XP to Win7/10

[MoonRise]

OK, I've been dual boot for a long time. Due to software support from some of my Windows systems that I have to use for work, I must upgrade the Win XP. When I do this upgrade there is a very good chance GRUB will be removed.

Point me to the correct place here to restore GRUB once done. Thanks!


NOTE: I found this here in a thread. Still viable? https://help.ubuntu.com/community/Boot-Repair

[vinnywright]

ya thats still good ,,,,,,,,,,Qqmike has some good tuts hear on the forum on this I think .

VINNY

[Qqmike]

Hi MoonRise. AFAIK, Boot-Repair should work OK; it works more often than not, based on posts I read around the Net.

When you upgrade XP, we can presume--hope, count on--Windows doing what it needs to do properly. For example, if it happens that Windows needs any special partitions, it will take care of all that. Windows boot loader probably, as always, will take over the booting. But using Boot-Repair, you can re-install GRUB, and it will run a new GRUB boot menu for you, and that should do it. ... Hang on. What's that? Hmmm, OK, I'll be there. Gotta leave town for the badlands where there is no Internet, for a very long time. See ya when I get back ...

[MoonRise]

Well. I was just thinking I could just upgrade the XP and then turn around and upgrade my Kubuntu to 16.04. I've been impressed with the latest builds and stability. I see no reason not to do that one too. Then GRUB would be of no consequence.

So, it comes down to backups. I have a current backup from about 1.5 months ago. Very few files have changed since. So, what can I do to just copy over all files but only those that are newer than the destination?

NOTE: backups are of my Kubuntu system since that is my main OS. That is where I need a way to update only newer files in destination.

[Qqmike]

Sorry MoonRise, I'm not a back-up guy. Vinny might be . I store almost nothing on the computer because I save almost nothing anywhere (get that?). What few files I do save, my backup strategy is simple: drag the few hundred MBs off to a thumb drive, duplicate that on two or three thumb drives for safety.

[MoonRise]

Well, I think the below will work. I'll play around with it until I determine it does. I might post back to this if it does.

cp -Ru /home/myuser/ /media/myuser/bckupdsk/backup/


I also plan on doing one final update on this system and it may be the last until it dies. I bought a USB3.0 PCI-E card. This processor has been a gem of a buy when I got it. Can't find deals like that any more.

[life0riley]

I've always used this for my backups.

cp -ruf /home/myuser/ /media/myuser/bckupdsk/backup/

Sometimes I end up with duplicates on the other side if I have moved files around, but I never loose anything.

[MoonRise]

I'll update you all when done.

[oshunluvr]

For what's it's worth; I have two Win7 Pro Dell laptops (my work), a Win8 Pro MSI laptop (wife's work), and a Win10 tablet (dual boot - came that way). 8 seems better than 7 by a fair piece but the MSI laptop is far superior than the Dells so it could be partially that. Wn10 I can't tell because it's on a tablet, but it seems OK. Just go in and change all the tracking stuff. Interestingly with 10, if you turn off ALL the tracking "features" you lose some configuration options - like they're punishing you for not share all your personal info.

If you're using a desktop machine, why not add a small SSD for linux? Then you can let windows have the entire hard drive and boot from it, and keep linux on the SSD and set it up to dual boot from there. That way if you muck up GRUB you can just switch to the windows drive and boot from it.

[MoonRise]

will consider.

[MoonRise]

OK. Windows 10 installed and yes, GRUB past away. Can't wait to get Kubuntu 16.04 on here!! I sorely miss it!!

[Qqmike]

or, for now, how about 14.04? a place-holder ... until 16.04

[Qqmike]

Did Windows put an ESP (EFI System Partition) on the disk? GParted live CD should show it, or some partition/disk utility in Windows?

[MoonRise]

This machine is older. It doesn't support EFI which is great for me!

[Qqmike]

Ah, OK. In a way, that simplifies doing GRUB when you do 16.04.