How to migrate XP, Vista, Linux, BSD and Solaris to a bigger hard disk

[Mark_in_Hollywo]

From Saikee's response to my question:

"(3) Assuming (hd0) is sdb you then hide the extended partition sda2 by command"

It was at the instruction above that I became confused and stopped. In my particular case hd0 is sda.

grub> geometry (hd0)
drive 0x80: C/H/S = 38913/255/63, The number of sectors = 625142448, /dev/sda
Partition num: 0, Filesystem type is ext2fs, partition type 0x83
Partition num: 2, Filesystem type is ext2fs, partition type 0x83
Partition num: 3, Filesystem type is ext2fs, partition type 0x83
Partition num: 4, Filesystem type unknown, partition type 0x82
Partition num: 5, Filesystem type unknown, partition type 0x82

grub> geometry (hd1)
drive 0x81: C/H/S = 2434/255/63, The number of sectors = 39102336, /dev/sdb
Partition num: 0, Filesystem type is ext2fs, partition type 0x83
Partition num: 2, Filesystem type is ext2fs, partition type 0x83
Partition num: 4, Filesystem type unknown, partition type 0x82
Partition num: 5, Filesystem type unknown, partition type 0x82

I think you want me to "hide" the partitions on the 320 gig, not the 20 gig. Please remember, my BIOS/Motherboard allows me to set the PRIORITY of the boot disk. I can make sda the equivalent of slave on the cable. I can make sdb the equivalent of master on the cable.

Having convinced myself, after, triple reading your first response to me, I am going back into the grub on the 320 gig and "hiding" the partitions. I will let all reading this know what happens after that. But it is much harder to follow directions, when "zeros" become "ones" and "a" becomes "b".

After following the grub command hide (hd1,1) grub returned:

grub> geometry (hd0)
drive 0x80: C/H/S = 38913/255/63, The number of sectors = 625142448, /dev/sda
Partition num: 0, Filesystem type is ext2fs, partition type 0x83
Partition num: 2, Filesystem type is ext2fs, partition type 0x83
Partition num: 4, Filesystem type unknown, partition type 0x82
Partition num: 5, Filesystem type unknown, partition type 0x82

grub> geometry (hd1)
drive 0x81: C/H/S = 2434/255/63, The number of sectors = 39102336, /dev/sdb
Partition num: 0, Filesystem type is ext2fs, partition type 0x83
Partition num: 1, Filesystem type unknown, partition type 0x15
Partition num: 2, Filesystem type is ext2fs, partition type 0x83

So I guess I should have made the command: grub hide (hd0,1).

Inside GParted shows a confusing picture. (see attached screenshot)

In the screenshot: /dev/sda2 (an active partition) shows 280Gib allocated and an unallocated 279Gib at the end. This can't be the desired results. Additionally, I cannot move the sda2 or sda3 at all. I tried reallocating the unused space, but got too confused.

I went back to grub and did grub hide (hd0,1) instead of hd1,1. GParted then showed only 2 partitions and NO swap. I'm really lost and am wondering if you could talk a little about the "more elegant solutions". I'm finding myself attracted to simpler methods of fixing this.

By the way: you mention the "oddness" of the partitions being in (I think) numeric order. The original partitions on the 20 gig were created during my using Synpatic to upgrade the Feisty (v. 7.04) to Gutsy (v. 7.10). Whatever did the upgrade did it without my doing any partitioning work. What I had never seen before was a 2.0 gig partition that seemed to have no reason to be there.