[SOLVED] Moving my EFI from one partition to another?

[pigeon]

So, seems I butchered my install of Kubuntu, I mean it works, but from some comments from the very helpful people here, It's been pointed out I have probably done things in the wrong way.

And being British it is in my genetic make-up to make partitions without any knowledge of the nuances, or consequences.

So here is what I have done, and the noob view of why, and hope someone can tell me how to correct this without doing a total reinstall to get it right.


So....I have a laptop we 3 drives Windows, Linux, and internal storage.

When I installed Kubuntu my thinking was to have everything related to it on an individual drive efi and system...and I believe this was a mistake. here is a shot of how the drive is set up:

(An efi in fat32 and the main partion for the OS....the lack of mont point or label for the efi worries me!)



And here is what in the efi partion:



And here is the windows drive with the mounting point I would have expected to have seen on the Kubintu drive:



Sooo.... How screwed am I, and can I easily fix it?

[claydoh]

There is nothing wrong here, having multiple OS installs sharing an EFI partition is perfectly sound, and common, so there is nothing specifically to 'fix' unless you are having problems specifically related to booting and getting to the Grub menu.
You can leave it be if you want.

But you can 'move' things by re-installing grub, using the partition you already have created.
Something along these lines, with some of the work you have already done:

https://askubuntu.com/questions/1250...n-second-drive

[oshunluvr]

Well, I'm not sure what you believe is "screwed up". I assume you mean "not to my liking" which I get.

I also assume it's the fact that you have 2 EFI partitions that concerns you. Guessing here, but likely when you installed Linux it didn't locate the existing EFI partition and made a new one.

Well, first off, if it's working OK then you could just leave it alone.

Based on what I see above, it appears your Kubuntu install is launching from the EFI partition on the Windows disk - which is totally fine and actually normal for a dual boot install. You can verify that by opening the file: /etc/fstab and looking at the entry for the EFI partition. It will refer to a UUID which for fat32 partitions looks like: 9999-9999 and many contain letters A-F and digits 0-9. Compare the UUID you find in fstab with the EFI partitions UUIDs and you'll know which one you're booting from.

You can just delete the unused one once you confirm it is not in fact being used by Windows or Linux.

[pigeon]

There is nothing wrong here, having multiple OS installs sharing an EFI partition is perfectly sound, and common, so there is nothing specifically to 'fix' unless you are having problems specifically related to booting and getting to the Grub menu.
You can leave it be if you want.

Not having any issues, short of thing I think I can easily fix, Like the fat32 partition showing as a drive on the Linux and in windows, but can hide that in both OS's.

The thing is, I don't think they are sharing a efi partition as if boot from the windows drive it boots straight into Windows, but if I boot from the Linux drive I get Grub and both OS show up as an option (and luckily that how I like it).

So, for me, everything is working how I like it, just concurrent I did it wrong, but if it works guess its not "wrong"

But you can 'move' things by re-installing grub, using the partition you already have created.
Something along these lines, with some of the work you have already done:

https://askubuntu.com/questions/1250...n-second-drive

Thank you for taking the time to help, and linking that guide.

Well, I'm not sure what you believe is "screwed up". I assume you mean "not to my liking" which I get.

Just some comment on another thread when I was having trouble installing Kubuntu made me thing I had done something wrong, as far as my liking...it works, and I like that

I also assume it's the fact that you have 2 EFI partitions that concerns you. Guessing here, but likely when you installed Linux it didn't locate the existing EFI partition and made a new one.

Well, first off, if it's working OK then you could just leave it alone.

Yep, this pretty much sums it up, had some install issues were to the point that I had to manually make an efi partition during the install, go back in from the live USB, and install grub into that partition. So, being new to Linux I am overly conscious of doing things wrong, even if they work!

Based on what I see above, it appears your Kubuntu install is launching from the EFI partition on the Windows disk - which is totally fine and actually normal for a dual boot install. You can verify that by opening the file: /etc/fstab and looking at the entry for the EFI partition. It will refer to a UUID which for fat32 partitions looks like: 9999-9999 and many contain letters A-F and digits 0-9. Compare the UUID you find in fstab with the EFI partitions UUIDs and you'll know which one you're booting from.

You can just delete the unused one once you confirm it is not in fact being used by Windows or Linux.

This is what im getting from /etc/fstab

(and thank you for the help)

[oshunluvr]

Ok, now armed with the UUID that Kubuntu is using for EFI, open Konsole and enter: lsblk

This should list file systems and the UUIDs

Honestly, the best dual boot setup IMO it to leave Windows on it's own, bootable drive and have GRUB on a second drive. That way - worst case scenario a drive fails or your OS gets trashed - you can just boot to the other drive. The ultimate setup is to be able to boot to Linux or WIndows from either drive.

