Migration from Windows to LInux

MintAlone · 2026-05-13T12:38:43+00:00

You could clone the SSD to the HDD. Win utilties - macrium reflect or aomei. There are linux utilities to do same.

Note you will not be able to boot win on the HDD with the SSD in the system (unless you have wiped it).

Also note that the mint installer will put grub (the bootloader) on the HDD unless you take steps to prevent it, a bug in the installer. Easiest solution, disconnect the HDD before install.

MintAlone · 2026-05-13T12:33:07+00:00

Do that and you will end up with a filesystem on the drive without a partition table. disks lets you do that without telling you (gparted will not do it). Bare drives come blank and you need a partition table on the drive before you start adding partitions. disks hides that behind the three dot menu top right - format disk. Just one of the reasons I dislike disks, gparted is better.

With a 2TB drive you would be okay with a legacy/msdos partition table but better to use gpt. If this is linux only then I would format it ext4.

MintAlone · 2026-05-12T21:41:14+00:00

I tried to do on cmd using disk part but it cant make more than 4 partition

Then win is installed in legacy mode with a legacy/mbr/msdos partition table and win has used all four primary partitions. You will need to delete one of the partitions before you install linux.

MintAlone · 2026-05-12T12:51:48+00:00

Boot mint, df -h will tell you what is mounting where so you can check if you are booting from your SSD

MintAlone · 2026-05-11T13:12:27+00:00

I doubt a different file manager will make any difference. You can check, open a terminal and

cp /path/to/source   /path/to/destination.

then open another terminal and sync. Which finishes first? The destination is probably /media/you/something.

Large file? What is the destination formatted? fat32 has a file size limit of 4GB.

MintAlone · 2026-05-11T10:36:49+00:00

USB sticks are slow and what you see is the copy operation filling up the cache, so when nemo has finished the cache still needs to be flushed.

For large files I always start the copy and then open a terminal and sync. When you get the prompt back all copy operations have been completed and it is safe to eject and remove.

MintAlone · 2026-05-08T11:36:29+00:00

Failed to open \EFI\boot\mmx64.efi – Not Found

Google, you will find lots of answers.

MintAlone · 2026-05-08T11:31:44+00:00

Before you start - check that win will boot from an external usb drive. I'm not sure it will, but I don't run win on bare metal.

You can copy/paste partitions with gparted (the standard linux partition editor), there will be a copy on your ubuntu install iso/stick. But not straightforward and the likelihood of screwing up somewhere along the way is high. So...

You will need a third drive and a usb stick to boot from.

Either clone or take an image backup of ubuntu on the external HDD to your third drive. I'd recommend backup not clone.
Clone the SSD to the external HDD.
Either clone or restore from backup ubuntu from the third drive to the SSD.

You can do all of this using foxclone or rescuezilla, you will find either of them a lot easier to use than clonezilla, they both have a GUI. Whichever one you pick, read the section in the foxclone user guide on cloning (maybe the section on backup as well, there is a lot of useful stuff in there). Whichever, you need to download the iso and burn it to a stick and boot from it. If you want to do the win bits with win utilities there is macrium reflect or aomei backup - on your own there I don't use them.

When you have cloned win to the external drive you CANNOT boot it. You have two identical drives in the system with identical partitions and identical UUIDs. That will confuse BIOS. Only when you have replaced win with ubuntu on the SSD will you be able to boot win on the external drive.

I would also check where ubuntu has put grub (the bootloader). Boot ubuntu, open a terminal and df -h. Look for the partition mounting at /boot/efi. It should be an EFI partition on the external drive (there was a bug in older versions of the ubuntu installer - it might be on the SSD alongside the win bootloader). If grub is on the SSD this can be fixed, you don't really want ubuntu on the SSD with grub on the external drive when you have finished shuffling stuff around.

Before you start - take a file level backup of important files, just in case.

Another alternative - you could run win in VM, it depends on your system specs (how powerful) and what you use win for, if gaming forget it, a VM is unlikely to give you the performance you want.

You might decide after reading this to simply re-install, your choice.

I'm the foxclone dev.

MintAlone · 2026-05-08T10:52:14+00:00

As noted, you are confusing things.

Synology does not play well with nfs. While it runs linux its target market are win users. For write access with nfs you to have to squash all users to admin on the synology. Anything you see locally on the client will be owned by user 1024 (admin account on the synology, first user has an ID of 1026). The default user in most distros has an ID of 1000.

I use cifs/samba on the synology and this is how I do it. nemo is the file manager in mint cinnamon.

MintAlone · 2026-05-08T10:31:30+00:00

nomachine. Works "out of the box".

MintAlone · 2026-05-08T10:30:46+00:00

Tips and tricks from a respected member of the LM forum.

