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I have an internal SSD containing a single partition with Ubuntu on it. I am currently booting from this partition. However, to actually boot a second (HDD) drive is required which has an EFI partition on it. I want to remove the HDD and continue to boot Ubuntu from its location on the SSD, without having to reinstall anything.

I am thinking what I need to do is to resize the partition on the SSD to allow space for an EFI partition, move it (the start of the existing partition ahead/up), create an EFI partition before it, and then install something on the new EFI partition so it will boot from the existing Ubuntu install on what would now be the second partition. I have bits and pieces of what I think I need to do (for instance, I think GParted can do the moving and resizing) but I don't have a clear enough picture of exactly what I need to do in order to avoid risking data loss. Also, it seems like this is an uncommon procedure, as I see these various activities mentioned as parts of other processes, but never creating an EFI partition from scratch.

Exactly what steps do I need to do to safely modify my single partition SSD to boot by itself?

Michael
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  • @Michael your idea is Ok. i have done it before for trail. It took lot of time to move the partition right side of it and making empty space for EFI partition on left. Taking Backup is highly recommended. I used Gparted to resize the partition. – PRATAP Dec 11 '18 at 16:02
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    @Michael this answer may help somehow https://askubuntu.com/a/1076535/739431 – PRATAP Dec 11 '18 at 16:04
  • @PRATAP Wow that is a very thorough answer - although the question is slightly different your answer appears to be exactly what I am looking for. – Michael Dec 11 '18 at 16:17
  • @Michael..have you done what you required? any issues? – PRATAP Dec 12 '18 at 10:43
  • @PRATAP I backed up my SSD but I haven't had time to go through all the steps. I'll be setting aside a block of time to do this soon. – Michael Dec 12 '18 at 15:38
  • @PRATAP I've followed all the steps without error, but when I go to reboot I'm thinking something isn't installed right. If I choose "ubuntu" from the BIOS boot menu I still get a menu including ubuntu and windows, whereas if I choose to boot directly from the device, i get some text that flashes too fast to read, a black screen for several seconds, and then i'm back to the BIOS boot menu again. – Michael Dec 17 '18 at 03:56
  • @PRATAP the only thing i haven't done is erase the original drive... i'm going to take it out of the machine now and put the data SSD in and see what happens. – Michael Dec 17 '18 at 03:57
  • @PRATAP Well it worked... just still have extra entries in the boot menu for windows that I should probably get rid of :D – Michael Dec 17 '18 at 04:27
  • after sudo update-grub those entries not gone?? – PRATAP Dec 17 '18 at 12:18

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