I'm trying to dual boot Linux Mint alongside Windows, but I'm hitting some roadblocks. I downloaded the Linux Mint ISO and used Rufus to create a bootable USB. Unfortunately, I kept getting an error about the USB drive not being readable after a couple of minutes. When I checked, it showed up as RAW format, which I suspect is due to a previous ext4 formatting. I thought my old USB drive was the issue, so I bought a new one and then went to partition my hard drive. I found that I could only shrink 11GB from a total of 200GB of free space. I did some digging and found that I might need to disable hibernation, system protection, or the paging file to free up more space. I've already tried disabling hibernation, but it didn't help. I'm hesitant about disabling system protection, and I'm unsure how to properly disable the paging file. I'd really appreciate any advice on both burning Linux Mint to USB and how to unallocate more space on my SSD without issues.
2 Answers
Did you make sure to reboot your PC after disabling hibernation? Sometimes changes need a restart to take effect. It might enable you to shrink the volume further. Also, the RAW format could indicate a problem with the USB itself. If you haven't already, try reformatting the USB drive to FAT32 or NTFS and then burn the ISO again. That sometimes clears things up!
Consider using EaseUS Partition Master to manage your disk space. It’s free and user-friendly. It might let you reclaim more space than the built-in tools. Just be sure to back up important data before making any major changes!
Yeah, I did reboot after disabling hibernation, but it still didn’t change anything. That’s a good point about reformatting the USB, I’ll give that a shot!