usable computer, although if you had 8GB of RAM that would be plenty for general usage as you won't have any RAM issues for general usage with 8GB of RAM but with 4GB, depending on how long you are using that computer etc, you could see some level of performance hit from lack of RAM eventually.

your CPU should be plenty fast enough to as just about any decent quad core like that should be solid for online usage etc and that CPU is definitely superior to my old computer from 2006's AMD Athlon X2 3600+ dual-core CPU, which I installed into that board in the year 2010 I think so I could play the game Mafia II (2010).

but damn, a 60GB HDD. fairly ancient tech there ; hell, it's probably good that's dead anyways. lol

but I see '32bit' Win7 as there probably ain't much reason to use a 32bit OS in today's world as just about everything is 64bit (64ibt OS's have been the norm since basically the Win7 era to date as on WinXP, the 32bit version was more common/popular than the 64bit version) and I would assume given your specs there is a good chance it will be okay with 64bit OS's as my old 2006 board works fine with 64bit Mint. come to think of it... if you have a 32bit OS it's limited to a max of 4GB of system RAM. to use say 8GB of RAM you need a 64bit OS. if I recall correctly, I think with a 32bit OS, how it's limited to 4GB of RAM, I think that's also shared with VRAM (video RAM) from your GPU to. so if you had say a GPU with 512MB of VRAM (even on the GPU itself) I 'think' the OS would then be limited to a max of 3.5GB of RAM even if 4GB of physical RAM is installed etc. but with 64bit all of these limitations disappear.

 

10 hours ago, Joya said:

Now, cannot use HDD on either one of these 2 motherboards.

I am not surprised as given what you told me it seems like the HDD (hard drive) is fried. try another hard drive, laptop or desktop you have laying around. if it works, and you can't use this, just buy a cheap SSD online as it makes everything (general programs etc) load much quicker.

a SSD is a 'solid state drive', these are a lot faster than a regular hard drive. as a small bonus... I don't even bother to properly mount these in my desktop computer as I just leave mine connected to the SATA data/power cables sitting in the bottom of the PC case on mine for years now (I had a SSD in my primary PC since May 2015) as the SATA power/data cables are snug enough to where there is no chance they will come loose when it's just sitting there like that as the SSD is light to. so even if someone moves the case around, it will still stay securely connected. but with regular hard drive I suggest mounting those properly to be safe.

 

10 hours ago, Joya said:

"Linux Mint 21.0-Xfce"
In 2010, someone suggested using Ubuntu. For 3 reasons: Simple, Safe, and Free. I tried and found it was not simple, and hard to run, for me. I quit a few months later. Simply because I could not remember that many commands to run it. Have not tried anything else since. I do not have much knowledge and technology as you do. I am just a common PC user.  Excuse me for asking the following questions:
1.It is a "bootable" USB stick. Does it require installation?
2.What size of a USB drive it requires?    
3.Suggestion where to download?

In terms of general usage I can assure you, Mint will work well for general use like web browser etc as overall it's very similar to Windows that you are used to given Mint's basic interface is Windows-like (Ubuntu on the other hand, I think it's interface is not as similar to Windows as Mint's is, but the underlying OS Mint is based on Ubuntu 22.04 LTS but uses different DE's (desktop environments), Cinnamon/MATE/Xfce (Xfce is the least resource intensive, which is suited well for older hardware. but there basic function is similar), which is like the interface you use to navigate menus as all three options from Mint is Windows-like in general familiarity of navigating menus). even online many suggest Mint is good for beginners switching from Windows to Linux.

updating and browser usage as it's no harder than Windows in this regard. sure, Linux is different in some ways, and I can easily understand how in some ways it might be confusing compared to what you are used to with Windows, but the basics are easy enough, especially given you told me you just want it for web browser use pretty much.

