Exchange two hard drives ?

A

Atonavis

New Member
Hello,

After my laptop motherboard crashed, I bought a new laptop, on which I had Windows 8. I tried to dual boot Ubuntu but it somehow went wrong in the installation and I don't have Windows anymore, but only Ubuntu on one partition. When I tried to reinstall Windows using a Windows 7 official installation CD, it said that "System device could not authenticate" when I tried to boot on it, so I basically end up with a computer with only Ubuntu on it and I haven't been able to find a way to get Windows back whilst trying for 3 days.
So, as everything was fine with my previous computer apart from the motherboard, I was wondering whether I could replace the new HDD with the one from my previous computer so as to boot on it. My old computer's HDD had Ubuntu and Windows 7 32-bits (even if it was a 64-bits computer) installed as a dual-boot. I guess I would have to download again all the drivers but if that is the only thing to do to have both Windows and Ubuntu on my new laptop, then I would go for it.
As I know pretty much nothing about HDDs, any advice on it would be appreciated. If needed, here are the two computers I am talking about:
- my previous one, the motherboard of which crashed: http://www.notebookcheck.net/Review-Acer-Aspire-5755G-Notebook.68113.0.html
- my new one: http://www.currys.co.uk/gbuk/hp-pavilion-g6-2230sa-15-6-laptop-ruby-red-17419991-pdt.html

Thank you! :)
 
All the drivers will be different, Didn't you get a recovery disk for the New Laptop ?? Why do you need Ubuntu ? Just wipe the new hard drive removing Both OS's, Make sure to get rid of the Boot manager for linux, That is where you are having your problem..
 
Hi,

I did not get a recovery CD because the laptop was delivered with Windows 8 and - I only knew that after wiping it out - you're actually meant to make it by yourself from the recovery files that are in Windows 8. Right now, I have wiped out the whole HDD and installed Ubuntu on the whole partition. If needed I can reinstall Ubuntu and make different partitions in the same time that is not the problem. The problem is that I cannot install Windows since the CD cannot be read for some reason albeit 100% official - this was delivered with my previous laptop as a recovery CD.
I need Ubuntu for my studies, we only work on Ubuntu. I understood that the boot manager was the problem but too late unfortunately. Now I somehow can't install Windows anymore, which is why I'd like to know if I can just load in my old HDD and boot on it...
 
Atonavis said:
Hi,

I did not get a recovery CD because the laptop was delivered with Windows 8 and - I only knew that after wiping it out - you're actually meant to make it by yourself from the recovery files that are in Windows 8. Right now, I have wiped out the whole HDD and installed Ubuntu on the whole partition. If needed I can reinstall Ubuntu and make different partitions in the same time that is not the problem. The problem is that I cannot install Windows since the CD cannot be read for some reason albeit 100% official - this was delivered with my previous laptop as a recovery CD.
I need Ubuntu for my studies, we only work on Ubuntu. I understood that the boot manager was the problem but too late unfortunately. Now I somehow can't install Windows anymore, which is why I'd like to know if I can just load in my old HDD and boot on it...
Click to expand...

You should still have a recovery partition in the Primary HDD, unless you have nuked it, if so, give me your computer manufacturer and model through a PM and I might be able to help you locate some disks from the manufacturer, it may cost you like £30 for the set, as it did for my DV6 but you can not take it back to the manufacturer or resaler like that as it may well have voided your warranty. Put the original disks back on and you should be able to reinstate it. Instead of dual booting with ubuntu, try this as it is mostly foolproof and if you do mess up, it will not affect anything. You may also want to check this thread out that I made for duel booting and read some of the thread replies from Wolfeking for Linux dual booting if you have your heart set on this.
 
Hi again,

So I found the problem in installing Windows: it somehow could not load from a DVD so I found a Windows 8 iso (delivered by the college :D) and managed to install it using a Flash drive. Now I've tried to install Ubuntu which worked using this tutorial (http://www.linuxbsdos.com/2012/11/05/dual-boot-windows-8-and-ubuntu-12-10-on-uefi-hardware/) but EasyBCD somehow could not load Ubuntu so I decided just to virtualise it from now on because I've spent 4 days trying to restore the bootloader, installing Windows and Ubuntu over and over, wiping out the partitions, so I'm quite done now :)
Thanks for your help anyway, quick and accurate, I won't hesitate if I've got any other problems concerning my computer!

On another note, I am not sure this now belongs to the section it's into. Feel free to move it if necessary...
 
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