Question Frankenstein build... partitioning without an OS for installation of Linux Mint

[MRLEGOBlox]

I'm building a PC for my great niece to play minecraft on. It's been cleaned out and any obsolete cards removed as it was an windowsXP originally. We bought a used/wiped 160g HD at goodwill for 5 bucks and put it in along with 6gigs of Ram. Its a Dell with a 1.86 dual core , fired it up all worked fine. I made a bootable USB flashdrive with an ISO of Linux Mint "Tina" Mate 32bit and booted from it and Linux booted right up. I plugged in my wifi adapter and was able to connect to the internet.
Now I want to get it off the thumb-drive and onto the hard-drive but from what I can tell the wiped drive needs to be partitioned first. I really don't want to put windows on the computer for any amount of time. Is there any way I can partition with the BIOS or from a utility while running off the USB? Is this even a possible task? Any help would be greatly appreciated, I've never used Linux myself but I'm intent on migrating my own computer to it now as well.

 

[R_1]

it should allow you to do what you need during the installation process. as in windows you can use the installer to partition the drive you can do the same in linux. select the something else option for the drive and you can partition the drive there.
the live version running off of the USB can also be used to partition the drive before install. you can open a terminal and use the partition tool (gparted), partition the drive, then install to the new partition.

 

[Alabalcho]

I don't know about this particular Mint flavour, but other Linux distros will ask whether you want to install or "run live". The installation script will take care of partitioning.

 

[Dave8671]

How did you create the USB installer? I use etcher which is on the guide on the link. Follow the guide if you questions ask.

Mint installation guide