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I am totally new to Linux and installed a Peppermint Partition on my HD. Then I tried to install from Peppermint a live USB, but ended up mounting the image on the hard drive.

Now I have this installation listed among Devices. I have run "mount" and got this line among others:

/dev/sdb on /media/jack/Prova Live type iso9660 (ro,nosuid,nodev,uid=1000,gid=1000,iocharset=utf8,mode=0400,dmode=0500,uhelper=udisks2)

How can I delete it? If I run Gparted it shows there is unallocated space only on sdb, but if I click on the icon of the usb installation that I am trying to remove on Devices, a folder opens with directories in it.

I have tried unmount dev/sdb and reboot but the icon and the folder is still there...if I run mount I don't see it at first, but if I click on it from the device menu and then run mount it shows up in the list... Any ideas?

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  • Did you use the Peppermint installer, and what did it do? lsblk & blkid & gparted should help identify what's what. sdb looks like the iso on a dvd or usb, it's not your hard drive is it, with no partitions?
    – Xen2050
    Commented Dec 1, 2015 at 10:28
  • I used "dd" to mount the image!
    – Jack
    Commented Dec 1, 2015 at 13:40
  • Good 'ol Data Destroyer, it doesn't really "mount" things, reads & writes just about anything, like turn a HD into a dvd. Doesn't Peppermint have an installer when it runs live? Boot from a usb/dvd and just install to the hard drive... may need new MBR/GPT now though
    – Xen2050
    Commented Dec 1, 2015 at 13:47
  • I realize now I made an error in the question, I am not trying to install Peppermint, it is already installed on my HD. What I have tried was install it on a USB to make it live and bootable, but accidentally set the target for the installation on the HDD instead than the USB, and now I cannot remove it.
    – Jack
    Commented Dec 1, 2015 at 14:15
  • Did you have anything on that drive that you care at all about?
    – user
    Commented Dec 1, 2015 at 14:21

1 Answer 1

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Assuming /dev/sdb is the drive you're trying to "un-iso", it would appear that you've overwritten sdb's old MBR/GPT partition table.

Now gparted may not see any partitions and says it's all unallocated space (that's what mine does when I setup an .iso file as a loop device, and have gparted examine the loop device).

So, start up gparted and examine /dev/sdb, tell it to Create a new Partition Table (MBR/GPT/etc) by:

  • Going to the menu Device -> Create Partition Table and
  • write a new partition table.

The "msdos" type is the old MBR, or "gpt" is the new GPT partition table, use whichever you prefer or google for advice.

After that, make a new partition (or a few, whatever you want).

If you just want to make a bootable live USB, you can use a program like Unetbootin, or Universal USB Installer.

Or I prefer a multiboot USB (even if there's only one .iso to boot) since it doesn't overwrite the whole drive's partition table like plain dd does, and you can use a filesystem like ext3/4 or something more reliable than FAT (FAT USB's tend to erase all their filenames somewhat regularly for me somehow, never a problem on the same USB with ext3).

Instructions can be found in this other A of mine and they're basically:

[As] described here on Arch's Wiki or here on pendrivelinux.com, for many distros you just copy the ISO file onto the usb and edit grub.cfg. Cliff notes instructions are:

  1. Mount the usb
  2. Install grub grub-install --force --no-floppy --boot-directory=/mnt/USB/boot /dev/sdx (replacing x with your actual USB device & /mnt/usb with mounted dir)
  3. Put demo grub.cfg ( http://pendrivelinux.com/downloads/multibootlinux/grub.cfg ) in /mnt/USB/boot/grub and edit to match your iso's

Or see the Ubuntu help on creating & installing from bootable USB's, can the Ubuntu tool Startup Disk Creator, Unetbootin, or plain dd.

And I think you could even make it persistent by adding another partition on the USB just named "casper-rw", similar to these instructions on pendrivelinux.com , but I haven't tested it with a multiboot usb

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