Change hard drives ?

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pennylurcher
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Joined: Wed Nov 21, 2007 1:59 pm

Change hard drives ?

Post by pennylurcher »

I have 2 harddrives in my machine.
Prime master as windows vista on it.
Prime Secondary as Mint on it.
I wish to remove the drive with vista on it leaving only the drive with mint.
Ive tried disconecting the windows drive , computer wont boot
Ive tried conecting the mint harddrive as prime master , wont boot.
Will I have to remove the vista hard drive , put the mint hard drive as prime master and reload mint or is there a simple way round this please ?
Last edited by LockBot on Wed Dec 28, 2022 7:16 am, edited 1 time in total.
Reason: Topic automatically closed 6 months after creation. New replies are no longer allowed.
Fred

Re: Change hard drives ?

Post by Fred »

pennylurcher,

Yes, there is no need to reinstall. This can be fixed. :-)

First question. Are both hard drives IDE or are they both SATA, or do you have one of each? If so which is which?

Oh well.... maybe more than one question. :-)

Fred
pennylurcher
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Posts: 21
Joined: Wed Nov 21, 2007 1:59 pm

Re: Change hard drives ?

Post by pennylurcher »

Hi there
they are both IDE.
Fred

Re: Change hard drives ?

Post by Fred »

pennylurcher,

There are two or three ways around this but let's do it right, so you don't have even more problems if you decide to put another hard drive in. Plus you probably want to keep your Windows drive so it will boot, at least I would.

First go download an iso called Supergrub. You can find it easily with Google. Be sure to download a version in a language you can understand. Burn that to a cd. You will use that to boot with, to get us started. Resist the temptation to use it to "fix" anything, at least for now. :-)

Put your Linux drive in the first position. The position that Windows was in. I am assuming it was in the first position. Check the jumpers and make sure it is set to master. The jumper setting should look like the Windows drive looks when you remove it.

ok... now put Supergrub in your cd drive and boot the machine. Select the mint install and continue to boot. It should be the only install available. Log in as usual and wait for the desk top.

Open a terminal and type:

sudo grub

root (hd0,0)

setup (hd0)

quit

gksudo gedit /boot/grub/menu.lst

Look in this file down close to the bottom and you will see the boot stanzas at the end of Default Options. Change yours to look like what you see below. You can delete my note and everything below that. Be careful some of these lines are wrapping. If there isn't a return there don't put one in. Don't confuse the word wrap with the returns for a new line.
## should update-grub create memtest86 boot option
## e.g. memtest86=true
## memtest86=false
# memtest86=true

## ## End Default Options ##

title Linux Mint, kernel 2.6.22-14-generic
root (hd0,0)
kernel /boot/vmlinuz-2.6.22-14-generic root=/dev/sda1 ro quiet splash
initrd /boot/initrd.img-2.6.22-14-generic quiet
savedefault


title Linux Mint, kernel 2.6.22-14-generic (recovery mode) root (hd0,0)
kernel /boot/vmlinuz-2.6.22-14-generic root=/dev/sda1 ro single
initrd /boot/initrd.img-2.6.22-14-generic quiet
savedefault


title Linux Mint, kernel memtest86+
root (hd0,0)
kernel /boot/memtest86+.bin
boot


### END DEBIAN AUTOMAGIC KERNELS LIST

# DELETE EVERYTHING BELOW THE ABOVE LINE

# This is a divider, added to separate the menu items below from the Debian
# ones.
title Other operating systems:
root

# This entry automatically added by the Debian installer for a non-linux OS
# on /dev/sdb1
title Windows XP (loader)
root (hd0,0)
savedefault
makeactive
chainloader +1
ok save this file and close gedit.

In the terminal type:

sudo gedit /etc/fstab

Every place you see sdb1,2,3,or4 change it to sda1,2,3,or4.

It may already be like that but I don't know how it was installed so it is best to check. Save and exit.

Close the terminal, remove Supergrub, and reboot. Unless one of us made a mistake, you should see the Mint boot screen and should be able to boot into mint.

Let me know how it goes. :-)

Fred
Fred

Re: Change hard drives ?

Post by Fred »

pennylurcher,

I must go eat... I will be back in a little while.

Fred
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atlef
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Re: Change hard drives ?

Post by atlef »

Fred

Re: Change hard drives ?

Post by Fred »

pennylurcher,

I haven't heard from you .... wondering if that is good news or bad. :-)

Fred
pennylurcher
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Posts: 21
Joined: Wed Nov 21, 2007 1:59 pm

Re: Change hard drives ?

Post by pennylurcher »

Hi Fred,
It was bad news thats why it as taken me so long to come back :(
I did try ,but , when I restarted the computer I got to the splash screen (Mint) then it just sat there !!
so after 3hrs of trying to sort it out I thought it would be quicker to reload Mint .
Ive reloaded mint ,done away with windows :lol:
Made a back up copy of Mint on what was the windows drive ,using Acronis Backup that works but I have noticed that on the "copy" the swap file doesnt start automatically I have to go to Partition Editor and click swapon.
It probably doesnt matter as I am using 2 gig of memory and Ive never seen it use the swap.
Thank-you for trying to help , at my age ( I was 65 yesterday !) things dont always sink in :lol: :lol:
Fred

Re: Change hard drives ?

Post by Fred »

pennylurcher,

I am sorry it didn't work out for you. Don't blame yourself though. I could have easily made an error too. I am not perfect by a long shot.

Don't sell yourself short son.... I have a few years on you. At our age we are entitled to a mistake once in a while. :-)

Sorry my help was not effective.

All is well that ends well. :-)

Fred
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