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I have an old computer, pentium 4 3GHz 32bit and 1GB of RAM, 250GB HDD (newer). The HDD was blank since I bought it separately, and I wanted to install Linux Mint on it. I made a bootable USB drive (linux mint) and booted the computer with it. I went through the install wizard, and after I had partitioned the drive (the HDD which was connected by a SATA to USB board as I didn't have a SATA cable lying around), an error popped up saying something like:

Error: Failed to create partition x of drive sdb

where x is the partition. I tried multiple ways of partitioning the drive and the only thing that changed was x.

I then tried debian. Everything went well until the end, where it said Failed to install GRUB bootloader and rebooted. I tried installing it on a different computer and a different drive and swapping the drive but GRUB gave an error:

Error: bad ELF magic. Starting rescue...

I tested the drive on another computer and it boots fine.

That's not the exact error (I can't remember it now, I'll get it to do it again and edit, or if anyone knows please comment).

All of the OSs I've tried to install are 32bit for the 32bit pentium 4.

Any ideas what I'm doing wrong?

Thanks in advance.

P.S. If I have missed any information please say and I will try to include it.

EDIT:

Downloaded files:

linuxmint-19-xfce-32bit.iso

debian-9.5.0-i386-netinst.iso

Made a bootable USB drive with rufus.

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  • Silly question: are you sure you're using i386 instead of x86-64? – RonJohn Jul 27 '18 at 20:53
  • Yes :) I downloaded i386 Debian & 32bit Mint. Learned the hard way :) The live USB boots into the trial desktop fine. – Jachdich Jul 27 '18 at 21:01
  • Not all USB2SATA adapters bypassing low level command, so probably it is a case. Try to find/barrow a cable and connect hdd directly to motherboard, anyway you need to do that if you want comfortable speed – Alex Jul 27 '18 at 22:01
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    OK, I'll take one from my computer in the morning. Thanks for the suggestion – Jachdich Jul 27 '18 at 22:03
  • As much as I agree this is likely a USB adapter issue and you should use the hard drive natively on the motherboard, be aware that LM19 Xfce with only 1GB of RAM will be very disappointing to use (depending on your usage of course), especially with a full blown web browser like FireFox, Chrome, or Opera, not even the Mint team recommend at least 2GB of RAM. Consider an older Xfce (LM 18.3) or something more suited for this hardware like Bohdi, Linux Lite, Ubuntu Mate/Lubuntu, or Peppermint OS. – acejavelin Jul 27 '18 at 23:20
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Sorry for the inactivity guys, I was on holiday. I found a fix: turns out you were right with the USB to SATA adapter being the problem. I bought a SATA cable and a molex to SATA power adapter and tried installing it again. It worked perfectly that time.

Thanks to @Alex who submitted the suggestion.

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