Moving dual boot installation to a SSD?

[geo909]

there is a oracle plugin for that

i just use a shared folder for flash drives and a shared printer over the local net
share /media

Actually I just realized that a virtual machine most
probably won't work for me: I need windows for music
production software where it is crucial to have
almost zero latency for your soundcard. This won't
work through a virtual machine. I'll use XP on a 2nd
rotating drive.

doing what oldfred did is not hard once you figure out where your IDE/RAID/AHCI options (my board only supports raid on ports 1 to 4)
if your motherboard has 2 controllers you could have one use AHCI and the other use IDE, i could do this on my desktop if i had to

Thanks for the photo! I actually have a laptop and I will install
my second drive in the cd tray using this or something similar.

I hope this won't make it more difficult. It shouldn't though,
it's just another port.. Right?

I do installs all the time. Every 6 month version at least 2 times, so I scripted most of my customization and I now install from the rotating hard drive to the SSD using grub2's loopmount. That makes for a really quick install.

The Arch site recommends gpt partitioning for SSDs. Gpt partitioning is required for drives over 2GB but Windows XP will not even see NTFS on a gpt partitioned drive. So I used gpt for my SSD and just created partitions & installed. I already configure all my installs of Ubuntu to use the same data partitions and my script auto edits fstab and adds apps and some settings that I want.

Ok, so I'll use gpt for my SSD (when I buy it) and I will use
MBR for the second hard drive where I will install windows XP.

So, just to confirm:

Again, what I'm going to do now is that I'll format my rotating
drive using MBR and I will install both linux and XP (XP will be
in the first, primary partition). At some point I will buy a SSD.
I will format the SSD using gpt and I will move my linux
installation from the (MBR-partitioned) rotating drive to the
(GPT-partitioned)SSD, while keeping my rotating drive with the XP
installation; whenever I want to boot windows, I'll get into bios
and I'll switch from AHCI to IDE (I use windows quite rarely so I
don't care it's not convenient).

So, does the above sounds OK? Any issues about moving an installation from GPT partitions to MBR ones?

Thanks again..

[oldfred]

Everything looks good except the move from MBR to gpt. I do not even suggest moves when MBR to MBR as a reinstall is really easier and quicker. If your initial install uses a separate /home or separate /mnt/data partition you only need the system install on the SSD. If all data is in data partitions, you can back up the settings in /home easily as they are small. If you have the separate /home all you Linux data and user settings are in the /home and on the reinstall to the SSD you just install the system with Something Else or manual install and also mount but DO NOT format your existing /home.

Create the Windows partition(s) first, Windows needs a NTFS primary partition with the boot flag, then:

For the Total space you want for Ubuntu:
Ubuntu's standard install is just / (root) & swap, but it is better to add another partition for /home if allocating over 30GB.:
If gpt(not MBR) partitioning include these two first - all partitions with gpt are primary
250 MB efi FAT32 (for UEFI boot or future use for UEFI)
1 MB bios_grub no format (for BIOS boot)
Ubuntu partitions - smaller root only where hard drive space is limited.
If total space less than about 30GB just use / not separate /home or standard install.
1. 10-25 GB Mountpoint / primary or logical beginning ext4(or ext3)
2. all but 2 GB Mountpoint /home logical beginning ext4(or ext3)
3. 2 GB Mountpoint swap logical

Depending on how much memory you have you may not absolutely need swap but having some is still recommended. I do not hibernate (boots fast enough for me) but if hibernating then you need swap equal to RAM in GiB not GB. And if dual booting with windows a shared NTFS partition is also recommended. But you usually cannot create that as part of the install, just leave some space. Or partition in advance (recommended).
One advantage of partitioning in advance is that the installer will use the swap space to speed up the install. Thanks Herman for the tip.
https://help.ubuntu.com/community/DiskSpace


If you want to split /home into user settings only and data in separate data partition(s).
Splitting home directory discussion and details:
http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=1811198
http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=1901437
http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.p...hlight=%2Fdata

[geo909]

Everything looks good except the move from MBR to gpt. I do not even suggest moves when MBR to MBR as a reinstall is really easier and quicker. If your initial install uses a separate /home or separate /mnt/data partition you only need the system install on the SSD. If all data is in data partitions, you can back up the settings in /home easily as they are small. If you have the separate /home all you Linux data and user settings are in the /home and on the reinstall to the SSD you just install the system with Something Else or manual install and also mount but DO NOT format your existing /home.

Create the Windows partition(s) first, Windows needs a NTFS primary partition with the boot flag, then:

For the Total space you want for Ubuntu:
Ubuntu's standard install is just / (root) & swap, but it is better to add another partition for /home if allocating over 30GB.:
If gpt(not MBR) partitioning include these two first - all partitions with gpt are primary
250 MB efi FAT32 (for UEFI boot or future use for UEFI)
1 MB bios_grub no format (for BIOS boot)
Ubuntu partitions - smaller root only where hard drive space is limited.
If total space less than about 30GB just use / not separate /home or standard install.
1. 10-25 GB Mountpoint / primary or logical beginning ext4(or ext3)
2. all but 2 GB Mountpoint /home logical beginning ext4(or ext3)
3. 2 GB Mountpoint swap logical

Depending on how much memory you have you may not absolutely need swap but having some is still recommended. I do not hibernate (boots fast enough for me) but if hibernating then you need swap equal to RAM in GiB not GB. And if dual booting with windows a shared NTFS partition is also recommended. But you usually cannot create that as part of the install, just leave some space. Or partition in advance (recommended).
One advantage of partitioning in advance is that the installer will use the swap space to speed up the install. Thanks Herman for the tip.
https://help.ubuntu.com/community/DiskSpace


If you want to split /home into user settings only and data in separate data partition(s).
Splitting home directory discussion and details:
http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=1811198
http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=1901437
http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.p...hlight=%2Fdata

Thanks so much and sorry for the late reply!

I think that settles my question.. I'm not sure when I will
buy the ssd (probably when my disk dies); when I'll be back
with feedback.

Thanks!