Installing Linux Mint 13 Maya from hard drive in Windows 7

Here are some simple steps you need to follow if you want to install Linux Mint from your hard drive, without using USB sticks or blank DVDs. We assume you have Windows 7 installed.

1. Download Linux Mint 13 ISO from the official website. Put the ISO file at C:\.

2. Search for and download Grub4dos. Install Grub4dos by copying grldr to C:\. Create a new file C:\menu.lst and put the following contents in:

timeout 10
default 0

title Windows 7
find --set-root --ignore-floppies --ignore-cd /bootmgr
chainloader /bootmgr

3. Search for and download Bootice. Run Bootice and select your hard drive, then click on Process MBR. Choose Grub for DOS and click on Install/Config. This replaces your MBR with the one from Grub4dos.

4. Extract vmlinuz and initrd.lz files from your Linux Mint ISO and put them at C:\. They should be in a folder named casper. It is important that these files should be copied to your hard drive.

5. Restart your machine. You should be able to see the GRUB menu. From that press c for command line. Enter the following commands (for the first command you can press Tab key while entering to see list of files):

find /linuxmint-13-mate-dvd-64bit.iso
kernel (hd0,1)/vmlinuz boot=casper iso-scan/filename=/linuxmint-13-mate-dvd-64bit.iso
initrd (hd0,1)/initrd.lz
boot

When you enter the first command you should see the partition with your Linux Mint ISO file. For all the rest commands you need to change the (hd0,1) part accordingly. Also, you can also use --set-root option to set your root to that partition but that is not necessary.

6. Once Linux Mint Live is booted, go to the terminal and run

sudo umount -l /isodevice

This will avoid errors when you attempt to modify partitions. You can then click on the shortcut on the desktop to install Linux Mint to your hard drive.