Hi I’m so sorry I don’t mean to be a bother or force anyone into unpaid support, but I’m having a full meltdown and if I can’t fix my system I’m screwed. I really thought I was doing it right and installing Pop to my second D drive to leave windows alone but somehow it completely broke Windows and I can load into that, only Pop! And unfortunately Pop! I guess isn’t really my GPU (Nvidia 1080ti I think) so on my 4k monitor everything is blown up and the wrong aspect ratio, cutting off the bottoms of windows I Pop! so I can’t even navigate this system that I’m 100% entirely unfamiliar with. I don’t even care about getting windows back at this point if I can get Pop! usable, I just need a usable machine. I’ve tried some terminal stuff I’ve read online already but nothing has worked and I’m afraid to do the purge ~nnvidia command because it said it might turn my screen black and if I can’t even get into Pop! then I’m screwed. I don’t even know what help I need but I desperately need help

Edit:

I’m too stupid for this. I don’t understand what anyone is saying, nothing is working. I don’t know what to do. I need to stay away for a few because if I don’t I’m going to kill myself. I’m very sorry and I appreciate everyone’s help, I wish I that I was smarter and I wish that I was stronger.

Edit 2:

Update here

  • Pommes_für_dein_Balg@feddit.orgEnglish
    0·
    4 months ago

    I came here willing to help, but sorry – I just can’t parse what you write.
    Take your time, the system isn’t gonna fuck itself any more in the next 30 minutes.

    • Vespair@lemmy.zipOPEnglish
      0·
      4 months ago

      I guess I can’t reply to my own post as a top level comment for some reason.

      I broke everything. I don’t understand anything. I don’t know what I did. I managed to get windows to reinstall but broke shit during that too and now my PC won’t see my second SSD. I dont understand anything anyone in this thread said. People are telling me to do operations I don’t know about and are berrating me for not knowing things I didn’t know I didn’t know.

      I’m stupid, clearly too stupid for this. I don’t know what else people want me to say. I thought I downloaded a normal distro from a normal correct place. I dont know how I didn’t. I’m stupid.

      Now I have to try starting from a fresh Windows install that I know is broken and I don’t know what to do.

      I’m sorry I’m having a meltdown, but any time I try to do anything I feel like I’m trying so hard to do it right, and do I carefully, but no matter what I do I always ruin everything. I think I’m just going to kill myself, but thank you everyone for trying to help me. I’m sorry I’m a lost cause

      • Pommes_für_dein_Balg@feddit.orgEnglish
        0·
        4 months ago

        Relax, you didn’t break your PC, just some software on it. You now have a functional Windows again. You can either go to the website I linked and follow the step by step instructions there to install pop again.
        Or in Windows, start diskmgr and use that to reformat your second SSD so Windows sees it again. (You’ll lose all data that might still be on it)

    • Vespair@lemmy.zipOPEnglish
      0·
      4 months ago

      I don’t understand what you mean. I’m happy to explain anything else, I’m just very lost. Like I don’t even know what I don’t know. I just know that I can get into Pop! but the resolution/aspect is wrong and the bottom half of every screen is being cut off. And when I try to go into Windows via the boot drive selection, all I get is the Windows Repair but it fails and won’t let me continue.

      I guess at this point I’m trying to either figure out to get a Windows install Blu-ray or USB key authored from within Pop! and/or to get the NVidia drivers properly installed on Pop! so I can functionally use it.

      I have zero experience with Linux. The whole reason I was trying to install what I thought was a workable dual-boot was so I had a space to learn it without having to commit to a full switch, so I know truly zero terminal commands, anything. I promise I’m trying my best to read and follow along and troubleshoot for myself, but I must be stupid because I continue to fail.

            • Vespair@lemmy.zipOPEnglish
              0·
              4 months ago

              “casper_pop-os_22.04_amd64_nvidia_debug_1131” is what the file reads as when I look at the drive in Pop

              • HelloRoot@lemy.lolEnglish
                0·
                4 months ago

                22.04 is super old (22 means year 2022 and 04 means april)

                Thats maybe why your resolution isn’t working.

                At least do 24.04 or wait for 26.04 to come out in 1-2 months. A lot has happend in the past years on linux, especially with nvidia.

                • TropicalDingdong@lemmy.worldEnglish
                  0·
                  4 months ago

                  I think the need is to get the users configuration working in its current state; It doesn’t sound like they’ve got a second machine to burn a boot USB with.

                • Vespair@lemmy.zipOPEnglish
                  0·
                  4 months ago

                  I appreciate that information, and promise I am not trying to be unappreciative or rude, but I don’t know how that helps me in this moment.

                  Should I try to redownload a newer install on Pop!? I am concerned because to even make the USB in the first place on windows required using an app called Rufus that I don’t understand how worked, so I’m concerned if I’m savvy enough to understand how to do that, to be honest.

