difficulty reformatting an SSD
by Brant from LinuxQuestions.org on (#5JG40)
I wanted to play with the React OS, and decided to install it on a second-string Lenovo Thinkpad T420 with 4G of RAM and a Samsung SSD of 512G that already had partitions for Windows 7 and Linux Mint 20.1.
Before installing React, I started the computer with a live-disk of Mint, and used GParted to shrink the Mint partition, leaving about 20G of unallocated space. I then restarted the laptop with the boot CD installed, and told React to use the unallocated space and to format it to FAT.
The installation seemed to proceed correctly, but when the CD was removed and the laptop attempted to restart it gave the message: No active partition found_
I restarted the computer with the Mint live-disk and ran GParted again, hoping to have an idea what had happened, but received an error message (see screenshot 1). I removed the SSD and plugged it into another computer, where GParted gave the same error message. The disk itself showed on my desktop as several different volumes. I was disconcerted to see that the total size of the volumes shown was 604G and 537MB ... this on a 512G drive (see screenshot 2).
I attempted to reformat the drive, thinking that was safest ... but wound up with a situation where GParted only saw a 465G drive, and the Windows partition had apparently become invisible.
I returned the hard-drive to the Thinkpad and using the live-disk of Mint, had the disk utility reformat the hard-drive-since it was showing no partitions I hoped it would erase everything, but I saw no changes, until I plugged it back into another computer, where it simply refused to mount.
Since everything I have done so far seems to have made things worse, I thought it was finally time to ask for advice! All I want at present is to regain the entirety of my 512G hard-drive (I still plan to try React, but it can have a third-string computer all to itself).
Thanks!
Attached Thumbnails
Before installing React, I started the computer with a live-disk of Mint, and used GParted to shrink the Mint partition, leaving about 20G of unallocated space. I then restarted the laptop with the boot CD installed, and told React to use the unallocated space and to format it to FAT.
The installation seemed to proceed correctly, but when the CD was removed and the laptop attempted to restart it gave the message: No active partition found_
I restarted the computer with the Mint live-disk and ran GParted again, hoping to have an idea what had happened, but received an error message (see screenshot 1). I removed the SSD and plugged it into another computer, where GParted gave the same error message. The disk itself showed on my desktop as several different volumes. I was disconcerted to see that the total size of the volumes shown was 604G and 537MB ... this on a 512G drive (see screenshot 2).
I attempted to reformat the drive, thinking that was safest ... but wound up with a situation where GParted only saw a 465G drive, and the Windows partition had apparently become invisible.
I returned the hard-drive to the Thinkpad and using the live-disk of Mint, had the disk utility reformat the hard-drive-since it was showing no partitions I hoped it would erase everything, but I saw no changes, until I plugged it back into another computer, where it simply refused to mount.
Since everything I have done so far seems to have made things worse, I thought it was finally time to ask for advice! All I want at present is to regain the entirety of my 512G hard-drive (I still plan to try React, but it can have a third-string computer all to itself).
Thanks!
Attached Thumbnails