12.04 LTS installed, '14.04.5 LTS is available'

[rva1945]

Hi:

I want to upgrade. My HD is partitioned, and I have dual boot, Ubuntu and W7. How do I upgrade to 14.04.5 and not loose anything?

Thanks.

[Bashing-om]

rva1945' Hello;

Release 12.04 is at End_Of_Life, and will have unsupported status any day now !

Highly recommended that you upgrade to 14.04/16.04 ASAP .
On-line upgrade will require that the current 12,04 be fully updated if a clean fresh install, why bother with 12.04 update ?



the call is yours

[Autodave]

Back up everything on an external HD, USB stick, etc. Then do a fresh install of 16.04. That would be my recommendation.

[mastablasta]

I want to upgrade. My HD is partitioned, and I have dual boot, Ubuntu and W7. How do I upgrade to 14.04.5 and not loose anything?.

at best you can lose system some user system settings. so just perform the upgrade.

it is advisable to backup your data before upgrade. though, upgrade will not touch your data anyway, it just overwrites the system files. and since some applications come with their own default settings it is the settings that could get overwritten.

[Impavidus]

On my computers, upgrades just work. But on some other's computers, they don't. So I suggest you just upgrade to 14.04 (assuming that your 12.04 is fully up-to-date), but first make sure you have backups and a live disk of either 14.04 or 16.04, so you can rescue your system if something goes wrong. Alternatively, just skip 14.04 and try a clean install of 16.04.

[RobGoss]

A clean installation would be the best in my opinion, avoid problems upgrading from one distribution to another. Make a complete backup and install the latest OS

[rva1945]

Will the W7 partition remain untouched?

[RobGoss]

This all depends what options you choose when you reinstall Ubuntu

You can use that same Ubuntu partition for the new installition, do not choose to use entire disk that will wipe your whole system out including Windows

When installing the grub boot loader, make sure it is installed on the MBR / Master boot record, partition that way you can choose which OS you want to boot

Make sure you fully understand how this is achieved before you attempt this reinstalltion, make sure you have Windows backup as well

[Bucky Ball]

Will the W7 partition remain untouched?

Yes, if you choose to partition with 'Something Else'. This allows you to choose where things go. Your 14.04 partitions will be there clearly visible as EXT filesystem partitions and /swap and the Win partitions will be NTFS. LEAVE THE NTFS partitions ALONE. Just use the existing / mountpoint as the / mountpoint for the new install and mark the existing /swap partition to 'Use'. Any other existing EXT partitions you want included, mark to 'Use' but NOT to format (untick).

If you are going the net upgrade, as mentioned, backup what you wouldn't want to lose just in case. Get your machine back to as 'vanilla' as you can get it, meaning disable any manually added PPAs, particularly if they are specific to 12.04. You may also need to remove any video drivers you have installed manually and use the open-source Nouveau driver for the upgrade, then reinstall the vid driver after upgrade.

Having said that, I would be going for a clean install of 16.04 LTS, but that is me. Good luck. :)