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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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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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