on Linux Mint for example... all updates come through the 'Update Manager' (it's sort of like 'Windows Updates' except it's entirely on you when to install the updates (but it will automatically check for updates for you pretty much) and a bonus with Linux is updates generally don't require a reboot to take effect besides say Kernel updates and if you got a NVIDIA GPU that can run the NVIDIA proprietary driver that requires a reboot to take effect), including your web browsers as they don't automatically update like they do on Windows. but this is easy enough as there is a 'shield' looking icon in the task bar, with a orange dot on it appearing when updates are available, which lets you know there is updates you can install but it's up to you whether to run the updates or not as it won't install without your permission. but to install them it's easy enough as you simply left click the shield icon then pretty much click 'install updates' it will then ask for your administrator password (which is the one you setup on Mint during initial installation of the OS) and then it will proceed to download and install the updates automatically. occasionally you might need to click the 'refresh' (in the Update Manager) and then 'install updates' but it's easy enough.

that's the general idea

even in regards to general music playback/conversion software... on Linux Mint I use Foobar2000 (which is Windows software) but I got to set it up through Wine etc, so it directly runs on Linux. I use this simply because it's superior to any native Linux software for general music playback like if you have FLAC(lossless) or MP3(lossy) music files etc.

plus, like I was saying you can also use ImgBurn on Linux Mint once you know how to set it up (but once setup it's Windows level easy as you simply load it from a icon on the desktop basically and it works). which if you want to do this after you get it sorted out with say Linux Mint on your system I can help you.

anyways, in regards to your questions...

1)It is a bootable USB stick and while you can use it 'live' (as you can browse the basic OS after it boots up, but will be a little sluggish since it's running from a USB stick not a HDD/SSD) it's only temporarily as to use it where it can save settings etc you actually need to install it, which can be done from that same bootable USB stick as it's done from the 'live' boot from the desktop icon 'Install Linux Mint' as it's right on the desktop. but at the very least... just booting to this allows you to try out the OS a little bit since the actual OS does load up from it so you can browse the 'start menu' etc without installing anything as at this point it's running from the USB stick. you can even load Firefox, although like I was saying, since it's about 6 months old it will be using a older Firefox, but this will be fixed if you actually install the OS to a hard drive at which point you can update it and be on the newest browser etc and can even install the official Google Chrome on Linux Mint if you prefer.

2)Mint is small as even a 4GB USB stick will work as the Mint ISO it's, for the Xfce version (which I also use), is exactly "2.2 GiB (2,415,585,280 bytes)". basically "linuxmint-21-xfce-64bit.iso". I use Xfce on all three of my computers (2 desktops, 1 laptop). my old ASUS A8N32-SLI Deluxe board (basically 2005-2006 tech, it's using DDR as I see yours is a bit newer with DDR2 RAM) works fine with this and it's got 4GB of RAM and my old Radeon 5670 512MB GPU is in that, which I also got in the year 2010 to play Mafia II.

3)Mint is free and you can get it from the official Linux Mint site here... https://linuxmint.com/ but more specifically the ISO itself (Mint v21.0-Xfce (Mint 21.1-Xfce should be out around Christmas but you can update to this through the OS if you want, or you can just stay on 21.0 as it's optional)) is for download here... https://linuxmint.com/edition.php?id=301 (shows a basic screenshot of the desktop and menu there(I turned mine 'dark' looking though since I feel it suits the general darker look of the Mint Xfce desktop in general but by default it's grey like that but as you can see it's Windows like in terms of the general menu navigation even though things are different on some level given it's Linux, not Windows) just scroll down to the 'Download mirrors' and click on any of those links which will download the "linuxmint-21-xfce-64bit.iso". while that's fine and good enough for you to use, if you want to be extra sure the ISO is as it should be and without any potential modifications simply make sure the SHA-256 hash matches the following before using it "3ad001dc15cb661c6652ce1d20ecdc85a939fa0b4b9325af5d0c65379cc3b17e" (or MD5 hash if you prefer... "7f213f0a15cc92e3c12d322df002541e")

Edited December 5, 2022 by ThaCrip

[Joya]

Downloaded Linux-Mint-Cinnamon-32-bit but it became 64bit anyway all by itself. 

Firefox through Google opened up YouTube for about one minute, and then it turned itself off.  After this, Firefox could not go anywhere. There was always a "Server not found" everytime Firefox started browsing anything. Maybe I did not operate right.
But I am happy to have this wonderful feeling of touching something of Linus. and

THANK YOU VERY, VERY MUCH!

