Cloning 3 HDD, seperate OS each, to a single Large HDD

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jacomc

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Sep 15, 2015
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Here is my Problem:
I have
-Two old HDD (40 G each) one Ubuntu 10.10 other Ubuntu 12.04
-One old HDD 60 G with Windows 7

Software on these drives are used for maintenance and changes to Hard disks used in custom closed system machines.This means each of my old drives has to be setup in a standalone PC and booted with the drive to be tested and serviced connected as the sole other drive on this standalone PC.

Here is what I would like to achive:

Clone all 3 old drives to a single large Drive and on boot be able to select between Ubuntu 10.10, Ubuntu 12.04 or Windows and boot with that OS.

This will save me a lot of time swapping disks.

If any one know of a solution for doing this It would be much Appreciated.
 
Solution
ex_bubblehead
Install Grub2 to the MBR and configure according to this link: http://www.howtogeek.com/196655/how-to-configure-the-grub2-boot-loaders-settings/

Your bootable OS's will be detected and set up automagically.
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BigBadBeef

BigBadBeef

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May 30, 2014
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Does the windows 7 drive have a boot table for both Ubuntu's? If yes, then simply created 3 partitions on the larger drives and clone the contents there.

If no, then you might need to create or edit it, which is an exceedingly difficult task.
 
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J

jacomc

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Sep 15, 2015
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No I plug the HDD to be used on SATA 1 and the disk to be serviced on SATA 2 boot the PC and do the job.
Next disk to service unplug all HDD from pc and do the required setup of hardware again (plug or ubuntu 10.10 or ubuntu 12.04 or win hdd on sata 1 , plug hdd to be serviced on sata 2 , boot , do the servicing - Take note for the servicing software app to work you can only have one disk on sata 1 and one disk on sata 2 no other disks allowed on the pc. Lotr of hardware setups , I know, this is the problem I am trying to solve combine the 3OS disks into one so I can multi boot and still have SATA 2 free to plug the Disk to be serviced on.
 
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J

jacomc

Reputable
Sep 15, 2015
5
0
4,510
No I plug the HDD to be used on SATA 1 and the disk to be serviced on SATA 2 boot the PC and do the job.
Next disk to service unplug all HDD from pc and do the required setup of hardware again (plug or ubuntu 10.10 or ubuntu 12.04 or win hdd on sata 1 , plug hdd to be serviced on sata 2 , boot , do the servicing - Take note for the servicing software app to work you can only have one disk on sata 1 and one disk on sata 2 no other disks allowed on the pc. Lotr of hardware setups , I know, this is the problem I am trying to solve combine the 3OS disks into one so I can multi boot and still have SATA 2 free to plug the Disk to be serviced on.
 
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BigBadBeef

BigBadBeef

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May 30, 2014
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Okay then, let me ask you this:

If you have 3 operating systems, and want to put them all now in 1 hard drive, how on earth do you expect that this is going to work? How will each operating system know which one is dominant? Or how will each of them know that there is more than 1 OS for that matter? You should have thought about that before you chopped up your operating systems into 3 separate drives.

Considering the fact that you either blatantly disregarded that, or that you didn't know, I have to say that the way to fix this (no disrespect intended) is a little too complicated for you handle and would require radical tampering with your computer's boot table.

This is the proper procedure for having multiple operating systems on computer:
http://www.howtogeek.com/187789/dual-booting-explained-how-you-can-have-multiple-operating-systems-on-your-computer/

Back up all relevant data and make clean installs!

And start using official procedures for these kind of things before you plunge yourself into an even bigger mess!
 
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J

jacomc

Reputable
Sep 15, 2015
5
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4,510
Thanks for your atempt to help with this.

The problem is that the 3 OSes was always seperate no one chopped them up to begin with.

I have done this on a previously with 4 different Linux OSes combined on one drive(custom Grub config) and the problem is not to combine the Ubuntu OSes on one HDD , but adding windows is the tricky one.

Will give you a update once I figured out a way.

Thanks
 
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