[mdlug] [SOLVED] RE: Can't boot from SSD?

[Ingles, Raymond]

> From: Jeff Hanson

> Try the Boot-Repair CD: https://help.ubuntu.com/community/Boot-Repair
> Fixed an UEFI problem for me.

Thanks, that's going on the shelf next to the computer for future crises. But I finally figured out the source of the problem - it was in fact BIOS settings.

This (ASUS P8Z68-V/GEN3)  BIOS has options to boot from optical disk, hard disk, USB drive, and network. But it turns out, for each of those categories, you have to specify some *particular* device. I have three 1TB drives; two are the same Seagate model and one's by WD or something. The BIOS was set to boot from the first Seagate drive, period. After moving things around, the Windows drive was "the first Seagate drive", so that's what it booted from.

Once I told the BIOS to boot from the SSD, I was able to get into my fresh Xubuntu 13.10 install. And yikes, SSDs really *are* that fast. Boots, and login, and launching apps is an order of magnitude faster than off a spinning disk.

However, I can't boot my old Xubuntu 13.04 install. Possibly something I did while trying to manually fix booting a couple days ago messed things up. I get a kernel panic and such. I haven't lost any data, it just looks like I have a slightly tedious job ahead of me, grafting in the old /home partition and re-installing software. Then I have to set up a cron job to TRIM the drive regularly. Ah, well, could be far worse, and the speed gains look like they'll be worth it.

Speaking of worse, migrating Windows is gonna be more of a pain, so far as I can see. Gotta back up a bunch of data and shrink my boot partition to the point where it'll fit in the space available on the SSD, then defrag, then copy the partition over with a utility, etc. (http://www.howtogeek.com/97242/how-to-migrate-windows-7-to-a-solid-state-drive/ )

Anyway, hope this information might help someone else avoid the issue I ran into.