Could I get a DUAL BOOT (WIN7 - MINT) by doing this?

[robertohn]

Quick question:

FACTS:

1. I have a HP Laptop Model ProBook 4420s with a Intel Core i3 Processor (x86). This laptop has a Windows 7 installation in a 500 GB hard drive partitioned in 2, the first partition (320 GB) which has NTFS format with the windows installation and; the second partition (almost with 180 GB) is empty (not formatted yet to any FS type).
2. I also have another computer (a bit older than the HP) running MINT 17.3 ROSA Cinnamon (32 Bit version) on a small hard drive that is almost full (only with 8 GB of free space). By the way, the performance in this MINT computer is amazing!!!
3. I work on both computer daily, the one that has Windows for work stuffs and the other with MINT mainly for personal use; but as I mentioned before, I'm running out of space on MINT, besides the point the is very tedious to be moving myself where the other computer is located (I don't have enough space on my desk to have both of them in the same place.

My GOAL is to have a dual boot computer without the need to install from scratch LINUX MINT, since I have invested a lot of time to "tweak it" as I wanted -it took me a lot of reading to learn some sort of commands, adding PPAs and Authentication Keys... etc. I was deep inside the Windows world but when I found MINT it has become my favorite OS.

So this is my question:
Could I DD (on an external Hard Drive) the hard drive where I have MINT, then format the available 180 GB on the hard drive of my HP ProBook to EXT4 FS Type in order to DD the image back to the HP ProBook?
This is the current MINT hard Drive format structure shown by gparted and command df -h:

Ctrl + Click On Image to Open It Biger In a New Tab

GPARTED IMAGE


TERMINAL COMMAND LINE df -h


So, if I JUST do what I mentioned before:
1.- Could I have after all a Dual Boot Computer?
or
2.- Is not possible to achieve this goal by doing just that?

I've been thinking if the Windows 7 boot manager will recognize the other OS (MINT)

Any advise would be appreciated.

Thanks in advance.
Roberto

[kc1di]

Hello robertohn and welcome to LinuxMint,

While it is theoretically Possible to do what your suggesting it will be very difficult to get it running on the HP that way, because unless the machines in question are identical. None of the hardware settings and tweaks is going to be the same. You would also have to manually install the Grub bootloader
to boot to Linux. It would be in the end really less time consuming to just do a new install on the HP. As it may be very difficult to track down what config. files you would have to change in order to get everything working on the new machine.

Setting up dual boot is not that hard.
This page may be of help : https://sites.google.com/site/easylinux ... nt-install
good luck

[srs5694]

In some ways it's not quite as hard as kc1di suggests, because Mint, like most Linux distributions, detects and configures itself for its hardware environment on every boot. Thus, there aren't likely to be many things you must manually tweak when you move the system over. That said, you will have to install a boot loader after cloning the installation. The easiest way to do this is likely to be to use the Boot Repair program from a live disk (such as a Mint or Ubuntu installer).

My biggest concern with your plan is that you stated your current Mint installation is 32-bit. Unless your RAM is very limited (say, 1GiB or less), if your CPU is a 32-bit CPU, or if you're running a 32-bit EFI, a 32-bit installation has more drawbacks than advantages today. Most developers now use 64-bit installations, so 64-bit mode is likely to be better tested. It's also likely to be slightly faster on most computers. Finally, if your computer boots in EFI mode, and if your EFI is 64-bit, booting a 32-bit Mint will be awkward at best. This last point is potentially the most important, but only if your computer currently boots Windows in EFI mode. Check this out by examining the partition table type; see here for details. If you're booting in (64-bit) EFI mode, I strongly recommend you do a fresh installation. You can then copy over your personal files from /home/{yourusername} on the old computer to the new computer to re-create your personal settings. OTOH, if you're booting in BIOS mode, cloning your current installation is more practical, but will result in your dealing with a 32-bit OS in an increasingly 64-bit world.

One final point: A "dd" operation copies everything, so there's no need to create a filesystem beforehand; just create the partition. That is, the target partition could use ext4fs, FAT, HFS+, ZFS, or anything else, and once the operation is done, it will be whatever filesystem the original used. Also, although "dd" will be effective, it will be slow. Various cloning tools, such as Clonezilla, will do the job more efficiently, because they're smart enough to not bother copying empty sectors. Note also that "dd" will create a filesystem that's the same size as the original, even if the target partition is bigger. (If the target partition is smaller than the original, "dd" will create a truncated filesystem, so you'll probably lose data and the filesystem will be unsafe to use.) You can easily resize the filesystem to be the partition's size after the fact with "resize2fs," but you must be aware of that need. IIRC, Clonezilla will handle this step automatically, although I'm not positive of that.

[supertuxkart]

The HP Laptop Model ProBook 4420s is reported to have Windows 7 Pro 32bit Edition.
So, you can use systemback to make your live sistem including your home directory, with your own personalization.
Then, in dvd ( if less than 4,7 GB, or pendrive if more ) you can try the live system ( if boots ) to see if the hardware is supported.

After you can install, if all's right.

[austin.texas]

srs5694 makes an excellent point about the 32 bit OS. You really should consider moving to 64 bit.

Do you have any special drivers installed for wireless or graphics? Post the result of: inxi -Fxz

I have done transfers from one drive to another, and I will give you the short version of how to do it.
Boot the Mint computer, using a live Mint DVD or USB.
Plug in your external hard drive.
Open gparted and create at least 53 GB of unallocated space on the external drive.
In gparted, right-click on the Mint partition and chose Copy.
Then right-click on the unallocated space on the external drive and chose Paste.
That will clone the Mint partition exactly, including the UUID number of the partition (which is important)
Then move the external drive to the HP Laptop, and repeat the process to put the partition on the HP hard drive.
Them you have to install Grub to the MBR of the hard drive.
Personally, I would do that (and have done that) with my Rescatux CD which will boot any installed OS with or without Grub being installed, but you can use the chroot method → http://www.dedoimedo.com/computers/grub ... ocId905459

You can make a swap partition and add it to fstab anytime, either before or after installing Grub.