Will the boot record follow major changes moving data from drive to drive?

[Shabakthanai]

I have several posts that relate to a result I would like to obtain. It is kind of like musical chairs. My computer currently functions great, but as you might have read from my related posts, the drives are all messed up.

I did not realize it, because when I installed my dual boot OS's, the computer seemed to work find immediately. Occasionally I have noticed things that did not make a lot of sense, yet because the system still seem to function properly, I did not spend any time trying to find out why those unusual situations were present.

I want to extend my computer from dual boot to triple boot and found the problems I am now trying to fix. Because to start fresh will cost lots of time re-installing 2 OS's and one new system and the required configuration and installation of applications and packages, it would be nice if I can move things around a bit and not make my system go nuts in the process.

I mentioned in one of the related posts that I have lost a lot of data in the past due to my inexperience, as well as, learning the what's-not-to-do things. Over the years, I have lost most of the irreplaceable things I had, so only a few new and precious items remain that I would like to avoid losing.

If I can move things around a bit, without losing anymore data and still have functioning operating systems that boot as I desire, it will save me a lot of time.

If this can't be done, I still will need help, which I may be able to find by searching the Internet and not having to bother this forum, but it will come at great cost in the time to do so. If I can not fix the problem, I will then have to re-instal, reconfigure everything, which is a daunting prospect that I will do.

If my peculiar need becomes a possibility, I can see the data very useful to others, not in such a complicated game of musical chairs, but being able to successfully complete one exchange might be very profitable to lots of users.

It will more than amaze me if it has been done before; I hope it has and an easy project.

Thanks in advance to anyone with the wisdom and willingness to help.

[SecretCode]

Without understanding your situation completely, I can say there's always a risk of (total) data loss when works with partitions.

Are you able to buy one or more external drives to back up your data to, so it's safe independently of the system drives you are working with?

[Shabakthanai]

Without understanding your situation completely, I can say there's always a risk of (total) data loss when works with partitions.

That is the reason I so desperately want to solve this problem rather than go through the reinstall process again. I have lost all but a small portion of my most precious data in the past, when I thought everything was properly backed up and saved. I would like for it to not happen again.

Are you able to buy one or more external drives to back up your data to, so it's safe independently of the system drives you are working with?

If I have to, yes.

I have 2HDD's. One should have only 1 partition mounted as /home. It is 6GBs SATA HDD. That is what I intended, however it ended up being the drive that Kubuntu 14.04 is installed too. I can't tell you how that happened; I did not set it up that way, the computer did.

The second TB HDD is a SATA 3GBs. It was intended for backups ended up a barren drive.

The third is a 128GB SSD that should but does not contain Kubuntu 14.04. It is completely without any data.

The fourth is a 256GB SSD that should and I believe does contain Windows 7 OS.

My intent was to Have Operating Systems on their own separate drives and /home on a drive by itself. I planned to have data backups on the 3GBs HDD. It seemed a relatively safe way to protect my data from catastrophic loss with an easy way to reinstall or upgrade the OS's. Obviously that did not happen. I am sure I made whatever mistakes caused the change of configuration, I just never had cause to look into it. Basically my systems have been working fine. I have had and fixed problems, but never had a problem that would have caused me to check that the drives were as I programmed them. I have been installing after this fashion for over 15 years now.

I have a TB HHD in my computer right now that is totally empty. I thought it was partitioned and used, but somehow when all the drives got mixed up, that drive and a 128GB SSD are empty, and both should be used.

I tried to answer your first reply; I tried 6 times. Each time I found myself with about 10,000 words before realizing no one would read that much data to fix a problem. Not having the intellectual equipment to know, I saw moving data from an HDD to an SSD a very different problem from moving data from an SSD to a HDD. I saw perhaps using 4 primary partitions without ever creating an Extended partition an individual problem, if that had to change to add the third OS. I wondered about the bootable part of the computer and what changes needed to be made to relate to the new locations for the boot partitions on the changing drives, etc. It looked to me like each mentioned step of the changes had to be perfect for everything to work once changed. Additionally, I was confident that I really would not understand making several changes at the same time, and I would very much like to start learning from repairs that are made and understanding what has taken place.

I don't know if you accept private messages, but if you do, I saved 2 of the 6 attempts at answering your first reply.

In the past, every time I have attempted to fix a complex problem, (at least complex to me), I have ended up confused and have failed. Each time a by-product has been the loss of my data.

I love operating, using, working with computers. A very long time ago, I had to accept the fact that I am not intellectually suited to the task, but I have never given up. Self-deprecation and humility are not really what I intend when I explain my shortcomings, I just want to continue and want those that help me to understand they are working with someone severely under qualified. On complex and longer words, I have to spell them in my mind and sound them out to know what I am reading. In fact, I am unable to keep up with the reading of subtitles. Still I am able to do some pretty incredible things that are difficult for others, so admittedly I am not the brightest bulb in some cases yet may be the brightest bulb in others.

I hope you read this reply; it supplies you with many of the reasons for how I post. I appreciate your kindness.

[SecretCode]

I suspect you're perfectly smart enough to work with computers, but you may have some preconceptions of how they work, how various things fit together, which could leave you very confused if wrong.

I also think it would be much better to keep your questions and answers in one thread. Don't treat your questions as separate, individual problems - they may be, but if you have misunderstand what the right questions to ask are, you could just get more confused! My answers will be in this thread: https://www.kubuntuforums.net/showth...l=1#post366983

[Shabakthanai]

I can, and I understand your question, but you may notice that /home is currently the only partition that I backup, and it was meant to be exclusive on one HDD. It did not turn out that way in my computer, but it was intended. I have never heard of anyone losing multiple internal HDD's before, so doesn't having a separate backup drive accomplish the same thing?

Without understanding your situation completely, I can say there's always a risk of (total) data loss when works with partitions.

Are you able to buy one or more external drives to back up your data to, so it's safe independently of the system drives you are working with?