                  I’m not trying to difficult, I promise, I’m just wildly out of my depth. I want to learn Linux because I want to be free of MS’s grasp and because support for my windows 10 has ended anyway, but I worry I’m genuinely just not smart enough

                  • HelloRoot@lemy.lolEnglish
                    0·
                    4 months ago

                    I fucked up my systems quite a lot back in the day and had to reinstall everything from scratch, because I was inexperienced. Lost quite a lot of personal data as well, cause I had no backups ofc.

                    If I were you, I’d try to fix windows rn. (for that you’ll probably get better help on the windows reddit)

                    And then attempt a linux dual boot again but this time preparing a bit better, reading more, using the newest versions, having a backup plan if everything fails again.

                    If you can do a videocall on your phone through discord or wire I can hop in a session and help you in about 20h from now. Videocall so I can see whats on your screen and tell you what to do.

              • Pommes_für_dein_Balg@feddit.orgEnglish
                0·
                4 months ago

                Bro I linked you the PopOS download page and asked which image you used.
                22.04 isn’t on there at all, and “debug” isn’t an image you’d want to install at all.
                STOP using random websites or Google results.
                GO TO the actual PopOS website and follow the install instructions there to the letter.

      • zelifcam@lemmy.worldEnglish
        0·
        4 months ago

        You probably overwrote windows EFI. Let’s not worry about that now. For future reference, the move for first time users is to unplug the windows drive before you install Linux.

        If you are successfully booted into Pop, then you’re fine. What guide did you use to install so I can ask you relevant questions. Seems like you just need to set the proper resolution or you’re missing gfx drivers.

        • Vespair@lemmy.zipOPEnglish
          0·
          4 months ago

          Honestly I’m not even sure at this point because I’ve opened a million windows since, and admittedly I burned the Pop install to USB like a month ago but dragged my feet. I mostly just plugged it into my PC and followed along.

          I should have been more diligent, found a great tutorial, but I thought from what I’d read that Pop was supposed to be a simple install so I didn’t think I’d need it.

          I fully admit my own arrogance and ignorance; this is all my fault, I know

          • zelifcam@lemmy.worldEnglish
            0·
            4 months ago

            It’s just a package. Nvidia dropped support for your card on the latest drivers. So I have no idea why pop was your choice or what guide you followed or what research you did before hand, but if you want to fix it I think you need to revert the driver. Here’s some Ai

            Fix NVIDIA Driver on Pop!_OS 24.04 for Pascal GPUs (GTX 10xx)

            Pop!_OS 24.04 may install nvidia-driver-580-open by default, which does not work with Pascal (GTX 10xx) GPUs. The open kernel module requires GSP, which is only available on Turing (RTX 20xx) and newer. You need the proprietary nvidia-driver-580 instead.

            Why is this necessary?

            NVIDIA maintains two versions of their Linux kernel driver:

            • Open kernel module (nvidia-driver-xxx-open) — requires the GPU System Processor (GSP), a hardware component only present on Turing (RTX 20xx / GTX 16xx) and newer GPUs.
            • Proprietary kernel module (nvidia-driver-xxx) — the traditional closed-source driver that supports all NVIDIA GPUs including Pascal and older.

            Pop!_OS 24.04 may default to installing the open variant for all NVIDIA GPUs, regardless of whether the hardware actually supports it. On a Pascal GPU like the GTX 1080 Ti, the open module fails to load at boot because there is no GSP on the card. This results in no GPU acceleration, nvidia-smi failing, and repeated driver probe errors in the system log.

            Additionally, as of October 2025, NVIDIA ended Game Ready Driver development for Pascal entirely. The 580 driver branch is the last to support these GPUs and will only receive quarterly security patches through October 2028. The proprietary 580 driver still works — it just won’t get performance optimizations or new game profiles going forward.

            Step 1 — Check what’s currently installed

            dpkg -l | grep nvidia-driver

            If you see nvidia-driver-580-open in the output, continue with this guide.

            Step 2 — Remove the incompatible open driver

            sudo apt remove --purge nvidia-driver-580-open nvidia-dkms-580-open

            If you also have older open variants installed, remove those too:

            sudo apt remove --purge nvidia-driver-570-open nvidia-dkms-570-open

            Step 3 — Install the proprietary driver

            sudo apt install nvidia-driver-580

            Step 4 — Rebuild initramfs

            sudo update-initramfs -u

            Step 5 — Reboot

            sudo reboot

            Step 6 — Verify after reboot

            nvidia-smi

            You should see your GTX 10xx card listed with driver version 580.xx.

            Notes

            • Game Ready Drivers for Pascal ended October 2025. Driver 580 is security-update only (through October 2028).
            • The system76-driver-nvidia metapackage may pull in the open variant again on updates. If that happens, repeat steps 2–5