[ThaCrip]

'Cinnamon' is Mint's "main" version you could say. but Xfce is better suited for older hardware and I think is a safer overall choice in general. but in terms of basic function both are very similar. ultimately it's your choice as I don't think neither is bad.

but you can't get 32bit in Mint 20 series or newer as Mint 19 series was the last one that had a 32bit ISO release (like a option of 32bit or 64bit ISO's), which I don't recommend at this point simply because support of the Mint 19.x series ends April 2023 (Mint 20.x ends April 2025, Mint 21.x ends April 2027). but in general... unless you have to run a 32bit OS (like if you have a CPU that only works with 32bit, which in your case I would be surprised if your setup does not work with 64bit), 64bit should be the default as 64bit OS's have been the norm since Windows 7 on forward as the last time a 32bit OS from Microsoft was the norm was with WinXP, which was released in 2001 (Win7 was 2009).

but like I say, I would seriously look into trying another hard drive in that computer as I am fairly confident your hard drive is dead, but your computer itself is okay. in other words... getting a replacement hard drive has a decent chance to cure your problem. then you can install Mint to the hard drive and use it normally instead of from a bootable USB, as running Mint from a bootable USB stick itself is okay just for briefly testing. but a more proper way to run it is from the hard drive basically. like if you have ANY computer with a hard drive (desktop or laptop) you can temporarily remove that and plug it into this old computer just to see if the BIOS see's that a hard drive is connected (then power down and put it back into the computer it was in and resume use of it like usual). if so, I would say the odds are good just getting another hard drive (or SSD) for that setup will cure it.

but what file did you download specifically? ; since you said 'cinnamon' I would assume you downloaded "linuxmint-21-cinnamon-64bit.iso"?

p.s. I think if you want you can quickly try out Chromium (basically Chrome but with less junk) by loading up terminal (that black icon to the right of the Firefox icon in the bottom left corner area if your screen that looks like "$_") and issue 'sudo apt install chromium' and press enter etc. then you should be able to access 'Chromium Web Browser' from the Mint menu on the 'Internet' section or just press windows key and type 'chromium' and you will see it show up quickly there.

on a bit of a side note there is a bug on Linux with Firefox (with at least some people) as the browser might hang etc (which was mentioned on the Mint forums a while ago now (I actually experienced it on my old machine from 2006 (but seems to more rarely occur, or does not occur often enough for it to be a problem on my main PC which has a i5-3550 CPU))) but if you plan on using Chrome then you don't have to worry about this being a potential factor for you anyways since that's not effected. but like I say, I would install Mint and then see how things work for your first and then go from there.

Edited December 6, 2022 by ThaCrip

[Joya]

About Linux Mint.
Everything is running normally after a restart. Yes, I downloaded linuxmint-21-cinnamon-64bit.ISO image file.

"Xfce is better suited for older hardware " I will install Xfce, maybe 2 weeks later when I am a little bit used to this new OS.

About the old PC.
"hard drive is dead, but your computer itself is okay."
I have 3 SATA hard drives. One burnt, the other 2 are good. Anyone of the 2 good hard drives is connected to a connector on the SATA power peripheral cable, BIOS does not know there is a hard drive at all.  And Windows Installer cannot find (1)any hard drive and (2)any hard drive DRIVERS no matter which one of my 2 hard drives is connected for OS installation. 

What makes me confused is the question "What carries the accident damage from one motherboard to another?" The parts used on both motherboards are: CPU, RAM, battery CR2032, optical drive, keyboard, and mouse.  It is very possible that either CPU or RAM or CR2032 carries the damage record from one motherboard to another. I really do not know, just guessing. 

[ThaCrip]

3 hours ago, Joya said:

"Xfce is better suited for older hardware " I will install Xfce, maybe 2 weeks later when I am a little bit used to this new OS.

Yeah, it's your call as neither is a bad choice as Cinnamon is okay to. but Xfce is a little lighter on resources and is probably a safer overall choice in my opinion for older hardware (maybe even in general). but if you are happy with Cinnamon, you can stick with that as the basic function of the OS is the same either way besides some level of differences with how the interface is etc. but the core function of things is basically the same.

p.s. another reason to dump Windows 7 is even Google Chrome is dropping support of it's browser on Windows 7 in about Feb 2023. so while one can continue to use it on some level after this, security flaws in relation to this basically won't be fixed. so all the more reason to switch to Linux, especially if your computer does not support the free upgrade to Windows 10 from Windows 7 which still worked the last I checked, IF your hardware is supported.

