HOWTO: migrate wubi install to partition

[rsearjeant]

Just wanted to add my own note of thanks for this excellent script. It worked perfectly. My Acer laptop is now dual-booting Win7 / Xubuntu 10.10. Thanks for creating and maintaining this superb utility.

Because of bad experiences in the past (not with your script, I should add!) I chickened-out and went for the --no-bootloader option, but I'd like to tidy things up by installing the grub2 bootloader manually and getting rid of the Wubi install.

I'm still a bit worried about screwing-up access to Windows. If I run "grub-install /dev/sda" from the newly-moved Xubuntu, can I assume Windows will be added to the Grub menu and all will be well when I restart? (I'm 75% confident ... just need a little reassurance!)

Roger

[bcbc]

migration work very well. It was a great experience after having looked for a working migration tool quite long time. Thanks a lot.
Ubuntu now boots much faster.

The boot menue seems to be strange (or perhaps only unfamiliar)
This issue is frequentlydiscussed in this forum. I'll go through that again to work out what's on. If I get lost, I'll ask you again for help.

Great! And thanks for the feedback too.

There are some who feel strongly about Grub2 and remain - or move back to - Grub. It tends to work fine for me (except on Wubi installs of course).

[bcbc]

Just wanted to add my own note of thanks for this excellent script. It worked perfectly. My Acer laptop is now dual-booting Win7 / Xubuntu 10.10. Thanks for creating and maintaining this superb utility.

Because of bad experiences in the past (not with your script, I should add!) I chickened-out and went for the --no-bootloader option, but I'd like to tidy things up by installing the grub2 bootloader manually and getting rid of the Wubi install.

I'm still a bit worried about screwing-up access to Windows. If I run "grub-install /dev/sda" from the newly-moved Xubuntu, can I assume Windows will be added to the Grub menu and all will be well when I restart? (I'm 75% confident ... just need a little reassurance!)

Roger

It should be there already... try the following:
Boot your computer, select Ubuntu from the Windows boot manager, when you see the Wubi grub menu hit 'c'. This drops you to a grub prompt.
Now load up your migrated Ubuntu's grub menu (assuming /dev/sda5):

configfile (hd0,5)/boot/grub/grub.cfg

This is exactly what you will see when you install the grub bootloader. You can then test out the Windows option and the rest before installing grub.

If you're still nervous then backup your MBR before installing the grub bootloader. But reinstalling the windows bootloader is very simple - I just use lilo even though I have the windows disks because I can install it from Ubuntu, and I've never had an issue using it.

[hreinhardk]

back again to bcbc.
I've got the same boot menue problem as post 18.
Top Ubuntu (boots the migrated partition ubuntu)
bottom line ubuntu sda1, boots to (the old wellknown) windows boot menue from there i can access wubi as well as xp.

the solution for post 18, sudo update-grubI did, but it didn't change the situation.
In a similar (I think) problem, post 86, you suggested to change MBR with lilo (write to sda I think).

sudo apt-get install lilo
sudo lilo -M/dev/sda MBR

would these commands fit for me too?

You too suggested to go back to grub instead of grub2. I don't know how.

My next step would be to upgrade to 10.04 and then to uninstall wubi.
Is it necessary to fix the "cosmetic" with the boot menue first or will they be fixed by upgrading and uninstall anyhow?

many questions sorry.

[bcbc]

back again to bcbc.
I've got the same boot menue problem as post 18.
Top Ubuntu (boots the migrated partition ubuntu)
bottom line ubuntu sda1, boots to (the old wellknown) windows boot menue from there i can access wubi as well as xp.

the solution for post 18, sudo update-grubI did, but it didn't change the situation.
In a similar (I think) problem, post 86, you suggested to change MBR with lilo (write to sda I think).

sudo apt-get install lilo
sudo lilo -M/dev/sda MBR

would these commands fit for me too?

You too suggested to go back to grub instead of grub2. I don't know how.

My next step would be to upgrade to 10.04 and then to uninstall wubi.
Is it necessary to fix the "cosmetic" with the boot menue first or will they be fixed by upgrading and uninstall anyhow?

many questions sorry.

Actually I believe that's caused by having Ubuntu as the default OS in the Windows Boot Manager - boot.ini. Not confirmed, but maybe you can confirm it by booting Windows and changing the default OS back to Windows (in the Windows Startup & Recovery settings, under the advanced tab of System Properties).
After that boot back into the migrated Ubuntu and run "sudo update-grub"

Don't reinstall lilo. I think it's counterproductive at this point unless you intend to keep Wubi.

UPDATE: Yeah just confirmed that. I don't remember when I clued in to that, but obviously some time after that post #18.

[hreinhardk]

Thanks it worked fine.
I then tried to uninstall wubi, but it was not on the add/remove list of xp.
I read somewhere there's a command to uninstall wubi from ubuntu new. I don't remember.
Otherwise I just delete the partition wubi was on with gpart and clean windows directory for wubi and partition installation do not depend on each other, do they?

[bcbc]

Thanks it worked fine.
I then tried to uninstall wubi, but it was not on the add/remove list of xp.
I read somewhere there's a command to uninstall wubi from ubuntu new. I don't remember.
Otherwise I just delete the partition wubi was on with gpart and clean windows directory for wubi and partition installation do not depend on each other, do they?

They're independent - you can delete it manually if there's no \ubuntu\uninstall-wubi.exe (in add/remove it's listed as Ubuntu not Wubi).

[hreinhardk]

Thanks. I found the uninstall ubuntu-wubiexe in Ubuntu directory. It didn t work.
In add remove it was not listed. I once installed with live ubuntu on stick.
I tried in xp to delete the partition where only wubi was installed. But there was some problem with the file system. Anyway. I can deal with this kind of problems.
Thanks for your help performing the migration.

I couldn't deal with the problem. Pls see the next post several hours later...

[hreinhardk]

at the end I messed up the whole migration. Sorry.

I deleted the wubi partition (sda6) and expanded the migrated ubuntu partition (sda7) into the free space. (swap was sda8).
(I did that by using a live CD...)
As a result the ubuntu partition became sda6, swap sda7 and when I booted I ended up on the <rescue grub> prompt.

I looked around in the forums but found no good solution.
with xp repairconsole "fixmbr" I could reset mbr to boot back into xp. And then? How to fix (reinstall) the grubloader for the ubuntu installation on sda6?

[bcbc]

at the end I messed up the whole migration. Sorry.

I deleted the wubi partition (sda6) and expanded the migrated ubuntu partition (sda7) into the free space. (swap was sda8 ).
(I did that by using a live CD...)
As a result the ubuntu partition became sda6, swap sda7 and when I booted I ended up on the <rescue grub> prompt.

I looked around in the forums but found no good solution.
with xp repairconsole "fixmbr" I could reset mbr to boot back into xp. And then? How to fix (reinstall) the grubloader for the ubuntu installation on sda6?

Boot from a live CD, go to terminal:

sudo mount /dev/sda6 /mnt
sudo grub-install --root-directory=/mnt /dev/sda

More info:
when it boots, it'll present you with the grub menu, hit 'e', change references of (hd0,7) to (hd0,6), delete the line beginning "search --floppy...", change /dev/sda7 to /dev/sda6, hit CTRL+X to boot.
Then run "sudo update-grub" when booted.