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My old system has a Windows 10 + Ubuntu 18.04 dual boot installation, but on separate drives. My plan is to install Windows fresh on the new system and clone Ubuntu onto the same drive (I use Ubuntu for work, so I'm not really keen on having to set up my environment all over again).

I've cloned the Ubuntu partition using GParted Live by copying and pasting it on the unallocated space I left on the new drive after installing Windows. I assumed, since there were no other partitions on the drive I had Ubuntu in, that would be the only partition to clone and that there would be no hiccups, but when I rebooted there was no Ubuntu partition to boot with on boot manager. How can I now get it to boot now (on dual boot)?

EDIT: ran boot-info, this is the report.

  • nvme0n1 is a 1TB SSD, where I want Windows and Ubuntu dual booting
    • nvme0n1p2 has Windows 10 installed on it, plan to keep it that way, working well
    • nvme0n1p3 is Windows' boot partition, working well
    • nvme0n1p4 is to where I cloned the Ubuntu 18.04 system; boot files are there, but boot type and boot info are missing
  • sda is a 500GB HDD (has a Windows boot partition by mistake, only used for files)
  • sdb is the Boot Repair's Live USB
  • sdc is a SD card reader iirc

EDIT 2: Boot-Repait ran successfully, grub is restored and working well. Thanks!

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  • If you have good backups, it should only take an hour to reinstall & restore from your backup. You need the backup, anyway. Lets see details, use ppa version with your live installer (2nd option) or any working install, not Boot-Repair ISO: Please copy & paste the pastebin link to the Boot-info summary report ( do not post report), do not run the auto fix till reviewed. help.ubuntu.com/community/Boot-Repair
    – oldfred
    Commented Jul 5, 2021 at 20:12
  • Can you please clarify your comment? Not sure what you are suggesting there.
    – fijozico
    Commented Jul 5, 2021 at 20:35
  • Two points, you must have good backups. And run Boot-Repair summary report so we can see details and maybe resolve issue. Boot-Repair's main fix is just reinstall of grub in either BIOS or UEF boot mode. Mode must match Windows install and new systems are all UEFI.
    – oldfred
    Commented Jul 5, 2021 at 21:22
  • @oldfred edited the original post with a pastebin to the boot-info report
    – fijozico
    Commented Jul 6, 2021 at 17:11
  • You show two UEFI boot entries for Windows. only one is valid. You can delete the other. You also have old BIOS boot entries in gpt's protective MBR. No issue as long as you never turn on CSM/BIOS boot mode and try to boot using those old BIOS boot entries. Only delete entry in UEFI menu that refers to partUUID/GUID that does not exist. askubuntu.com/questions/1198221/…
    – oldfred
    Commented Jul 6, 2021 at 18:46

1 Answer 1

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In those circumstances, my preference:

  1. Install Windows de novo, without Ubuntu partition.
  2. Install Ubuntu 18.04 from Ubuntu live USB s dual boot, letting setup create a Ubuntu partition from blank space of the correct size for the clone. This sets up grub and dual booting.
  3. Copy the cloned partition into the Ubuntu partition.

N.B. There may be issues if your work machine and your home machine require different drivers. The OS from the live USB would have the correct drivers, but they'd be overwritten by the clone. In that case, you'll also need to find suitable drivers. Rather than blindly copying the clone over the installed version, it might be better, in that case, to copy folder-by-folder.

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  • Yeah, I tried booting the "old" Ubuntu drive on the new machine and the network drivers were bust, but I was planning on solving that with some different techniques I found. Just to clarify though, won't cloning the old Ubuntu onto the recently installed one undo all the fresh installation?
    – fijozico
    Commented Jul 5, 2021 at 20:26
  • There are multiple partitions. On one Windows dual-boot PC, for example, there are 1 GB NTFS System recovery, 265 MB FAT32 Boot, 500 GB NTFS Windows, and 200 GB ext4 Ubuntu partitions. In that case, replacing only the ext4 partition should get Ubuntu working again... or not, if it's substantially different from that needed on the new PC.
    – DrMoishe Pippik
    Commented Jul 5, 2021 at 21:14
  • Of course; what I'm asking is if installing Ubuntu on its partition and then cloning the old Ubuntu onto that partition won't be the exact same thing as skipping the fresh installation of Ubuntu altogether, since the fresh installation will be completely overridden by the cloning.
    – fijozico
    Commented Jul 5, 2021 at 21:18
  • No, fresh installation creates boot setup on the boot partition(s).
    – DrMoishe Pippik
    Commented Jul 5, 2021 at 21:19
  • Also struggling with that: looking at the old Ubuntu drive's partitions (installed in sda4, sda2 is for files), I don't see where its boot partition would be, so I'm assuming the boot is on the same partition as the rest of the Ubuntu installation... Here's the Windows drive as well.
    – fijozico
    Commented Jul 5, 2021 at 21:40

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