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Re: migrate triple-booting legacy-BIOS Linux-w7-w10 to EFI board

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On Sat, 4/12/2025 7:50 PM, bad sector wrote:
> 
> Recovering data from my suddenly departed son's computer was a job and a half, but it's mostly done. He had a huge server tower and I think he was amusing himself with RAID (which he didn't need) and encryption (which he didn't need) and so on!
> 
> Drives:
> 
> #1
> 500gb ssd with strange partitions for Linux and I think some created for future Linux OSes, could't figure out his /home partition setup, possibly raid.
> 
> #2
> 1tb ssd hosting fat and ext4 data PLUS a w7 and a w10 partition
> 
> #3
> 4tb data
> 
> 
> #4,5,6 in a Linux-Raid array, all data
> 
> I copied out the #4 data set, cleared those drives, and released the tower to the executors for liquidation. Then I also backed up what ever other data I could find to other drives on hand.
> 
> Plugged the # 1,2,3 drives into my own very similar computer; couldn't believe it when everything just booted right up, even the two window installs! This gave me the idea that I can relax and take my time doing the rest of the recovey, filtering and disposal as time permits because I can now just boot my son's systems on my own computer. But it's my OLD computer.
> 
> _____And that's how shit hit the fan
> 
> I'm moving to a new and inevitably UEFI box, just plugging those 3 drives in doesn't work any more, so...
> 
> I copied the #1 drive to a 1tb ssd to have more space, then did a fresh Linux (Tumbleweed) install to get EFI bootabilty. With that new #1 drive and his other drives including the #2 with windows on it also plugged-in I ran Yast to set up the EFI boot. I can now boot either my temporary facilitating Linux install OR my son's Linux (Leap-15.4) on the new EFI-BIOS board.
> 
> But I cannot boot his windows, for that I'd have to keep my old Legacy-BIOS box which I don't want to do (I can unload it for a few hundered bills).
> 
> Not knowing windows much I think I could do a w7 and a w10 fresh install after having done two 'windows backups' on the legacy box and then try a recovery from those windows-backup files on the new w7 and w10 installs on the EFI box. There's GOTTA be a simpler way   ..I hope.
> 

With my Macrium CD, I can boot from the CD and back up any machine.

You would not use the "Windows 7 Backup" that comes with Windows, because
of the rough edges. Commercial backup materials have the rough edges filed off.

*******

Similar to your Tumbleweed facilitator install, you can install a Windows side-by-side
in a sense. Use Macrium to clone over or backup-restore over, the partition
from the other box. Then do a Macrium CD boot repair, and the boot repair (similar to
OSprober), it sees the orphan Windows partitions you added, and includes
them in the boot menu.

Similar to third-party "EasyBCD" on Windows, you can use this command

   bcdboot C:\Windows /s C:

to add an item to the boot menu (stored in the BCD file, BCD file
format is actually a registry file).

But, there is "much to and fro" involved. For example, somewhere along the
way, you will be holding an MSDOS Primary partition in your hand,
some other disk is GPT with GUID partition type declarations.

What commercial tools will agree to bodge those items together
to make a whole part ?

It's going to take trickery at some point.

Perhaps you make a "shell" of a partition (exact sizing important)
on the GPT disk, then "dd" copy the MSDOS partition into the
space set aside for the GPT partition. I have no idea whether
that works. I can tell you, that the equivalent of an rsync
between Windows C: type partitions, would never work, due to
all the fiddly details involved in such things. Microsoft have
gone out of their way, to ensure you can't Robocopy the entire
C: drive into another partition. I *used* to do that in WinXP era,
but those were simpler times and the file systems were a bit more
bend-able back then.

Windows has an MBR2GPT.exe utility, written by some hapless developer.
Any program carrying out composite file system operations (partition,
merge, shrink, done) is basically doomed to fail and fall on its face.
Developers normally stick to "primitive" "one step" commands, for safety.
Yet, somebody wrote that code... and it has enough smarts to reject
disk configurations it does not like. Leaving only one configuration
it does like. I think you can see coercing such a utility to do more
than it intended to do, is a tall ask. It will not accept any old
arbitrary configuration, and convert it.

