hi I am intending to take a hard drive from a laptop and place it in a windows desktop.This drive has Ubuntu on it and so as not to cause any problems in windows, i would like to erase the operating system on it before removing from the laptop. Any tips on the best way to do this? Once in the desktop i plan to install Ubuntu back on it( i still have the live disc). thanks Barry
On 16-Nov-08 21:41:28, Barry Chater wrote:
hi I am intending to take a hard drive from a laptop and place it in a windows desktop.This drive has Ubuntu on it and so as not to cause any problems in windows, i would like to erase the operating system on it before removing from the laptop. Any tips on the best way to do this? Once in the desktop i plan to install Ubuntu back on it( i still have the live disc). thanks Barry
I'm not sure what "problems in windows" you might get simply by putting a Linux drive in the desktop -- so long as it is not the Primary Master from which the desktop boots!
Simply placing it in the desktop should give rise to the same situation as if you first erased Linux, installed the drive, and then re-sinstalled Linux. Or ami I missing something?
Ted.
-------------------------------------------------------------------- E-Mail: (Ted Harding) Ted.Harding@manchester.ac.uk Fax-to-email: +44 (0)870 094 0861 Date: 16-Nov-08 Time: 21:25:54 ------------------------------ XFMail ------------------------------
I thought windows may try and boot from the linux drive, Thats why i want it erased as drivers will be wrong for desktop. Barry
(Ted Harding) wrote:
On 16-Nov-08 21:41:28, Barry Chater wrote:
hi I am intending to take a hard drive from a laptop and place it in a windows desktop.This drive has Ubuntu on it and so as not to cause any problems in windows, i would like to erase the operating system on it before removing from the laptop. Any tips on the best way to do this? Once in the desktop i plan to install Ubuntu back on it( i still have the live disc). thanks Barry
I'm not sure what "problems in windows" you might get simply by putting a Linux drive in the desktop -- so long as it is not the Primary Master from which the desktop boots!
Simply placing it in the desktop should give rise to the same situation as if you first erased Linux, installed the drive, and then re-sinstalled Linux. Or ami I missing something?
Ted.
E-Mail: (Ted Harding) Ted.Harding@manchester.ac.uk Fax-to-email: +44 (0)870 094 0861 Date: 16-Nov-08 Time: 21:25:54 ------------------------------ XFMail ------------------------------
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Barrys linux mail wrote:
I thought windows may try and boot from the linux drive, Thats why i want it erased as drivers will be wrong for desktop
Your PC's BIOS may try to boot the Linux disk (unlikely unless you fit it as a master), otherwise you should have no problems. Windows itself will not be involved in that decision (by the time Windows starts the "who should boot?" has been decided).
Moving a Windows disk from one machine to another usually results in blue screens due to missing drivers but Linux is much more forgiving and I've never yet had a major problem moving between hardware, so that is an option.
I would suggest putting the disk in and seeing what problems you have then resolving them if necessary, but if you want to wipe the drive before you start then the Ubuntu Live CD should allow this (use System -> Administration -> Partition Manager to delete all the HDD partitions), or download something like dban (CD image, burn to disk then boot from it) to securely wipe any disk.
Note that you do not need to format the disk, just remove the existing partitions.
On 19-Nov-08 10:13:30, Mark Rogers wrote:
Barrys linux mail wrote:
I thought windows may try and boot from the linux drive, Thats why i want it erased as drivers will be wrong for desktop
Your PC's BIOS may try to boot the Linux disk (unlikely unless you fit it as a master), otherwise you should have no problems. Windows itself will not be involved in that decision (by the time Windows starts the "who should boot?" has been decided).
I'm pretty sure this is correct (and that was the basis for my earlier response). If the Windows disk is the primary master, and (as is the usual default) the BIOS is configured to take this hard drive as the priority drive to boot from, then that is what will happen and the fact that there is a second hard drive (say either primary slave or secondary master) will not affect this. However (see below) ...
Moving a Windows disk from one machine to another usually results in blue screens due to missing drivers but Linux is much more forgiving and I've never yet had a major problem moving between hardware, so that is an option.
There is one potential problem arising from putting in a second hard drive to a machine which has hitherto only had the one Windows hard drive.
Suppose the existing Windows hard drive (drive 1) has say three windows partitions on it. When Windows boots, these will be registered as "\C:", "\D:" and "\E:". Software which runs from \C: may have been configured to look for other files in \D: or \E:.
Now put in a second hard drive (drive 2). If this has even a single Windows partition on it, this partition will be registered as "\D:", and the parttitions which previously were "\D:" and "\E:" will now be registered as "\E:" and "\F:" and one consequence is that the software which is configured to look for files in "\D:" or "\E:" will continue to look there, but will not find them, since they are now in "\E:" and "\F:" respectively.