 

3 hours ago, Joya said:

About the old PC.
"hard drive is dead, but your computer itself is okay."
I have 3 SATA hard drives. One burnt, the other 2 are good. Anyone of the 2 good hard drives is connected to a connector on the SATA power peripheral cable, BIOS does not know there is a hard drive at all.  And Windows Installer cannot find (1)any hard drive and (2)any hard drive DRIVERS no matter which one of my 2 hard drives is connected for OS installation.

Just to confirm... you completely disconnected the DEAD hard drive and then you connected both the SATA POWER AND SATA DATA CABLES (so two cables in total will be connected to your hard drive) to a known working hard drive you have, correct? because you need both of these (SATA power AND data cable) connected for the motherboard (and hard drive) to have a chance to see it. if this fails, I would try all four of your SATA ports on the motherboard just to see if any of them show the hard drive connected (use this general test in combination with booting the Linux Mint bootable USB stick you created to see if it can see your hard drive(more instructions below)).

also, in relation to the above with the hard drives... try booting into the Linux Mint bootable USB stick (like boot up to the desktop) you created and see if that can see your hard drive (one of your known working hard drives) under the 'Disks' program (if it's there it will be listed on the left side of that program). because if this see's your hard drive, I suspect Mint will install okay to it.

it would not be a bad idea to clear your BIOS to it's default settings.

p.s. optionally, but is not free so I don't know if it's worth your time or not, is you can potentially buy one of those SATA controller cards online (you would have to find what type of PCI slots are on your motherboard as my board from 2006 has the older stuff in it as it does not have the more modern-ish small PCI-E x1 etc ports) and assuming your PCI/PCI-E etc port still functions normally (even assuming the onboard SATA ports are totally dead) this might be a way to connect a hard drive and install Linux to it. but I would understand if you don't want to attempt it since it costs money and I can't be certain it will work. but has a decent chance to revive things so you can get working SATA ports again (assuming your onboard ones are totally dead).

but after looking around online I 'think' I have found what your motherboard looks like etc and it does appear to have at least a couple of the older standard PCI slots. either way, the quality on these cheap add-on cards may be so-so as it could last years or die not all that long after use as I bought a couple in the year 2020 and one that was pretty much dirt cheap ($8 or so) started acting up not all that long after using it (probably within a year off the top of my head) while the other, which I got a deal on a used one for about half price of new (I paid $12.50 when it was normally about $25 at the time brand new) is still working well today in my main PC which that SATA add-on card is now over 2 years+ old at this point and I have no problems with it on Linux as it's automatically detected by the Linux OS etc.

the particular add-on card I have is a 4-port SATA PCI-E x1 under "I/O Crest" brand (with Marvell 9215 chip etc) so my motherboard basically now has a total of 8 SATA ports instead of just the 4 that the motherboard has by default and I actually run my boot drive (Samsung 850 EVO 250GB SSD SATA) from it on Linux Mint as it just automatically detects it, so no driver setup needed. my motherboard ports are SATAII but the add-on card is SATAIII. but I don't think you can buy this particular card for your old computer since I don't think your old board has support for PCI-E x1 slots etc as you would likely need the older style PCI type of card.

 

3 hours ago, Joya said:

What makes me confused is the question "What carries the accident damage from one motherboard to another?" The parts used on both motherboards are: CPU, RAM, battery CR2032, optical drive, keyboard, and mouse.  It is very possible that either CPU or RAM or CR2032 carries the damage record from one motherboard to another. I really do not know, just guessing.

You can do a RAM check using the free RAM checking program from a bootable CD or USB stick... https://memtest.org/ that tests to see if your RAM is faulty etc. I would do a minimum of one full pass as that might take a hour or so to complete. but if you got the time I would let it run overnight with say 5-10 passes to see if it finds any errors or not. but obviously if it finds errors early on I would not bother running it overnight. but if it does find errors you can potentially remove certain RAM chips and try again to see if it goes way etc.

you could even try clearing the BIOS and seeing if that helps. there might be a jumper on the motherboard. but I think if you just leave it unplugged for a while with the CR2032 battery removed that might be good enough to clear it. or, just simply try resetting the 'defaults' in the BIOS menu.

p.s. I would play around with trying to get your SATA hard drive stuff sorted first though and if that does not work then try this RAM testing as I don't think a slightly faulty RAM chip would cause the system to not be able to see a connected hard drive.