So yes, your mission looks like, technically do-able, but just about
all the tools will tell you "I don't like broccoli", "I will sit
here in this corner with this cold broccoli until hell freezes over",
and so on :-) You've seen this before somewhere.

MBR2GTP.exe can help you cross that river, but it won't allow
you to carry a duck and a potato in the boat with you (a reference
to this problem, where the problem was modified for an AI to solve).
How the problem can involve a duck and a potato, I will never know.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wolf,_goat_and_cabbage_problem

Summary: Do-able, but mostly a bar bet, like a steam powered rocket launch :-)

   Paul

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Thread

migrate triple-booting legacy-BIOS Linux-w7-w10 to EFI board bad sector <forgetski@_INVALID.net> - 2025-04-12 19:50 -0400
  Re: migrate triple-booting legacy-BIOS Linux-w7-w10 to EFI board Paul <nospam@needed.invalid> - 2025-04-12 20:40 -0400
    Re: migrate triple-booting legacy-BIOS Linux-w7-w10 to EFI board bad sector <forgetski@_INVALID.net> - 2025-04-13 22:42 -0400
    Re: migrate triple-booting legacy-BIOS Linux-w7-w10 to EFI board bad sector <forgetski@_INVALID.net> - 2025-04-22 16:40 -0400
      Re: migrate triple-booting legacy-BIOS Linux-w7-w10 to EFI board Paul <nospam@needed.invalid> - 2025-04-23 09:38 -0400
        Re: migrate triple-booting legacy-BIOS Linux-w7-w10 to EFI board bad sector <forgetski@_INVALID.net> - 2025-04-24 00:23 -0400
        Re: migrate triple-booting legacy-BIOS Linux-w7-w10 to EFI board Paul <nospam@needed.invalid> - 2025-04-24 03:52 -0400
        Re: migrate triple-booting legacy-BIOS Linux-w7-w10 to EFI board bad sector <forgetski@_INVALID.net> - 2025-04-25 08:33 -0400
          Re: migrate triple-booting legacy-BIOS Linux-w7-w10 to EFI board Paul <nospam@needed.invalid> - 2025-04-25 12:42 -0400
            Re: migrate triple-booting legacy-BIOS Linux-w7-w10 to EFI board bad sector <forgetski@_INVALID.net> - 2025-04-25 23:01 -0400
            Re: migrate triple-booting legacy-BIOS Linux-w7-w10 to EFI board bad sector <forgetski@_INVALID.net> - 2025-04-27 08:43 -0400
              Re: migrate triple-booting legacy-BIOS Linux-w7-w10 to EFI board Paul <nospam@needed.invalid> - 2025-04-27 11:20 -0400
  Re: migrate triple-booting legacy-BIOS Linux-w7-w10 to EFI board Lawrence D'Oliveiro <ldo@nz.invalid> - 2025-04-14 04:27 +0000
    Re: migrate triple-booting legacy-BIOS Linux-w7-w10 to EFI board Paul <nospam@needed.invalid> - 2025-04-14 03:29 -0400
    Re: migrate triple-booting legacy-BIOS Linux-w7-w10 to EFI board bad sector <forgetski@_INVALID.net> - 2025-04-14 06:03 -0400
      Re: migrate triple-booting legacy-BIOS Linux-w7-w10 to EFI board Paul <nospam@needed.invalid> - 2025-04-14 08:16 -0400
        Re: migrate triple-booting legacy-BIOS Linux-w7-w10 to EFI board Lawrence D'Oliveiro <ldo@nz.invalid> - 2025-04-14 23:38 +0000
        Re: migrate triple-booting legacy-BIOS Linux-w7-w10 to EFI board bad sector <forgetski@_INVALID.net> - 2025-04-14 20:44 -0400

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