HOWTO: migrate wubi install to partition

[bcbc]

The information in this thread have been moved to https://help.ubuntu.com/community/MigrateWubi

A thread for discussion of the wiki page only can be found here http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=2012400

Thread closed.


This HOWTO has been moved to a community-maintained Wiki: https://help.ubuntu.com/community/MigrateWubi

For the reason why, see here.
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This HOWTO describes how to migrate a Wubi install to partition. The partition(s) must be created already - this is not covered in this guide (but see here). The examples shown below assume the target partition is /dev/sda5 and the swap partition (if required) is /dev/sda6.

Automatic migration
The migration supports Wubi installs from 8.04 to 12.04, with Grub2 or grub-legacy.
First download the attached file wubi-move-2.2.tar.gz to your Downloads directory, right-click and choose "Extract here".
The rest of the migration is run from the terminal. See How to migrate in pictures

To migrate to /dev/sda5 with swap on /dev/sda6

sudo bash wubi-move-2.2.sh /dev/sda5 /dev/sda6

To migrate to /dev/sda5 without swap

sudo bash wubi-move-2.2.sh /dev/sda5

If you don't want to install the grub bootloader, use the --no-bootloader option. You can boot from the Wubi install's grub menu temporarily and manually install the grub bootloader later.

sudo bash wubi-move-2.2.sh --no-bootloader /dev/sda5 /dev/sda6

To migrate from the root.disk when running from a live CD/USB:

sudo bash wubi-move-2.2.sh --root-disk=/media/win/ubuntu/disks/root.disk /dev/sda5 /dev/sda6

The path to the root.disk is case-sensitive and if it contains spaces they must be escaped e.g.

sudo bash wubi-move-2.2.sh --root-disk=/media/New\ Volume/ubuntu/disks/root.disk /dev/sda5 /dev/sda6

You can migrate to separate partitions for /boot, /usr and /home

sudo bash wubi-move-2.2.sh /dev/sda5 /dev/sda6 --boot=/dev/sda1 --usr=/dev/sda7 --home=/dev/sda8

For full usage instructions and notes:

bash wubi-move-2.2.sh --help
bash wubi-move-2.2.sh --notes

The code is now hosted on GitHub. You can keep track of new development or contribute. See https://github.com/bcbc/Wubi-move

Known issues with script:
1. Running "update-grub" in the chroot doesn't pick up other linux installations on the same drive (same running the script or manual commands listed above). This is unlikely an issue for wubi users. Run sudo update-grub after booting the new install for the first time.
2. Only the current kernel's initrd.img is updated on the migrated install; if you require others you can update them with "sudo update-initramfs -u -k <kernel version>".
3. End of life releases that have grub-legacy must be upgraded to a supported release before migrating.

Other known issues:
1. Many older BIOSes cannot address more than 137GB from the start of the disk. If you try migrating to a partition that falls outside of this, then Grub2 will fail to load it's boot files. Even if only a part of the partition falls outside this range there is a possibility of grub failure in the future. Therefore, either confirm your BIOS is unaffected prior to partitioning, or ensure your target partition falls within this limit, or migrate to a separate boot partition within this limit.
2. The process that Wubi uses to boot (wubildr.mbr) cannot read ext3/4 partitions prior to release 11.10. It reads partitions in BIOS order looking for the wubildr file, so if finds an ext3/4 partiton before it finds the wubildr file - it will hang up. So, make sure you install the grub2 bootloader if you migrate to a partition lower than the one containing wubildr i.e. if Windows is on /dev/sda2 and you migrate to /dev/sda1

A note on hibernation:
The migration script will enable hibernation automatically, provided you migrate with a swap partition and the swap partition is large enough (must be > the size of your RAM).

For those interested, I've included the steps required to manually migrate in another post.

[SteveGoTex]

I used this to migrate an installation on a Dell Inspiron 9400. Worked with no problems.
Thanks very much for this, especially since the LVPM approach does not work for 10.04.

Will be trying this on an MSI Wind next..

Steve

[SteveGoTex]

The MSI WInd worked as well. It has netbook edition installed, with Win7 as the other OS.

In both cases, I had to manually install grub to the MBR after booting up the new installation. Other than that it worked as advertised.

Thanks again.
Steve

[bcbc]

The MSI WInd worked as well. It has netbook edition installed, with Win7 as the other OS.

In both cases, I had to manually install grub to the MBR after booting up the new installation. Other than that it worked as advertised.