Edited December 7, 2022 by ThaCrip

[Joya]

No root file system defined.

Try to familarize with Linux Mint. I tried to install Linux Mint Xfce today. Just practise. A few steps, stuck. A message saying "No root file system defined. Please correct this from the partitioning menu."  

[Joya]

 

"Cinnamon is okay to."
Have made Xfce bootable USB stick already and tried to install it. Got stuck. Frustrations are expected for trying anything new. 

"even Google Chrome is dropping support of it's browser on Windows 7 in about Feb 2023."
Thanks for the information.  I don't particularly like Google Chrome. Have not used any other browser or do not know how to use other browsers, this is the reason I use Google Chrome.  I feel Firefox is just fine using it for the last few days. Shall use Xfce and Firefox from now on as long I am enjoying Linux Mint Xfce. Don't feel any need for moving to Chromium.  

"Just to confirm..."
The dead hard drive, together with that motherboard on which the dead hard drive was burnt to be dead are all abandoned, laid aside under my bench.  After that incident, I put another motherboard on top of a small table, put the CPU and RAM sticks (removed from that abandened motherboard) on this motherboard, so also the PSU, CR2032, keyboard, mouse, optical drive and tried to install OS. (The whole set up of a PC was on the small table, not case.)  Installer could read the DVD and prepare the files for installation, then it came to confirm where to install Windows, there was no hard drive showing in the installing window, and installer said it could not find any DRIVERS for any hard drive. Checked BIOS, under boot priority, there was no any hard drive data, just a empty blank space.
REALLY CONFUSED HERE:
HOW COME A DAMAGE ON A MOTHERBOARD AFFECTS ANOTHER MOTHERBOARD?
WHAT TRANSPORTS OR CARRIES THE DAMAGE OR MESSAGE FROM ONE MOTHERBARD TO ANOTHER?

SATA power connectors and SATA data cables.
Have connected to all the connectors on the peripheral cable and connected 4 data cables to every one of the sockets on the motherboard.

"booting the Linux Mint bootable USB stick"
Linux Mint bootable on a USB stick, BIOS can see it and the OS boots. BIOS sees no hard drive and the bootable does not boot IF Mint bootable is created on a hard drive, even the hard drive is not connected to the SATA power connector, but connected to a USB bable such as USB to SATA cable. 

By the way, the Linux Mint I am playing with is on the same USB stick and inserted into the same USB port on the same PC set up on top of a small table.

"under the 'Disks' program"
There is no hard drive listed under Disks.  I have 2 USB flash drives inserted on the board. These 2 flash drives are listed and shown 2 pictures as flash drives.

"to clear your BIOS"
Have removed CR2032 from motherboard for more than 30 minutes, not once, and shorted it 3 times by the jumper, more than 10 minutes each time. Did not make any difference.

"buy one of those SATA controller cards"
No, I shall not buy. Too much hassle.

"do a RAM check"
The checking tells the quality or health of the RAM.  Does it tell anything about the accident and missing of drivers?  

"resetting the 'defaults' in the BIOS menu."
Did many times.  Not any one time made any changes.

I am not striving to save the old PC, but rather learning for fun or interent. Running an operating system on a flash drive is rewarding enough for my labour and time, especially running Linux for the first time on a flsh drive. This is what I think I shall do, install Linux Mint Xfce on the 16.2GB flash drive now in use, use it for as long as it lasts,and fighting for an answer to the question why a damage on one board affects the other.

[ThaCrip]

 

 

29 minutes ago, Joya said:

"even Google Chrome is dropping support of it's browser on Windows 7 in about Feb 2023."
Thanks for the information.  I don't particularly like Google Chrome. Have not used any other browser or do not know how to use other browsers, this is the reason I use Google Chrome.  I feel Firefox is just fine using it for the last few days. Shall use Xfce and Firefox from now on as long I am enjoying Linux Mint Xfce. Don't feel any need for moving to Chromium.

