1 Topic by Beau

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Topic: A lttile help please. Partition problem after Windows 10

Reverting back from Windows 10 trashed my partitions. Worked on it for many hours and ended up booting with Gparted Live on a USB stick. Ended up deleting the partition that was named "OS". Don't have a Windows 8.1 disc and no CD drive. Put Windows 10 on a bootable USB stick and let it install itself. Works fine but the partitions are messed up and I don't know if the operating system is on the hybrid solid state drive.

The details are below. Any help would be greatly appreciated. Thanks in advance.

...
ASUS S400CA  14-Inch TouchScreen VIVO Laptop

    Intel Core i5 3317U 1.7 GHz Processor
    4 GB DDR3 1600 MHz SD-RAM
    500GB 5400RPM Hybrid Hard Drive with integrated 24GB Solid-State Drive:
      2.5" SATA
      500GB 5400RPM
      320GB 5400RPM
      24GB SSD Cache
    14" 16:9 HD (1366x768) LED backlight glare panel
    Windows 10
...
-GParted Live USB Devices-

/dev/sda (465.76 GiB):
/dev/sda1  ntfs  system reserved  size 500.0 MiB,  322.06 Mib used,  177.94 MiB   boot
/dev/sda2  ntfs                                465.27 GiB    19.79 GiB used
unallocated                                        1.02 MiB        .........  used

/dev/sdb (22.37 GiB) NOTHING USED:
/dev/sdb2  ! basic data partition, unknown file system, basic data partition, 4.00 GiB, hidden,irst
unallocated        unallocated file system    1.00 MiB size
/dev/sdb1  !  HFS unknown file system  HFS  18.36 GiB size

Assume this is my GParted USB boot stick:
/dev/sdc1  (shows a lock)  FAT32 /lib/live/mount/medium  UUI  1.87 GiB,  251.03 MiB used, unused 1.63 GiB  boot
unallocated      size 1.52 MiB

2 Reply by gedakc

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Re: A lttile help please. Partition problem after Windows 10

From the output provided it appears that Windows is installed on /dev/sda using partitions /dev/sda1 and /dev/sda2.

3 Reply by Beau

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Re: A lttile help please. Partition problem after Windows 10

gedakc wrote:

From the output provided it appears that Windows is installed on /dev/sda using partitions /dev/sda1 and /dev/sda2.

Thank you.

So sdb is not used at all. Hmm. Since this is a hybrid drive and sdb is around 22 GB should I assume it is the solid state part and the OS should be on it instead of sda?

4 Reply by gedakc

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Re: A lttile help please. Partition problem after Windows 10

The output indicates sdb has a basic data partition (not the OS) and an HFS file system.  HFS file systems are used by Mac OS X.

5 Reply by Beau (edited by Beau 2015-09-21 18:46:05)

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Re: A lttile help please. Partition problem after Windows 10

Thank you gedakc. I'm not sure what I need to do. I assume the OS should be on the faster SSD side of the drive but not sure it it was reinstalled there. I might try to get some screen shots up if I can figure out how to do it with the IMG command.

6 Reply by gedakc

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Re: A lttile help please. Partition problem after Windows 10

You might need to remove the partitions from sdb if you wish to install the OS on sdb.  Be sure to have a backup of your data before editing partitions.

7 Reply by Beau (edited by Beau 2015-09-21 23:07:12)

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Re: A lttile help please. Partition problem after Windows 10

Testing image insertions:

http://i818.photobucket.com/albums/zz109/beaulanger1/EasusTodoBootDisk-700_zpsu23znpvl.jpg

8 Reply by Beau

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Re: A lttile help please. Partition problem after Windows 10

Another:
http://i818.photobucket.com/albums/zz109/beaulanger1/GpartedDiskInfo-700_zpsg7ksbujo.jpg

9 Reply by Beau

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Re: A lttile help please. Partition problem after Windows 10

Another:
http://i818.photobucket.com/albums/zz109/beaulanger1/SDA2-700_zpspoju3qb4.jpg

10 Reply by Beau (edited by Beau 2015-09-21 23:20:47)

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Re: A lttile help please. Partition problem after Windows 10

Last one:

http://i818.photobucket.com/albums/zz109/beaulanger1/SDB1-700_zpsxjnvanj3.jpg

11 Reply by Beau (edited by Beau 2015-09-21 23:18:23)

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Re: A lttile help please. Partition problem after Windows 10

gedakc wrote:

You might need to remove the partitions from sdb if you wish to install the OS on sdb.  Be sure to have a backup of your data before editing partitions.

I think this may be way over my head. Is there a way to move the newly installed OS from sda to sdb? Should I just leave it alone and just delete partitions that aren't used to free up space?

Again I appreciate your time and help.

12 Reply by gedakc

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Re: A lttile help please. Partition problem after Windows 10

There is a way to move the newly installed OS from sda to sdb, but it requires a number of steps and is not as easy as re-installing the OS.

If you really want the OS to be on sdb, then I'd suggest backing up all your data, deleting all partitions, and then re-installing the OS being sure to select sdb as the location for the OS.

If you are not overly concerned where the OS is installed, then leaving things alone is the easiest way to proceed.

13 Reply by Beau

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Re: A lttile help please. Partition problem after Windows 10

Again thank you. I've decided to leave things as they are. Performance is decent. Besides, I'm not sure if that 24 GB SSD part is for the OS or just a cache drive. I did partition it as one just for the heck of it and e-mailed ASUS.

14 Reply by gedakc

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Re: A lttile help please. Partition problem after Windows 10

Thanks for reporting back with what you decided to do.  If you configured the SSD as a cache drive, then perhaps it is helping to improve the performance of all of your disk accesses.

15 Reply by Beau

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Re: A lttile help please. Partition problem after Windows 10

Huge thumbs up to you.  :-)