You may have accidentally stumbled onto a perfect installation setup

[pigeon]

Ok, now armed with the UUID that Kubuntu is using for EFI, open Konsole and enter: lsblk

This should list file systems and the UUIDs

Here is the lsblk:

Honestly, the best dual boot setup IMO it to leave Windows on it's own, bootable drive and have GRUB on a second drive. That way - worst case scenario a drive fails or your OS gets trashed - you can just boot to the other drive. The ultimate setup is to be able to boot to Linux or WIndows from either drive.

You may have accidentally stumbled onto a perfect installation setup

Given my skills at breaking things, I am very pro having Windows on its own drive, and limiting just how much I can break in one go! And if I wanted to add another distro, just also having it on this sda drive

Just a little confused as to how Grub is actually running now off sda1 being mounted a /media/pigeon/EFI, should it not have the root mount of sda1 /boot/EFI (guess that why it's showing up as a 512mb hard drive in Linux and windows?

[claydoh]

That mount, and anything in /media/$USER, for that matter, is something mounted by the user, for user-level access - such as clicking on a drive in Dolphin, inserting a USB drive, etc.
/dev/sda1 is not being used for booting at all, since all the boot files are in the EFI dir on the other drive - /dev/sdb1, mounted at /boot/efi which is the correct place.

[pigeon]

That mount, and anything in /media/$USER, for that matter, is something mounted by the user, for user-level access - such as clicking on a drive in Dolphin, inserting a USB drive, etc.
/dev/sda1 is not being used for booting at all, since all the boot files are in the EFI dir on the other drive - /dev/sdb1, mounted at /boot/efi which is the correct place.

So, I could totally remove the partition sda1 and grub would still load as its in sdb1 (along with the Windows boot)?

Ergo, if the drive sdb (my windows install) breaks, I won't be able to boot into Windows or Linux, correct? can that be mitigated?

(I apologize sure this is 101 stuff that you must have to explain a lot of the time)

[claydoh]

So, I could totally remove the partition sda1 and grub would still load as its in sdb1 (along with the Windows boot)?

Correct

Ergo, if the drive sdb (my windows install) breaks, I won't be able to boot into Windows or Linux, correct? can that be mitigated?

Also correct, with using a live usb to repair it.
https://help.ubuntu.com/community/Boot-Repair

(I apologize sure this is 101 stuff that you must have to explain a lot of the time)

It is kinda why we are all here

[pigeon]

It is kinda why we are all here

Well, I hope you know it is sincerely appreciated!

If I wanted to have an efi partition on both the windows and the Linux drives for redundancy is that possible by just say, jumping into a GParted live USB making the efi partition with a boot/efi/ mount, and making a new partition with a / root for the other OS.....or a conflict nightmare waiting to happen?

[Qqmike]

Seems to be a good place to drop a couple things. You seem to be eager to learn this stuff!

(1) rEFInd -- good idea to make a CD/USB flash drive with this on it -- for rescue. Keep Boot-Repair handy, too.
https://www.rodsbooks.com/refind/

(2) Lots of stuff about booting UEFI, my How-To's in the How-To section of this forum:
https://www.kubuntuforums.net/forum/...ation/how-to-s

Here is kind of a general guide to my how-to's:
UEFI, GPT, ESP, GRUB2-EFI, (dual)-booting, fixing things
https://www.kubuntuforums.net/forum/...-fixing-things

I am out of practice with a lot of this material; however, when I wrote it, I fully tested everything (to the point of near-burnout). With UEFI, you can almost do anything you want to do -- there are ways -- you just need a few techniques and some tricks. I'm building a new PC and so will be forced to review some of this material myself very soon.

Good luck. You'll soon be a Kubuntu booting aficionado!

[pigeon]

Seems to be a good place to drop a couple things. You seem to be eager to learn this stuff!

Thank you very much, that is my bedtime reading sorted for tonight!

Good luck with the PC build, hope prices for components have calmed down a little since the start of the year!

[Qqmike]

Prices are up and down, availability is up and down -- Even as I was selecting components at Newegg, Amazon, and Best Buy, both prices and availability were changing. As you know, the 3 selections of the following have to be mutually consistent: motherboard, CPU, and memory. Change one, and you must check the other two. And so most of my day went that way... But I nailed it, placed orders, just had to modify my component list a little.

[pigeon]

But I nailed it, placed orders, just had to modify my component list a little.

That's good to hear, I was lucky and got my last build before prices and avalability went crazy. but have friends more into gaming and editing that are finding it really hard right now....worst case for me has been Raspberry Pi's going up in price!

[oshunluvr]

Sorry, I should have said lsblk -f then it prints UUIDs also. I use lsblk -fl --sort name