It's even worse if the second hard drive has more than one Windows partition (say 3). What then happens is
Hard drive 1 alone: Drive 1: "\C:" "\D:" "\E:"
Drives 1 and 2 together: Drive 1: "\C:" "\G:" "\H:" Drive 2: "\D:" "\E:" "\F:"
At any rate, that was the case on Win98 (the last time I encountered the problem, on behalf of a friend who wanted to put in a second hard drive). I don't know if it applies to XP, 2000, or Vista (and I'd prefer not to need to find out ... ). Solving it was a close approximation to a nightmare. There was a downloadable utility called "Letter Assigner" which allowed you to give a partition a letter-name which was not already in use. So putting right the above mangled situation involved:
1: C G H 2: D E F --> C I E F G H --> C I E F D H --> C I J F D H --> C I J F D E --> C I J K D E --> C F J K D E --> C F G H D E 1: C D E 2: F G H
i.e. like the old "15 puzzle" where 15 numbered tiles on a 4x4 board have to be shuffled (using the one available empty square) until they are in numerical order. Any offers for a quicker solution to the drive-letter puzzle above? !!!
That being said, note that it is described in terms of 2 hard drives which both have Windows partitions. I don't know what rthe situation is if the second drive has Linux partitions: will these also occupy "letter space"?
I would suggest putting the disk in and seeing what problems you have then resolving them if necessary, but if you want to wipe the drive before you start then the Ubuntu Live CD should allow this (use System -> Administration -> Partition Manager to delete all the HDD partitions), or download something like dban (CD image, burn to disk then boot from it) to securely wipe any disk.
Note that you do not need to format the disk, just remove the existing partitions.
-- Mark Rogers // More Solutions Ltd (Peterborough Office) // 0845 45 89 555 Registered in England (0456 0902) at 13 Clarke Rd, Milton Keynes, MK1 1LG
-------------------------------------------------------------------- E-Mail: (Ted Harding) Ted.Harding@manchester.ac.uk Fax-to-email: +44 (0)870 094 0861 Date: 19-Nov-08 Time: 11:30:51 ------------------------------ XFMail ------------------------------
On 19 Nov 11:30, Ted Harding wrote:
On 19-Nov-08 10:13:30, Mark Rogers wrote:
Barrys linux mail wrote:
I thought windows may try and boot from the linux drive, Thats why i want it erased as drivers will be wrong for desktop
Your PC's BIOS may try to boot the Linux disk (unlikely unless you fit it as a master), otherwise you should have no problems. Windows itself will not be involved in that decision (by the time Windows starts the "who should boot?" has been decided).
I'm pretty sure this is correct (and that was the basis for my earlier response). If the Windows disk is the primary master, and (as is the usual default) the BIOS is configured to take this hard drive as the priority drive to boot from, then that is what will happen and the fact that there is a second hard drive (say either primary slave or secondary master) will not affect this. However (see below) ...
Moving a Windows disk from one machine to another usually results in blue screens due to missing drivers but Linux is much more forgiving and I've never yet had a major problem moving between hardware, so that is an option.
There is one potential problem arising from putting in a second hard drive to a machine which has hitherto only had the one Windows hard drive.
Suppose the existing Windows hard drive (drive 1) has say three windows partitions on it. When Windows boots, these will be registered as "\C:", "\D:" and "\E:". Software which runs from \C: may have been configured to look for other files in \D: or \E:.
Now put in a second hard drive (drive 2). If this has even a single Windows partition on it, this partition will be registered as "\D:", and the parttitions which previously were "\D:" and "\E:" will now be registered as "\E:" and "\F:" and one consequence is that the software which is configured to look for files in "\D:" or "\E:" will continue to look there, but will not find them, since they are now in "\E:" and "\F:" respectively.
It's even worse if the second hard drive has more than one Windows partition (say 3). What then happens is
Hard drive 1 alone: Drive 1: "\C:" "\D:" "\E:"
Drives 1 and 2 together: Drive 1: "\C:" "\G:" "\H:" Drive 2: "\D:" "\E:" "\F:"
At any rate, that was the case on Win98 (the last time I encountered the problem, on behalf of a friend who wanted to put in a second hard drive). I don't know if it applies to XP, 2000, or Vista (and I'd prefer not to need to find out ... ). Solving it was a close approximation to a nightmare. There was a downloadable utility called "Letter Assigner" which allowed you to give a partition a letter-name which was not already in use. So putting right the above mangled situation involved:
1: C G H 2: D E F --> C I E F G H --> C I E F D H --> C I J F D H --> C I J F D E --> C I J K D E --> C F J K D E --> C F G H D E <--- Hoi! You cheated! This changes 2 drives letters
at the same time!