Yeah, I understand.

personally I use Firefox as my primary browser but I have Chromium installed as a backup.

p.s. but for whatever it's worth, Chrome is the dominate browser in general as on the desktop(or laptop) about 66% of the planet uses this according to market share statistics online.

 

37 minutes ago, Joya said:

REALLY CONFUSED HERE:
HOW COME A DAMAGE ON A MOTHERBOARD AFFECTS ANOTHER MOTHERBOARD?
WHAT TRANSPORTS OR CARRIES THE DAMAGE OR MESSAGE FROM ONE MOTHERBARD TO ANOTHER?

Yeah, I see what you mean since the only more major components you took from the old setup are basically the CPU/RAM as the rest is basic stuff and should not really matter as it should be okay.

 

25 minutes ago, Joya said:

even the hard drive is not connected to the SATA power connector, but connected to a USB bable such as USB to SATA cable.

This makes me wonder if this is possibly the root cause of your problem. because if the hard drive is not getting any power, the motherboard won't see the hard drive.

I would definitely try connecting STANDARD SATA power (from your PSU(power supply)) and data cables(standard SATA cable) to the hard drive just to ensure this is not a issue and then boot to BIOS and see if it see's the hard drive or not.

 

22 minutes ago, Joya said:

"do a RAM check"
The checking tells the quality or health of the RAM.  Does it tell anything about the accident and missing of drivers?

That RAM testing program basically tells you the health of the RAM. basically it should find no errors if the RAM is good. if it even finds one error, the RAM could be faulty (at least in that setup).

 

23 minutes ago, Joya said:

I am not striving to save the old PC, but rather learning for fun or interent. Running an operating system on a flash drive is rewarding enough for my labour and time, especially running Linux for the first time on a flsh drive. This is what I think I shall do, install Linux Mint Xfce on the 16.2GB flash drive now in use, use it for as long as it lasts,and fighting for an answer to the question why a damage on one board affects the other.

Yeah, I think there is a way to install Linux to a flash drive and run the entire OS from that, while it being able to save your settings etc to. I just never bothered to learn how to do this much though since I naturally just prefer to install it to a HDD or SSD for general usage.

but a quick look online the following article should get you pretty close to installing Mint to a USB stick so you can run the entire OS from it (withit being able to save files etc)... https://www.tecmint.com/install-linux-os-on-usb-drive/ it mentions to disconnect any hard drives to it does not interfere with them, but in your case you won't have to worry about this since you don't have any visible hard drives anyways. but it 'may' tweak your bootable USB stick, so if possible I would make a backup bootable USB stick just in case it messes with your current one or install Mint from a DVD disc to a USB stick you can use.

[Joya]

Hello, Are you there?

I am writing to thank you.  This message is typed and posted via LXLE, one of the Linus distros.  Tried Mint Cinnamon and Xfce, and Puppy Linus BionicPuppy32 amd 64, and FossalPup64, and others, they all have problems with Google Chrome, as they say, Google com. is not safe, or untrusted, or Google Chrome and YouTube have modified their website . . .   They simply can not get along with Google.

Finally, I found LXLE and made it a bootable.  Now I am writing to you with YouTube playing mucis on this simple and junk setup.  And the OS is very fast.  The only thing is the startup.  Takes about 8 minute to have all the files loaded to RAM and then the OS boots into desktop.  After this, the OS is fast, faster than Windows 10.

It is really enjoyable to use.  I feel I owe you a sincere THANK YOU.

 

[Joya]

Forgot to tell you.

The startup is not a problem.  I do not shutdown the OS, suspend it instead.  Takes only one second to boot into desktop. Great.

[ThaCrip]

Glad it's working for you

but, given my last post, I just wonder if the root cause of your issue is the hard drive is not getting power? because I would definitely use a standard way to power your hard drive and see if the board see's it. because that would make sense for both of your motherboards not seeing known working hard drives if the hard drive is not receiving power as you said, "even the hard drive is not connected to the SATA power connector, but connected to a USB bable such as USB to SATA cable."

do you have a picture or link to the exact device you are using to connect to your hard drives? ; either way, I would power a standard desktop hard drive directly from a SATA power cable from the PSU (power supply) and see if the motherboard see's the hard drive (and obviously connect the SATA data cable to).