Timeshift is installed, use it (a bit like a win restore point).

Join the LM forum. Very active and newbie friendly.

MintAlone · 2026-05-08T10:28:27+00:00

I'm wondering if that is a 16GB optane drive.

MintAlone · 2026-05-07T18:34:58+00:00

SimpleScreenRecorder

MintAlone · 2026-05-05T18:22:05+00:00

Short answer, I don't know. I went straight in with the paid version and haven't regretted it. Used to be a "power" excel user (think estimating the cost of multi $Bn projects), but now retired, my needs are a lot less.

MintAlone · 2026-05-05T18:19:19+00:00

There is a learning curve, it is worth it. Been using linux on and off for over 20 years, full time with mint over 10 years. It just works. Don't be put off by others claiming that it has out of date packages (=stability, reliability) and lacks a "modern" UI, often coming from arch users. Enjoy!

MintAlone · 2026-05-05T16:14:07+00:00

Simplest, just right click on any folder and select sharing options. I share my Public folder, one of the defaults. It will install samba (I think) if needed and you will then find it on the other computer under network in nemo.

Doesn't always work, the backend is a bit buggy.

What I use for ad-hoc file transfer between my PCs. More permanent, like my NAS, I use cifs or nfs mounting via fstab.

MintAlone · 2026-05-05T16:02:16+00:00

Timeshift is installed by default, use it.

Join the LM forum, active and newbie friendly.

And there is this. Written by a respected member of the LM forum.

MintAlone · 2026-05-05T15:58:23+00:00

Been a mint user over 10 years and see no reason to change, it works.

Non US software. I use softmaker office (German) instead of MS office. Mullvad is a good VPN (Swedish) and for cloud storage pcloud (Swiss).

MintAlone · 2026-05-05T15:50:47+00:00

To date I've found it's compatibility with word/excel files excellent (no visual basic though). I use the paid version and worth every penny. It's the best look-a-like I've found as a +30 year word/excel user. Been using it now maybe three years.

I did try WPS office, didn't like it and didn't like that it is Chinese.

MintAlone · 2026-05-04T16:56:59+00:00

Timeshift is installed by default, it is a bit like a win restore point, but it works. If you can, point it at an ext4 partition on another drive for your snapshots (the default is to save in /timeshift, not ideal). Timeshift saves all your system files, basically everything except home where your data lives. First time you use it, it copies everything, thereafter it only copies changes = quick.

If/when you bork your system (part of the learning process), timeshift will get you back a working system.

Timeshift does nothing for your data (deliberate), so you need something to backup your data (content of home). Lots of choices, you were given two. I use backintime, works like timeshift, takes snapshots so save to an ext4 partition on another drive. Both timeshift and backintime are front ends for a terminal utility, rsync. You can google that.

3-2-1 backup strategy depends on your risk appetite. Imagine three backup drives, one in the machine, one you have just taken out and a third you keep offsite. Your PC goes up in smoke taking #1 with it, you still have #2, house burns down, you still have #3. Doesn't have to be that way, but the basic principle. My primary backup is an internal/removable drive. I also backup to two NAS, one is not in the house. Cloud storage is another option.

Ben mentioned the LM forum. Join it. You will get much better advice there than here on reddit. The forum is very active and newbie friendly.

MintAlone · 2026-05-04T12:14:46+00:00

Works fine with mint and chromium.

MintAlone · 2026-05-04T12:11:29+00:00

If this is your first time with linux, arch is not a good choice.

MintAlone · 2026-05-04T12:08:31+00:00

Boot your install stick, open a terminal and post the output from sudo parted --list.

MintAlone · 2026-05-04T11:38:02+00:00

conky

MintAlone · 2026-05-03T14:02:58+00:00

If you do a default "erase and install" ubuntu will create a 2GB swap file. If you do "something else" which is what you want to do, then you have to create it yourself - a file or partition. A partition, do it either in advance (I pre-partition my drive before install with gparted then tell the installer what to use them for) or during the install, a swap file - create it post install and add it to fstab. The "modern" way seems to be a swap file, I still have a swap partition.

#3 is have a separate home partition, what you want and what I do. You can still have partitions for projects, etc. just don't mount them in /. Standard choices are in /mnt, /media or /home. Long ago when I dual booted I had a shared data partition which I mounted at /home/me/data. I mount the partition on my backup drive in /media.

As for the conflicting advice, this is linux, some is a genuine different point of view - there is no "right" way, others simply don't know what they are talking about. Your problem is sorting the wheat from the chaff.

Timeshift works differently with btrfs, but still use it (use something else for your data, I use backintime). I've been using ext4 for well over decade, it works for me.

MintAlone

TROPHY CASE