I am guessing that that is pretty much true in theory except that often
things like the Linux partitioner don't work perfectly, so I would be
less than trusting of the option described below. I think that, just to
be on the safe side, he should be double backed up, to both a CD and to
a flash drive. Then if the Ubuntu installer works perfectly he is ahead
of the game,can erase the flash drive and use the CD for a coaster.
Otherwise, they will suddenly become cherished possessions.
Chris Knadle wrote:
On Monday 23 February 2009, John Mort wrote:
A friend of mine is looking to switch from XP to Ubuntu. She wants
to know how to handle moving her data over, and I figured I'd check
here first before replying. My understanding is that Linux has no
problems reading NTFS drives these days, the only risk is in
writing to them. So as long as she has another HDD to move her
data to, it should be a simple matter of coping things over before
reformating the NTFS drive. Am I correct?
Mostly.
On Friday I had a friend over who did a dual-boot install of Windows
XP and Ubuntu 8.10 and I occasionally looked over his shoulder to
make sure the installation was going okay. The install of WinXP was
humorous; after the first he opened IE which defaulted to going to
msn.com, and the very first thing that came up, which was repeatable,
was "IE has run into a problem and must now close." He did the
first "Windows Update" which required a reboot, after which the same
thing happened -- but now there was a slight improvement -- a whole
paragraph of content was displayed before IE crashed.
I suggested he install Ubuntu 8.10 at this point so that I could help
with it before I had to leave for the weekend. The Ubuntu automatic
partitioning scheme wanted to shrink the disk space WinXP used down
to the minimum that it was using already, which would have been a
problem, so we had to partition the disk manually.
After the install of Ubuntu 8.10 before even the first reboot, a
prompt comes up asking the user if they would like to port over their
data from Windows, which I believe includes a directory tree of what
is on the NTFS drive to allow choosing what directories to copy over.
So -- if your friend wants to run Ubuntu then you might want to
mention how Ubuntu wants to shrink Windows to the minimum space if
installed on the same drive Windows resides on.
-- Chris
------------------------------------------------------------------------
_______________________________________________
Mid-Hudson Valley Linux Users Group http://mhvlug.org
http://mhvlug.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/mhvlug
Upcoming Meetings (6pm - 8pm) MHVLS Auditorium
Mar 4 - TBD - 6th Birthday
Mar 7 - Web Hack-a-thon - SUNY Newpaltz
Apr 1 - TBD
_______________________________________________
Mid-Hudson Valley Linux Users Group http://mhvlug.org
http://mhvlug.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/mhvlug
Upcoming Meetings (6pm - 8pm) MHVLS Auditorium
Mar 4 - TBD - 6th Birthday
Mar 7 - Web Hack-a-thon - SUNY Newpaltz
Apr 1 - TBD
