I have been away from linux for some time, I starting gaming on PC, and as I'm sure you all know, most PC games are only on Windows.
So in an attempt to get back into linux, I tried installing linux mint 14(debian version), but when I try to install from a USB drive, the mouse clicks stop registering (usually when 2 or more windows are up at the same time). I tried reinstalling to the USB drive, then trying again, but I had the same result.
Then, once I managed to get the damn thing installed, I tried to boot to that HDD, and I got "Err2Err3". I did a bit or research, and someone mentioned boot tags in Gparted. So I changed that, and I got the same thing.
Has anyone run into these problems before, or know how to solve them?
It is a problem with the MBR or Grub. Most likely MBR. Did you have multiple HDD hooked up when you tried to install Linux MInt? Does your (I am assuming Windows HDD boot)?
I have 3 HDDs (one is actually an SSD), my 1.5TB HDD has windows, and boots just fine. The SSD just holds a few things and works as a cache for the windows disk. The third is some old 200GB disk I scavanged from a dead computer.
To answer your questions, Yes, I had multiple disks hooked up when installing, I only installed to the 200GB drive, and yes, my Windows HDD boots just like normal.
If it helps, the grub menu never even showed up, I had to choose it from the boot menu in the bios.
right now I'm most concerned with the mouse issue, because it's near impossible to install while that exists.
So it sounds like Windows MBR is still the boot manager not grub which is what I usually have managing things in this situation. There are ways to try and fix this with Windows install disk and choose repair but sometimes it works and sometimes it doesn't. I will tell you how I usually do this sort of thing so boot manager is never an issue. I only have the Windows Hdd hooked up and install Windows.Then I only have the Linux Hdd hooked up and install Linux. Then I hook everything up and just change HDD boot priority to set which Hdd I want in the bios or just the priority screen. This method requires 2 extra clicks everytime I want to switch Operating systems but keeps Windows MBR managing the Windows HDD and Grub managing the Linux HDD. Each OS can still see and use the infomation on the other HDD's. This is NOT how most do it.
Most just install Windows with only the Windows Hdd hooked. Then hook up the Linux Hdd and set Grub to boot Manager which removes Windows MBR.This means you just select which os you want when booting from the Grub menu but I have found that this ways causes some problems for me if I ever want to just remove the Linux Hdd as Windows will no longer boot do to replacing the MBR with Grub.
From what you are saying you picked Grub to be the boot manager when installing linux and something just went sideways. Not sure why. You can google boot manaer stuff to try and help you.
If I was you I would format (erase) the linux hdd in windows and unhook all drives except the linux(now ersaed) hdd and try to reinstall. Then just select which os you want at any time in the bios like I do. I have never had a problem doing it this way.
Good luck and I too use Linux mint debian and am very happy with it.
In the system log file does it state that your mouse is "out of sync?" I had a mouse out of sync error on my laptop, and for some reason I found out that linux was trying to do some power saving to my mouse. So I used the synaptic package manager and actually uninstalled one of the power management programs, and everything works fine now.
(Don't remember which power management I uninstalled, if I remember, ill make a reply.)
What mouse do you have? Some gaming mice with extra buttons need to be set up manually to stop that happening.
For example with my mouse, I had to do something like this: http://community.linuxmint.com/hardware/view/6651
A temporary fix I found was to go into TTY1 and then come back out again. (CTRL-ALT-F1 --> CTRL-ALT-F7). For me it would solve the problem until the next reboot.