I recently replaced the motherboard, CPU, and RAM in an older PC. The system previously dual-booted Windows 10 and Ubuntu, but the old drives no longer boot with the replacement hardware. I can boot Ubuntu from a USB drive and access the files on two 256 GB Samsung SSDs and a 1 TB Western Digital hard drive after mounting them.
There is unused space on all three drives. Can I create a new partition and install the latest Ubuntu there while preserving the existing data and partitions? Or would it be safer to copy the important files elsewhere, wipe one SSD, and perform a clean Ubuntu installation on that drive?
3 Answers
A new partition can work, but make a verified backup first. Partition changes and bootloader installation always carry some risk, especially on a system that has already had major hardware changes. The simplest and safest route is to install Ubuntu onto a completely empty drive or a drive you have backed up and are willing to wipe.
Boot the live installer, copy anything important from the old drives to another disk or a reliable backup service, and verify that the backup is usable. Then dedicate one SSD to Ubuntu and do a clean installation. This avoids accidentally overwriting an existing partition or mixing the new bootloader with the old operating systems.
Before giving up on the existing installations, check the firmware settings. The replacement motherboard may be using a different boot mode or storage-controller setting than the old system, such as UEFI versus legacy BIOS, AHCI versus IDE, or a RAID mode. Matching the old configuration might make the original installation boot again, although a clean install is still preferable after backing up your data.
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