Thanks again.
Steve

Great - thanks for the feedback.

Regarding needing to install grub afterwards, are you saying that the command 'grub-install /dev/sda' didn't work (if you ran it manually) or that the script failed to install it (and you didn't specify --no-bootloader)?

[SteveGoTex]

It did not work from the script, while i was still running in the Wubi installation. Once I had rebooted the new installation (from the Wubi boot list), was able to install grub to the MBR.

[bcbc]

It did not work from the script, while i was still running in the Wubi installation. Once I had rebooted the new installation (from the Wubi boot list), was able to install grub to the MBR.

It seems to be working for me... you should have been prompted:

wubi-move.sh: The grub2 bootloader will be installed to drive (/dev/sda)
wubi-move.sh: If you select no, you have to boot your new install
wubi-move.sh: from the wubi menu and install it later manually.
wubi-move.sh: Install the grub bootloader to /dev/sda? (Y/N)

Then, unless, you enter 'n' or 'N' it proceeds to install it.

Note, if you migrate your wubi to a partition on another drive, the script will only permit installing the bootloader on that drive, which may not necessarily be the drive you boot from.

The only exception to this is if you use the --no-bootloader option. But I'll run some more tests anyway to make sure.

EDIT:
After further testing I've discovered that the package lupin-support (required for Wubi installs) modifies the grub-install command, but this isn't consistent across releases. For 10.04 the command 'grub-install --root-directory=xxx /dev/sda' was not actually updating the MBR, whereas on a 9.10 install it works fine. So I've modified the script to run grub-install within the target install (using chroot) as the lupin-support is already removed and the results should be consistent across releases.

Thanks again for the feedback.

Further EDIT:
In fact there is a bug in lupin-support in 10.04 Ubuntu that makes grub-install act differently depending on whether the wubi is installed on the same partition as windows or not. In my case, the --root-directory option was working, but when I tried the same command on a more typical install on the same partition as windows, it did not work.

It's not relevant for the migration anymore as the script is doing grub-install in chroot, however, might impact other wubi users. Here is the bug report: https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+s...in/+bug/604417

[sav25]

Hi

Apologies, I'm very new to Ubuntu and terminology etc.

I have a hard drive that is partitioned into 2 seperate partitions i.e. looks like 2 seperate drives. I'll call these drive 1 and drive 2.

Drive 1 is where my XP is installed, and I believe my Ubuntu 'wubi' is installed here too. Drive 2 is literally just used as a store for all my pictures, music and videos.

What I want to do is remove XP, merge the partitions into a single drive and use Ubuntu only (migrate away from wubi?).

Can this be done using the method above?

I can copy all of the files in 'Drive 2' to and external HD so after that, I dont mind deleting everything on the drive.

Thanks,

Rich

[bcbc]

Hi

Apologies, I'm very new to Ubuntu and terminology etc.

I have a hard drive that is partitioned into 2 seperate partitions i.e. looks like 2 seperate drives. I'll call these drive 1 and drive 2.

Drive 1 is where my XP is installed, and I believe my Ubuntu 'wubi' is installed here too. Drive 2 is literally just used as a store for all my pictures, music and videos.

What I want to do is remove XP, merge the partitions into a single drive and use Ubuntu only (migrate away from wubi?).

Can this be done using the method above?

I can copy all of the files in 'Drive 2' to and external HD so after that, I dont mind deleting everything on the drive.

Thanks,

Rich

The method here is a straightforward migration of wubi to a new partition. It's intended for users who want to keep all the customization they've done on a wubi install, but would like to move to a 'traditional' dual boot.

It's possible to use it as part of a strategy to accomplish what you want, but I think you should create a separate thread for this as it's going beyond the scope of the topic. You can edit your post above with a link to the thread and I'll find it.

[fbtb]

Thank you sooo much! Awesome Guide! Finally i could migrate my Kubuntu 10.04!
I only had to reinstall my nvidia (proprietary) drivers. Everything else worked perfectly!
Thank you!

[bcbc]

Thank you sooo much! Awesome Guide! Finally i could migrate my Kubuntu 10.04!
I only had to reinstall my nvidia (proprietary) drivers. Everything else worked perfectly!
Thank you!

Great, you're welcome

I'll take a look at the driver issue when I get a moment. I don't use proprietary graphics drivers, but I don't see any reason why this wouldn't be included in the migration.