Score:0

'Moving' ubuntu installation to HDD drive causes grub loading issues

nl flag

I have a laptop setup with 256 SSD/ 1TB HDD. I had a working dual boot Windows 10 / Ubuntu 18.04 on the SSD drive, but now I want to remove the Ubuntu installation from the SSD and install it again on the HDD - I want a setup where the /var has more than 250 GB available.

I did the dumb thing of installing Ubuntu on the HDD without first removing the installation on SSD. That cause the grub minimal menu to appear. By loading the ubuntu booting kernel, I would get into the HDD installation. So naturally I assumed that removing the SSD Ubuntu partition would be fine.....well I was wrong!!

The grub minimal menu does not see my HDD partitions and by deleting the SSD Ubuntu partition I removed the Ubuntu boot kernel also.

I tried removing the grub loader from windows, and reinstall the ubuntu on the HDD. This last re-install has brought me back to the grub minimal menu where I can't see any ubuntu partition.

Any ideas on how to move forward from here and achieve a stable Windows SSD / Ubuntu HDD installation?

oldfred avatar
cn flag
Are you installing in UEFI boot mode to gpt partitioned drive? If Windows was pre-installed it will be UEFI with gpt. and best that systems are all in same boot mode.
Score:0
cn flag

For a dual boot, the best order is to install first Windows and then a GNU/Linux distribution. Install Windows 10 on the HDD disk and the install Ubuntu on the SSD disk. The Ubuntu installation will install grub2 so it will recognize Windows and Ubuntu. (Windows uses MBR/GPT, overwrites grub2 and does not recognize other OS).

You installed Ubuntu on the Windows partition and removed Ubuntu on the SSD drive, so now only have one OS. Try to start again with the steps mentioned above. This will solve your problem for sure.

Cally Mally avatar
nl flag
The Ubuntu installation has to be on the HDD drive since I need more than 250GB for the /var folder. The Windows license that I have is also a pre-installed one, so not really sure if I can "move" the installation, but at the end of the day, I don't want that anyway - for now! My problem is that when installing Ubuntu on the HDD, I tried to select the root folder as a 700 GB partition I have on the HDD, and the bootloader option as the HDD also (/dev/sda)...but after that, the grub minimal menu shows up, and doesn't "see" any of the HDD partitions either
Unix avatar
cn flag
In that case, you have to be sure that your HDD drive has 2 partitions: one for Windows and one for Ubuntu. Then, you move Ubuntu to the second partition and install grub2 there. Or directly, install a new Ubuntu on the second partition. So you will have 2 OS in the same HDD. However, you still could have Ubuntu on the SDD drive and make a partition in the HDD drive for the /var directory.
Unix avatar
cn flag
One more thing: the second partition should be ext4.
Cally Mally avatar
nl flag
I only created a partition for Ubuntu on the HDD and the rest was left to 'god's will'! So I'll try that again. Also, I was also thinking that maybe I can just create a separate partition for /var on the HDD and install ubuntu on the SSD - that could be a better solution than full installation on HDD....I'll give that a try this evening. Thanks for the suggestions!
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