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My laptop has windows 7 and ubuntu 20.04lts on it - when I turn it on, there's always the 'boot menu' thing. Old hard drive works fine, but I bought a new bigger drive (windows running low on disk space) and partitioned it just like the old hard drive, just with bigger partitions.

Used ubuntu 20.04lts install dvd to run gparted and build partitions, make one 'boot' - all just like the old hard drive. I used G4L to create images (lsop) of each partition of old drive and then to restore them to the new drive.

The drive's first primary partition sda1 is 100mb ntfs and says "system reserved" (I think it is the recovery partition for windows 7) and is 'boot'. second is primary sda2 and now 100Gb ntfs and holds windows 7. The third is primary sda3 vfat, only 1Gb, and show up as e drive in windows 7 (I think it was a failed attempt at swap partition...). Then an extended partition is sda4, and has logical partition of 200Gb ext4 as sda5 and has ubuntu 20.04lts. The remaining space is 171Gb ext4 logical partition as sda6 and is waiting for a different distro of linux one day (that is compatible with my pci wifi and won't kill it like ubuntu does when I use suspend to ram - does fine on hibernate, just removes the pci wifi upon restoring from suspend requiring reboot to get it back - pain in the... It is an Intel Pro wireless 3945ABG PCI wifi which uses the iwl3945 driver that had major issues and wasn't fixed in 22.04lts ~ probably never get fixed... windows 7 has no problem with suspend or hibernate, just ubuntu - laptop is gateway e-475m).

However, when I go to use the drive - there's no 'boot menu' - just sits there blinking a cursor. At a loss for how to get the thing to 'wake up'. What have I done wrong? How do I finish my project to get a bigger drive?

The MAJOR
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  • Installed MX linux on sda6, got grub back (praise to God!) and can now at least boot to ubuntu and MX, but win 7 is a bust - won't boot win 7 and grub thinks its on both sda1 (recovery) and sda2 (actual location). Boot to sda2 and cursor just blinks, to sda1 gets error and it wants win 7 disc that I don't have... probably installed originally from sda1' recovery? HELP! – The MAJOR Oct 09 '23 at 00:52
  • tried boot repair in ubuntu and the version in MX - neither fixes win 7 non-boot problem... – The MAJOR Oct 09 '23 at 00:58

1 Answers1

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Windows 7 has passed end of life. I would suggest that you don't connect it to the internet, because there are no security updates against new malware.

Easy solution

  • An easy solution would be to keep the personal files in some kind of backup (maybe simply the old drive), and create a fresh Ubuntu 22.04.x LTS in the new drive. Then you can copy the personal files from the backup to the Ubuntu partition.

Cloning and fixing things afterwards

  • But if you need some programs, that you run in Windows 7, you can clone from the old drive to the new drive. Clone the whole drive. I prefer Clonezilla for that task, but you can also use simpler tools, for example mkusb (slower, uses dd under the hood).

  • I suppose that your Ubuntu is 'behind' Windows on the old drive, so it is easy to increase its partition's size on the new drive, for example with gparted when booted from Ubuntu Live booted from a USB drive. Leave some drive space at the tail end of the drive for a 'data' partition.

  • Create a 'data' partition, where you put the personal data (documents, pictures, video clips etc). If this partition should be accessed by both Ubuntu and Windows, you can use the NTFS file system [for the 'data' partition] and mount it via a line in /etc/fstab.

The idea behind this method is that it should be rather easy to get working systems on the new drive. And I assume (hope) that moving the personal files from the Windows partition [to the 'data' partition] will create enough free space for Windows to work well enough.

Alternative based on "sda6 and is waiting for a different distro of linux one day"

  • After feedback from The MAJOR (the original poster) I suggest to install Ubuntu (maybe select 22.04.x LTS) in the drive space of partition /dev/sda6. It will fix booting for itself and also for your current Windows 7 and Ubuntu 20.04.x LTS.

    Keep this second Ubuntu system there until you want another operating system. If you remove it, there will be problems with booting, but if you replace it with one of the other main Linux distros, that new distro will also fix booting for Windows and Ubuntu 20.04.x LTS.

sudodus
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  • just need to get the boot part working, not upgrade win7 to? win7 is stripped down already to bare so nothing to 'move'. – The MAJOR Oct 07 '23 at 22:00
  • clone then use gparted to move, expand, shift, etc. might be a long way around possibility... but there's gotta be some boot repair thingy that'll help... – The MAJOR Oct 07 '23 at 22:01
  • using eset online scanner which still supports win7 for viral, and defender for malware on this laptop... good thing about these older versions of win is the blue meanies are writing stuff for the newer win's that don't seem to affect my win98, win millennium, etc. machines - they've more 'important' targets. Still, banking and more important work is done on my win7 w/eset installed machine using their banking and payment protection features... why is she using these old OS's?Got autocad, fire modeling, cd games, etc that will only run under them! now, back to my boot issue ;-) – The MAJOR Oct 07 '23 at 22:11
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    Based on "sda6 and is waiting for a different distro of linux one day" I can suggest, that you install Ubuntu (maybe select 22.04.x LTS) in that drive space. It will fix booting for itself and also for your current Windows 7 and Ubuntu 20.04.x LTS. Keep it there until you want another operating system. If you remove it, there will be problems with booting, but if you replace it with one of the other main Linux distros, it will also fix booting for Windows and Ubuntu 20.04.x LTS. – sudodus Oct 07 '23 at 22:11
  • maybe off topic (?) but addressing answer's edit: I'd upgraded to 22.04lts to see if it 'fixed' the pci wifi driver issue - it did not and don't believe 24.04lts will either ~ seems to be too trivial to fix, so the next linux on the machine will be Fedora (RedHat) on sda6 - moving away from ubuntu based stuff... disappointed at support. – The MAJOR Oct 08 '23 at 12:50
  • Sorry to make you disappointed :-( But I am happy with using other Linux distros than Ubuntu. Good luck :-) – sudodus Oct 08 '23 at 13:01
  • afterthought: just wondering if my old hard drive having a 'hard drive password' on it, could be keeping my lzop images made by G4L from being usable once restored to the new hard drive and causing the boot menu issue? – The MAJOR Oct 08 '23 at 13:04
  • I don't know. You can ask another question here at Askubuntu or at Unix & Linux about that. – sudodus Oct 08 '23 at 13:07
  • easy fix - remove hard drive password and redo G4L lzop images. Thanks sudodus - Gonna also redo partitions on new drive anyway after learning more about all this. My problem with the win7 partition on the old drive is it is only 30Gb and stripped down of all but programs it is currently using about 27Gb - can't install handbrake or other nice programs on it - and constantly having 'running low of disk space' errors... – The MAJOR Oct 08 '23 at 13:21
  • Sometimes it is enough to ask the question when someone is listening, and you will find the answer yourself :-) – sudodus Oct 08 '23 at 13:26
  • Handbrake is available in Ubuntu (version 1.5.1 from the repo universe and version 1.6.1 from https://flathub.org/apps/fr.handbrake.ghb, flatpak). Maybe also other tools can be ported from Windows 7? – sudodus Oct 08 '23 at 13:39
  • I've got handbrake on my Vista64 laptop and it is great! Which is why I'd like to add it to my daily win7 laptop - just not enough room w/old hard drive... – The MAJOR Oct 09 '23 at 18:02