Hardware
Dell XPS 15
Steps
1- Download Linux Mint iso
linuxmint-201403-cinnamon-dvd-64bit.iso
2- On Windows download Universal-USB-Installer
Universal-USB-Installer-1.9.5.2.exe
3- Prepare live usb or sdcard of Linux Mint:
a. Run Universal-USB-Installer
b. Choose your usb flash drive or sd card
c. Select Linux Mint
d. Browse to the path of the iso file
e. Install
4- Leave live usb created in step [3] attached.
5- Restart PC
6- When seeing Dell logo, press F12 to select Boot
7- Your live usb will be seen in the UEFI boot list, select it
8- Live Linux Mint will load.
9- Note that the touch pad will not be able to click with it unless press it as a button and not the normal tapping. The scroll is also lost. It is better to use an ordinary mouse first to change the setting of the touch pad to enable the click and the scroll.
10- Click on install Linux Mint icon on the desktop
11- Follow the steps and choose carefully the external hdd. You can loose your data if another hdd was selected. Be careful
12- Before going into the partitioning steps, linux partitioning app (gparted) may warn you about gpt partition not in the correct location in your windows hdds. I simply ignored those warnings. The fix may damage how windows start or work. Because windows using intel smart technology to raid both hdds SDD and sata. If you really know what you are doing, go ahead and fix it otherwise ignore the fix.
13- Partition the external hdd exaclty as follows:
a. EFI boot partition: It must be the first. Partition type: fat32. Size 511 MB (I’ve read it from an article, I am not sure how it is calculated. But it worked for me. You can try otherwise if you like). Mount to [/boot/efi]. manage the flags of this partition to be boot. format it vfat
b. System partition: Partition type: ext4. It will have the system files (after the first setup system files took around 4.5 GB. I made it 100 GB. I am planning to setup a lot of fat development apps). Mount it to [/]. Format it ext4.
c. Swap partition: some articles says that it should be double your RAM size. I did so. You can experiment with that.
d. Home partition: Partition type: ext4. It will contain all your personal data. This should be the largest partition. You can store musice videos , photos, projects, etc. Mount it to [/home]. Format it ext4.
14- When you asked for the location of the boot loaded after the paritioning phase select the partition of EFI boot [e.g. /dev/sdd1]. You cannot select the hdd [e.g. /dev/sdd], It will not boot. You must select the partition of EFI boot [e.g. /dev/sdd1].
15- Complete the setup to the end.
16- Reboot your PC.
17- When seeing Dell logo, press F2 to enter the BIOS settings
18- From Boot menu disable the secure boot.
19- Save changes and reboot PC.
20- When seeing Dell logo, press F12 to select Boot
21- Your Linux Mint on ext hdd will be seen in the UEFI boot list, select it
22- This is how it worked for me. Good luck.
23- If the boot option for Linux Mint disappeared
24- Enter Bios, create a new boot option
25- Select the usb partition with efi boot
26- Write the path to efi file: \EFI\linuxmint\grubx64.efi. if this did not work, find the path to efi file as follows.
27- From windows, run command prompt
28- diskpart
29- list disk
30- select disk 2: this is my usb external hdd
31- list partition
32- select partition 1
33- assign
34- run file explorer, you will see the efi boot partition with a new letter, click on it and browse the efi file. Save that path to the file. This is what to write in Bios setting new boot option
35- Hope this helps
My Ubuntu Day 