1: C D E 2: F G H
i.e. like the old "15 puzzle" where 15 numbered tiles on a 4x4 board have to be shuffled (using the one available empty square) until they are in numerical order. Any offers for a quicker solution to the drive-letter puzzle above? !!!
That being said, note that it is described in terms of 2 hard drives which both have Windows partitions. I don't know what rthe situation is if the second drive has Linux partitions: will these also occupy "letter space"?
Depends on if windows decides it can see it or not! Sometimes it does, most of the time it goes "meh, I have no idea what the hell that is" and leaves it alone.
Cheers,
On 19-Nov-08 11:55:48, Brett Parker wrote:
On 19 Nov 11:30, Ted Harding wrote:
[snip] . Solving it was a close approximation to a nightmare.
[see OOPS below!!]
There was a downloadable utility called "Letter Assigner" which allowed you to give a partition a letter-name which was not already in use. So putting right the above mangled situation involved:
1: C G H 2: D E F --> C I E F G H --> C I E F D H --> C I J F D H --> C I J F D E --> C I J K D E --> C F J K D E --> C F G K D E <--- OOPS!! I left out a line (just goes to show...) --> C F G H D E <--- Hoi! You cheated! This changes 2 drives letters
at the same time!1: C D E 2: F G H
i.e. like the old "15 puzzle" where 15 numbered tiles on a 4x4 board have to be shuffled (using the one available empty square) until they are in numerical order. Any offers for a quicker solution to the drive-letter puzzle above? !!!
That being said, note that it is described in terms of 2 hard drives which both have Windows partitions. I don't know what the situation is if the second drive has Linux partitions: will these also occupy "letter space"?
Depends on if windows decides it can see it or not! Sometimes it does, most of the time it goes "meh, I have no idea what the hell that is" and leaves it alone.
That's what I suspect (never having had the experience); but that re-instates the "suck it and see" scenario! Ted
Cheers,
Brett Parker
-------------------------------------------------------------------- E-Mail: (Ted Harding) Ted.Harding@manchester.ac.uk Fax-to-email: +44 (0)870 094 0861 Date: 19-Nov-08 Time: 12:19:29 ------------------------------ XFMail ------------------------------
2008/11/19 Ted Harding Ted.Harding@manchester.ac.uk:
At any rate, that was the case on Win98 (the last time I encountered the problem, on behalf of a friend who wanted to put in a second hard drive). I don't know if it applies to XP, 2000, or Vista (and I'd prefer not to need to find out ... ).
NT and beyond are more sane, and you can re-assign the drive letters to make them stick.
Adding a 2nd drive containing only Linux partitions won't change the lettering sequence anyway - only FAT and NTFS partitions get letters.
Tim.
On Wed, 2008-11-19 at 12:20 +0000, Tim Green wrote:
Adding a 2nd drive containing only Linux partitions won't change the lettering sequence anyway - only FAT and NTFS partitions get letters.
That is not *always* the case..I have seen Windows assign a drive letter to an unrecognised filesystem type and then just pop up a "Drive is not formatted, do you want to format it now?" box if you try and access it.
On Wed, 2008-11-19 at 11:30 +0000, Ted.Harding@manchester.ac.uk wrote:
There was a downloadable utility called "Letter Assigner" which allowed you to give a partition a letter-name which was not already in use. So putting right the above mangled situation involved:
Yeh that isn't really an issue with NT/2000/XP/Vista
You can reassign drive letters using the disk management plugin of the management console. Right click My Computer, Select "Manage", Go to disk manglement, right click the volumes with the wrong letters assigned and select "change drive letters and paths"
This is quite a frequent fix for a windows bug where you have network drives in the next letter order...i.e. your Primary drive is C: and you have a CD Rom as D: and a mapped network drive as E:. Then if you plug in USB mass storage (say a camera, usb keydrive or external disk) it tries to assign E: (thinking it is the next letter in order not taking into account the network drive)..this fails because E: is in use and you can't access your USB drive So you have to go into disk manglement and reassign it manually.
For this reason alone it is best practice to map network drives at the bottom of the alphabet and not the top..but plenty of people ignore that. Of course once it has been done that way and software configured to look for the network drive on E: and recent documents links, shortcuts etc are all pointing to E: it is hard to reverse.
and they say Linux isn't ready for the desktop !
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Barry Chater -
Barrys linux mail
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Brett Parker -
Mark Rogers -
Ted.Harding＠manchester.ac.uk -
Tim Green -
Wayne Stallwood