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dual boot to single boot, removing windows
Hi all
I've got a win7/ubuntu 10.04 dual boot running on my system. I did the usual of installing 7 first, then ubuntu and using it as the default boot option.
I now want to get rid of win 7 and expand the ubuntu installation into the free space. My current hdd structure is in the attachment. If I just boot a live cd and gparted to remove the win 7 partitions and expand the ubuntu installation into the free space, will that work or will it have a massive panic?
Also, how to I get grub to silently boot after without offering me any boot options?
Re: dual boot to single boot, removing windows
Quote:
Originally Posted by
jiggling_john
If I just boot a live cd and gparted to remove the win 7 partitions and expand the ubuntu installation into the free space, will that work or will it have a massive panic?
I would imagine it should work fine. You may need to do a 2 step process to extend your Ubuntu partition, first move the start of the extended partition (after deleting sda1&2) then grow the size of your ext4 partition.
To be on the safe side always backup data you want to keep prior to any disk intensive stuff like that! (Just in case something goes wrong).
Quote:
Originally Posted by
jiggling_john
Also, how to I get grub to silently boot after without offering me any boot options?
Once you reboot, updating GRUB should fix that - assuming its GRUB2 (not sure about GRUB legacy - you may need to manually edit the config file).
Re: dual boot to single boot, removing windows
right o, i'll give that a bash now then. How do I update grub? *stupid question mode* :-p
Re: dual boot to single boot, removing windows
Re: dual boot to single boot, removing windows
ok so i totally broke it...
I rebooted, did a gparted, deleted win partition, moved everything across and resized.
All seemed well
i had
sda3
-sda5 system
-swap
After that it wouldn't boot, just a flashing cursor so I rebooted into live usb and tried to reinstall grub.
I mounted /dev/sda5 and installed grub to there.
oh dear... this now seems to have killed my partition table? If i go into gparted now it says "invalid partition table on dev/sda - wrong signature 820"
any ideas how to rescue me?
Re: dual boot to single boot, removing windows
did it!
right, i dunno what i did wrong! I think when I resized the partitions there was no longer an active/boot partition. I ended up doing the following...
read this
https://help.ubuntu.com/community/DataRecovery
then i downloaded and ran TestDisk
This is a bit of genius, it recovered my partition and re-wrote the partition table. I selected at this point to turn it into a boot partition.
The swap space disappeared somewhere...
I then followed instructions to reinstall grub
This worked!
After booting into my rescued installation, i used gparted to create a swap space where it used to be, used mkswap to set it and then edited my fstab to replicate the changes.
bit of a bugger all that but im back now and going to buy a back up hdd!
Re: dual boot to single boot, removing windows
You are too quick. But I am glad you got it worked out.
I generally recommend that you do not move partitions left as that has slightly more risk as you are copying/moving all the data. I prefer that you use the space for /home or for a /data partition and leave / (root) where it is.
Just for future info:
To move /home uses rsync
https://help.ubuntu.com/community/Pa...ng/Home/Moving
Uses cp -ax
http://www.ivankuznetsov.com/2008/04...partition.html
http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=46866
Partitioning basics with some info on /data older but still relevant
http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.p...data+partition
I like to keep a small system partition(s) and have data on separate partitions. Then it is easily to do full new installs to another system partition (keeping old for a while). I have several 20-25GB system partitons for new versions or testing.
Re: dual boot to single boot, removing windows
Glad you got it all sorted in the end. And sorry if my "no worries" attitude lead you astray. Ah yes boot partition. I overlooked that. I would imagine that GParted should have been able to sort all that and while booted from a live CD/USB you should've been able to fix GRUB at the same time. GRUB should've warned about that at the time. Anyway, alls well that ends well I guess.
PS I've would've got the backup drive first! Better late than never though!
