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I have a dual-boot system with Kubuntu 16.04 and windows 7, both systems spread over multiple partitions, when I added a new SSD to the system.
The plan was to copy the windows system-partition, the kubuntu system-partition and the kubuntu home-partition to the SSD and then expand the remaining partitions on the old drives. Now I'm not able to boot windows from the SSD.

Here is the output of fdisk at my current state. sda is the new SSD. 


nk@nk-desktop:~$ sudo fdisk -l
Medium /dev/sda: 465,8 GiB, 500107862016 Bytes, 976773168 Sektoren
Einheiten: sectors von 1 * 512 = 512 Bytes
Sektorengröße (logisch/physisch): 512 Bytes / 512 Bytes
I/O Größe (minimal/optimal): 512 Bytes / 512 Bytes
Typ der Medienbezeichnung: gpt
Medienkennung: 0459D5F1-2A66-46F5-9009-689A496A5C55



Gerät          Start      Ende  Sektoren Größe Typ
/dev/sda1       2048     10239      8192     4M BIOS boot
/dev/sda2  354947072 600700927 245753856 117,2G Linux filesystem
/dev/sda3  600700928 976773119 376072192 179,3G Linux filesystem
/dev/sda4      10240 354947071 354936832 169,3G Microsoft basic data



Die Einträge der Partitionstabelle stimmen nicht mit der Reihenfolge der Medien überein.



Medium /dev/sdb: 931,5 GiB, 1000204886016 Bytes, 1953525168 Sektoren
Einheiten: sectors von 1 * 512 = 512 Bytes
Sektorengröße (logisch/physisch): 512 Bytes / 4096 Bytes
I/O Größe (minimal/optimal): 4096 Bytes / 4096 Bytes
Typ der Medienbezeichnung: dos
Medienkennung: 0x58e31cc0



Gerät      Boot      Start       Ende   Sektoren Größe Id Typ
/dev/sdb1  *          2048  478965759  478963712 228,4G  7 HPFS/NTFS/exFAT
/dev/sdb2        478965760 1707765759 1228800000   586G  7 HPFS/NTFS/exFAT
/dev/sdb3       1707765760 1953519615  245753856 117,2G 83 Linux                             



Medium /dev/sdc: 931,5 GiB, 1000204886016 Bytes, 1953525168 Sektoren

Einheiten: sectors von 1 * 512 = 512 Bytes

Sektorengröße (logisch/physisch): 512 Bytes / 4096 Bytes

I/O Größe (minimal/optimal): 4096 Bytes / 4096 Bytes

Typ der Medienbezeichnung: gpt

Medienkennung: EB2C9293-03F5-4F36-B907-4BE2FA71A17A                                          



Gerät           Start       Ende   Sektoren Größe Typ

/dev/sdc1        2048  308975615  308973568 147,3G Linux filesystem

/dev/sdc2  1912559616 1953519615   40960000  19,5G Linux Swap

/dev/sdc3   308975616 1912559615 1603584000 764,7G Microsoft basic data                      



Die Einträge der Partitionstabelle stimmen nicht mit der Reihenfolge der Medien überein.

I already copied the two linux partitions /dev/sdb3 and /dev/sdc1 (and resized the home-partition) to the SSD and created a bios-boot-partition for the grub-loader. The remaining space on sda was to small for the windows-partition /dev/sdb1, which I anyway planed to shrink down, so the plan was to clone it to an external drive, resize the copy and then clone it to the SSD.

For some reason GParted tells me it cannot read this partition because of missing packages (ntfs-3g / ntfsprogs). ntfs-3g is already installed, ntfsprogs doesn't seem to exist and GParted works fine on other ntfs-partitions, so I finally dded the partition to the external drive (without any errors) and booted to windows, to use the partitioning-tool from windows 7 to resize the partition.

After that I dded it to the SSD, and installed grub on it, by chroot to the kubuntu-partition on the SSD and then using grub-install. The grub-menu shows all four systems (I left the original partitions on the other two drives, as backup). I can boot to all two kubuntu-systems, and the old windows-system, but when I try to boot windows from the SSD, the screen just shows a blinking underscore in the upper left corner and nothing else happens.

I'm not sure, what the problem is, because there is no error message when I try to boot windows. Did I forget something while copying the partition or did the resizing cause the partition to become unbootable?

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  • Windows in a GPT drive is necessarily in UEFI mode so it boots from the EFI partition that you didn't cloned to new drive. But even in Legacy/BIOS you would have to clone including the MBR. You can't just copy partitions like that and expect it to boot. And my advice: Install Kubuntu also in UEFI mode, do not create problems for yourself where you really don't have to.
    – user931000
    Commented Sep 5, 2018 at 11:01
  • For any reason, my pc isn't able to boot an installation medium in UEFI mode. I already tried this.On sdb I had grub installed, so shouldn't grub be installed in the MBR instead of any windows bootloader, so I just need to reinstall grub?
    – Niclas
    Commented Sep 5, 2018 at 15:09
  • Windows in a GPT drive is necessarily in UEFI mode, you have a GPT drive ergo your Windows is in UEFI mode ergo it was installed by booting installation media in UEFI mode. If you can't boot live Linux in that mode the media was probably done wrongly. A typical mistake is while using Rufus in Windows users selecting the wrong option. For UEFI it must be the option that mentions UEFI/GPT. And no, you can't install Grub or anything else in a drive that has no MBR. That's the reason for the unformatted bios_grub partition (Linux in Legacy can be installed in GPT drives with this workaround)
    – user931000
    Commented Sep 5, 2018 at 15:18
  • Windows had been installed on the old Harddrive sdb, which has a MBR, and was then copied to sda, so it hasn't been installed in UEFI mode. The Kubuntu installation media is a multiboot stick, created by YUMI, by the way. I don't remember, how I created the windows installation CD.
    – Niclas
    Commented Sep 5, 2018 at 16:42
  • And yet Typ der Medienbezeichnung: gpt... Windows installed in Legacy cannot boot from a GPT drive, MBR is required. And having the first OS in one mode you then install the second in the same mode. Of course, always prefer UEFI in UEFI machines. Nothing else to add, I cannot help you and I'm out of this.
    – user931000
    Commented Sep 5, 2018 at 16:50

1 Answer 1

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I reinstalled both systems in UEFI mode. I had to create a new ubuntu installation cd, which was able to boot in uefi mode. I'm not sure, why the live-stick, I tried before didn't work.
I run into more problems by reinstalling windows first. The windows installation-cd installed an unreadble bootvariable in the efi partition, which prevented any uefi-related programm from executing without errors, so I saved the microsoft folder from the efi partition, reformatted the partition and let the kubuntu-installer create the efi partition. After that I copied the microsoft folder to the new parition and added the boot-entry manually with efibootmgr, so the windows installer didn'T had a chance to screw up the partition this time and it worked.

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