16.04 LTS - New HD-SSD - Can't Load to Windows (Details inside)

[frank85]

I'm sure you wizards can help:

I have a dual-boot going. Ubuntu 16.04 LTS from a small SSD, and Windows 7 x64 on a HDD. I recently purchased a new SSD to use for Windows. So my setup is now Ubuntu on small SSD (no changes,) and Win7 now on larger SSD mirrored through Acronis.

Everything works; I can access both drives, and boot both OS. I can access Win7 (SSD) through Ubuntu, but I can only boot to Windows (SSD) by setting it first to load in the BIOS. However, when I try to boot Windows 7 using the Grub loader it loads Win7 off the HDD (which I've kept to use for backup.)

Now I have disabled the HDD in the BIOS thinking grub loader defaults to use the drive it knows, and Win7 still appears in the grub loader, but doesn't load because it can't be found. The only way to load Win7 on the new SSD is to set it first to load in the BIOS - (Strangely this is how I originally had to load Win7 from the HDD, because it was not detected through grub loader. One day it just worked and I have no idea why.)

How can I tell grub loader to recognise the new SSD with Win7 to be the default, and ignore, or remove the HDD version?

[QIII]

Hello!

Important on The Ubuntu Forums is the legal/EULA issue in that if you have either an OEM installation or a retail installation with only one license, you cannot have Windows installed on more than one device -- by which I mean "drive" -- even if it is not in a computer. You need to know that, as we do not support violations of EULAs or laws in any jurisdiction and won't allow any discussion of same.

However, I will suggest this, if you will pardon the simple answer first ...

Did you update GRUB after adding this new device?

That may be part of the problem. Still you are left with an issue where the devices and their partitions probably have identical UUIDs, which would be a sure way to confound the boot process.

[frank85]

Hello!

Important on The Ubuntu Forums is the legal/EULA issue in that if you have either an OEM installation or a retail installation with only one license, you cannot have Windows installed on more than one device -- by which I mean "drive" -- even if it is not in a computer. You need to know that, as we do not support violations of EULAs or laws in any jurisdiction and won't allow any discussion of same.

However, I will suggest this, if you will pardon the simple answer first ...

Did you update GRUB after adding this new device?

That may be part of the problem. Still you are left with an issue where the devices and their partitions probably have identical UUIDs, which would be a sure way to confound the boot process.

Hmm, I don't know about that first part except that I own a legal retail copy of Win7, and never considered that the license is for one "drive" only, that's a bit harsh.

Anyway, I don't believe I've updated the GRUB loader. I don't really know how to do that. I should probably learn more about Ubuntu basic operations. If the problem persists I suspect you're right (even though I don't know what UUID means atm - something to look up )

[oldfred]

When I put a new motherboard in my XP system it required me to re-register it with Microsoft. But it did accept it. It was as far as I was concerned the same system, just fried motherboard.

Hard drives fail, so I would think as long as same system, you would not have issues with Microsoft. Just that you can/should not use old drive. Only one license can be used.

How to restore the Ubuntu/XP/Vista/7/8/10 BIOS bootloader
https://help.ubuntu.com/community/Re...ta/7Bootloader
https://help.ubuntu.com/community/Gr..._Broken_System

UUID is a unique code for each partition. You cannot have duplicates, which some create by imaging one drive to another, but trying to keep both drives mounted.

fred@Asusz97:~$ sudo blkid -c /dev/null -o list
device     fs_type label    mount point    UUID
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
/dev/sda1  vfat    EFI      /boot/efi      FD76-E33D
/dev/sda2                   (not mounted)  
/dev/sda3  ext4    trusty   (not mounted)  45de38c8-6748-4634-b207-628d9aa8b42b
/dev/sda5  ext4    iso_ssd  (not mounted)  695d18b5-16f8-4e9c-bf66-675a12da5a26
/dev/sda6  ext4    xenial   /              255a2800-b871-4fdf-a809-16987e64b8b3
/dev/sda7  ext4             (not mounted)  a7254fe5-0f23-4b89-99f8-77edf92666b4
/dev/sdb1  vfat    efi      (not mounted)  68CD-3368
/dev/sdb3  ext4    xenial_b (not mounted)  52bfbc7e-a973-4b9b-bb1f-f5569aab60d0
/dev/sdb4  ext4    data     /mnt/data      a0c1c99f-0f09-4787-a7cc-9e15bb3b4aa5
/dev/sdb5  ext4    backup   (not mounted)  084de40f-8ffd-4af1-97b1-8a60cdd9aab4
/dev/sdb6  ext4    iso_hdd  (not mounted)  7f360ddc-d9fb-4a40-b17a-f2d5af6b61ed
/dev/sdb7  swap             [SWAP]         212797b0-0342-44d8-a111-d5ce82e9f7a2
/dev/sdb9  ext4    yakkety  (not mounted)  4f1e6472-7ed3-475c-b6a7-92f5c18a067e

[yancek]

The license you purchase from microsoft for windows basically allows you to use their OS on one and only one computer. Such things as hard drive failures would not present a problem but that is not the case in your situation, at least from the information you've posted. If you installed your windows 7 to another drive and kept the old one, you may be alright as long as you don't use the old one. You can get this info yourself for your specfiic version of windows 7. On the computer I have with windows 7 home premium, the license specifically states:

BACKUP COPY. You may make one backup copy of the software. You may use it only to reinstall the software on the licensed computer

Since the windows EULA differs with every minor version of windows, your best option is to read it which you can do by going to your windows Menu, then to All Apps, Windows System, Command Prompt and type in license.rtf. It should open in WordPad.

Update Grub from a terminal with: sudo update-grub Watch the output on the screen. If you have problems review the links posted by oldfred in regard to UUIDs.

[frank85]

Thanks to everyone, I have it working. All I had to do was update GRUB loader

Also, the windows on the old HDD is only a backup now. I don't use it, and it's the only other copy. I hope that is legal - it wouldn't make sense for MS to expect people to buy a new license every time they upgrade!