Wubi migration/resize script user support

One thing I liked about the Tips & Tutorial section on ubuntuforums.org was that users could post questions, give information, read others' questions and see the answers, etc. in a single place. From my point of view, in addition to being able to help users, I got great feedback as to how my scripts were used and what issues users were facing.

But the forums staff decided that the wiki's were the way to go. And I'm good with that (the reasons go beyond my own personal needs)... but I know that since that time, the once-regular questions have almost completely died away - and the support requests that I do see are randomly dispersed and often I don't get to see them until it's too late.

I'm specifically referring the Wubi migration and resize scripts that used to be here and here respectively. Now they are in the Wiki: https://help.ubuntu.com/community/MigrateWubi and https://help.ubuntu.com/community/ResizeandDuplicateWubiDisk

So, where can users go for help or just to discuss some issues? I don't really know. Of course you're welcome to email, but then that's not shared with the community. You could open issues in github, but that's more for code issues than support.

At this time, I recommend creating a new support thread on ubuntuforums.org, and then send me a PM there so I can come and find it. It means that the support requests will be watered down (not all in one place for other users to browse), but they'll still be searchable.

New release of Wubi migration script

I've released a new version of the Wubi migration script (wubi-move-2.0.sh). Here are some of the new features:

• You can migrate either Wubi or a normal install. It detects the type and handles accordingly. This is useful if you want to move your regular Ubuntu install, keep a working backup, or do some experimentation without jeopardizing anything. Also for Wubi users who migrate and then need to re-jig their partitions, it makes it easier to move the install (without worrying about UUID changes).
• It now supports grub-legacy. This was one area that was lacking - I don't know how many people have Wubi with grub-legacy, but there have been a few requests. So the migration supports releases with grub-legacy: 8.04 to 9.04 (as well as those that have been upgraded to 9.10 and later). The caveat is that the script replaces grub-legacy with Grub2 on the migrated install - so you probably don't want to be doing this prior to release 9.10 (I don't know how robust Grub2 is on 8.04.4, for example).
• It also supports migration from a root.disk file with the --root-disk= option. I had already come up with a manual solution for this before and it didn't seem too big a deal to add in to the script. So if you have a good root.disk, but you've lost the ability to boot into it, or you want to migrate to another machine, you can now boot a live CD and migrate from it. The root.disk must be a working, fully-contained Wubi install i.e. not have separate virtual disks for /boot, /usr or /home. (This rules out grub-legacy where /boot is always on the /host Windows partition.)
• Finally there are some minor tweaks. The new option --shared-swap will bypass the 'mkswap' command to preserve the UUID on the swap partition. Useful if you have multiple installs and you want to share the existing swap partition.
• I also split the output from --help into two separate options: --help and --notes to suppress the flood of output.
• Other notable changes - better validation, better error handling, for instance if there is an error in the chroot, the script attempts to cleanly unmount from the chroot before exiting. 

Testing all the possible scenarios and releases is a challenge. I've done a number of cases from releases 8.04.4 to 10.10 (except 8.10) including Wubi and non-Wubi, with Grub2 and Grub-legacy. But as always community feedback is always welcome.

How to migrate a WUBI install to partition

If you've used WUBI for a while, you've likely spent a lot of time customizing it: playing with settings, installing and configuring programs, and saving data. If you planned ahead you made notes along the way and could reinstall fairly easily, but chances are it'd take a lot of effort to do this again.

When you refer to the Wubi Guide, it points you towards LVPM to do the migration, but LVPM hasn't been updated since Ubuntu 8.04, and doesn't work out of the box without some tweaking. The Wubi Guide's own script is in a similar state.

Fortunately it is still possible to migrate, and you can find a script and a step-by-step guide(if you want to do it manually) on ubuntuforums.org. *

Before you migrate you'll need to partition your drive. That's something you'll have to do beforehand, but it's fairly straightforward on Windows Vista or 7 - use the built in Disk Utility. For XP, you can use Gparted that is part of the Ubuntu 'Live CD'.

* This can be used to migrate Ubuntu versions 9.10 and later. If you installed on an earlier version of Ubuntu (even if you later upgraded) you have a different boot loader and the guide does not apply.