Precision 7560 & 7760 Owners' Thread

Thanks for the very detailed instructions. Looks like they worked perfectly.

 

I chose your #1 option, although I installed Ubuntu 20.04 LTS rather than Fedora. Unlike your machine, after some reconfiguration and setup, my 7560 contains only a 2TB Samsung drive.

After switching to ACHI mode and verifying Windows ran correctly, I used Clonezilla to create an image file of the original 256GB drive onto a USB drive, swapped the 256GB drive for the 2TB Samsung drive, then used Clonezilla to copy the image to the 2TB drive. I booted Windows, created a large NTFS partition as D:, but did not resize any of the cloned partitions. I then installed Ubuntu.

I did NOT disable secure boot in the BIOS settings.

One of the few decisions in the cloning instructions you reference asks in step 6 if you want an exact copy of the source drive, including all partitions, or just some of the partitions. I recommend creating an exact copy of the source drive. I created an exact copy of the 256GB drive to the 2TB drive, verified that Windows started and ran correctly from the new drive, then used the Windows disk management tool to create my new D: partition, formatted as an NTFS drive.

In Windows I relocated my account's MyDocuments\, Downloads\, Pictures\, etc., to the D: partition. Soon after installing Ubuntu I added what Windows thinks is D: as /data and configured /data to automatically mount when Ubuntu boots. I did not do the same for C: since I very rarely access C: from Linux. I left my Linux home directory in /, an ext4 partition, but as you'd expect I store most of my files in /data. This drive layout enables access to most my files regardless of which OS I boot.

 

Thanks for a description of your install. I have not yet decided about the various options for how I might additionally configure my Windows 10 install, especially regarding how to partition the drive that I have W10 installed on. This is mainly because I am not very experienced with Windows and will need to do some research to learn how to do these various extra steps. It certainly makes sense to me to have the W10 install on a separate partition on my Windows drive from my data. Also, in the past when I have dual booted Windows and Linux from an install on a single drive, I have mounted my W10 partition on Linux. At the moment, I have not thought through all the use cases that might make that useful. So, still some work on my part to figure out details about the config for my W10 install.

On a different note, when I boot Clonezilla from a live DVD on my 7760, I am getting some behavior which is making me wonder if I am doing things quite right. First, when booting Clonezilla, I get warning messages that suggest that Windows may not be completely shutdown and that it is switching to booting in read only mode. How can I be sure that I am completely shutting down W10? I am basically selecting Shutdown from the Power menu right now.

Second, when Clonezilla is fully booted up, only about half of the screen, the left half, is being used by Clonezilla and the rest is black. I have the high resolution 3840x2160 display on my 7760. Do others that have used Clonezilla experience this or am I doing something wrong.

 

It's confusing but under the default configuration, "Shut down" actually means "Logout + Hibernate".

One of two things to try.
* Use "restart" instead of "shut down".
- or -
* Go to "old" Windows Power Options, pick "choose what the power buttons do" on the left, and then turn off the option for "Turn on fast startup". That will make the "shut down" command actually perform a full shut down.

If Clonezilla still complains then I am not sure what is up with that. I personally have been recently using Macrium Reflect (free version) bootable media to do drive cloning and that has been fine.

 

Thanks. Doing a restart instead of shut down allowed me to complete the instructions from my link above on how to use Clonezilla to clone a drive. I appear to be able to boot W10 now from my 2 TB drive and it appears that what I now have is a C drive on my 2 TB drive that is 250 GB in size. I assume that makes sense and is what I should see. I guess now I need to figure out how to add the remaining space on my 2 TB drive to a D drive or else just add the remaining space into my C drive.

 

To create a D: drive open Windows' Computer Management->Disk Management. Left click on the unallocated space, then right click to open a menu. Selecting "New simple volume" will start a wizard that will walk you though creating a new volume. The menu you get when you right click on an existing volume will, if appropriate, offer options to resize the volume.

 

Seems like there is still something I need to do in order to make my cloned W10 drive bootable, perhaps in the BIOS, because when I restart and hold down F12 to get a boot menu, there are 4 copies of my new cloned drive in the bootlist and if I select one and continue booting, it seems like I am still booting the original 250 GB drive because Disk Management is showing the C drive on that drive. Is that correct or am I missing something?

 

This is a pretty normal thing to run into. Disable the "old" drive in the BIOS setup (or physically remove it) and see if that kicks it over to booting the "new" drive. Once you are comfortable that the system is running properly on the "new" drive, you can re-enable the "old" one (and wipe it).

Also it is possible that your cloning software did not expand the partition to fill new the drive. If this the the case, you'll see the C: drive with empty space after it in Disk Management. You can extend the partition in Disk Management (...if there are no other partitions in the way right after it; if there are, you'll have to use another tool to move them to the end of the drive first).

 

When I disable my 250 GB drive in the BIOS, I am not able to boot. It gives me an error screen. If I then restart and go back into the BIOS and enable the 250 GB drive, I can then boot again. Within W10, if I run the Disk Management tool, it reports that I have two W10 drives mounted, the C drive on the 250 GB drive and the new D drive on my 2 TB drive that is a clone of my 250 GB drive.

So, it seems like there must be something that I need to do after having done the clone that will allow me to boot from the new image on my 2 TB drive without having the 250 GB drive enabled in the BIOS. I wonder if I need to do something like doing the clone again with Clonezilla and then turning off the 250 GB drive in the BIOS before I try for the first time to boot W10 from the clone. Thoughts?

 

I would first try completely removing the 256GB drive and installing the 2TB drive into the slot previously occupied by the 256GB drive. If that configuration boots then the cloning succeeded and the issue is the sequence in which the BIOS looks for the boot drive. My next step would be to reinstall the 256TB drive into the slot formerly occupied by the 2TB drive and see which drive gets booted. I'm betting Windows will still boot from the 2TB drive.

Another option: Adjust the C: partition on the 256TB drive so you have enough room to install GRUB. Install GRUB, then configure GRUB to boot Windows from the 2TB drive.

If the 2TB drive boots Windows I would then delete the Windows partition from the 256TB drive and use the drive for whatever purpose makes sense, e.g., to hold the Linux swap partition, an NTFS partition for Windows' swap file, and as the temporary or swap volume for whatever applications can take advantage such space.