Debian Configuration :: Removing Windows From Dual-boot Config?
Apr 7, 2011
I'm currently dual-booting Squeeze & Windows XP on a machine i use frequently.
In my experience on the desktop, i now see no reason to have Windows XP as a boot option, & wanted to try & avoid a full re-installation of Debian in order to remove XP (merging it's partition with / ).
I have a checklist that i put together, but wanted to be sure this was all correct before going forward.
1. Perform full back-up of all data.
2. Boot into Debian, through GUI -
System Tools > Disk Utility
- Select HDD (80GB Hard Disk)
- Select windows partition ( /dev/sda1 )
- Format /dev/sda1 to Ext4 Filsystem
3. Boot Live CD
- Use gParted to extend /dev/sda2 (was 38GB, will extend to 78GB)
4. Remove XP from the boot menu.
( Note: My ~ folder is on the same physical drive as / (same volume), but i actually store all Media on a separate physical drive which is formatted in NTFS. I plan on reinstalling XP using a virtual hard disk, & sharing that with the virtual machine.Here is a screenshot of my Disk Utility - [URL]
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Jan 3, 2016
I have a Jessie with grub2. I've bought ssd and copied root partition onto it. I've also installed grub on this disc. I would like to have dual boot:
- First option: old root booted from hdd
- second option: boot from copied ssd and use root from it.
So i would have two identical but independent configurations.
Both disc has different uids (changed after cloning).
I had a hope that i will change fstab to mount root partition from ssd, but it doesn't work. I need to change grub configuration, but how to add new position?
There is also problem that bios doesn't allow me to choose disc to boot from. So i would rather prefer to change grub configuration for dual boot from different disc.
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Sep 3, 2015
I've a Lenovo G50-80T with W8.1. I want to install Debian 8.1 in dualbooting mode. I've done this other times without problems. But this time I want encrypt the Linux partition (not the Windows partition). I'll use dm-crypt to do that. I want to know if this way is secure for protect the data on Linux partition or if I need encrypt the entire drive.
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Feb 17, 2011
So I made my netbook a dual-boot machine about 2 months ago - it came with windows 7 and I added ubuntu. I've been running Ubuntu on my desktop machine for a while, so I'm pretty comfortable.
Now I'd like to completely get rid of the windows partition on my netbook and make the whole thing ubuntu. However, I've downloaded and installed so many programs and packages and libraries that I don't want to have to do it again. Is there a way to remove the windows partition (basically expanding the ubuntu side) and keep my programs/settings/libraries/packages/etc on the linux side? Or do I have to erase the partitions and start over with a fresh install?
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Sep 4, 2010
I've got a win7/ubuntu 10.04 dual boot running on my system. I did the usual of installing 7 first, then ubuntu and using it as the default boot option. I now want to get rid of win 7 and expand the ubuntu installation into the free space. My current hdd structure is in the attachment. If I just boot a live cd and gparted to remove the win 7 partitions and expand the ubuntu installation into the free space, will that work or will it have a massive panic? how to I get grub to silently boot after without offering me any boot options?
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Feb 2, 2010
Am running Karmic and Windows7 dual booting with separate hard drives. I want to remove Windows 7 and leave Karmic on it's single drive. I am concerned that I will cause a boot problem if I just 'unplug' the Windows 7 drive.
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Jun 25, 2010
Today I've decided that I would like to remove my useless, freezing windows install from my Ubuntu laptop and only use Ubuntu... booting windows XP from a virtual box whenever I need to use a Windows application with poor Wine support. Any safe way I can go about doing that? I tried googling this, but all I found was the opposite, remove ubuntu from windows... which is quite sad. Anyway, windows is using up a ton of space that it doesn't need to. It takes me 5 minutes to even get it booted and after using Ubuntu, I have no patience left for the program. What should I do?
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Mar 7, 2011
I've just installed Ubuntu 10.10 using Wubi inside of Windblows and I want to remove Windblows completely.What filestem does Ubuntu use and how do i delete the NTFS partitions and redistribute the free space once partition removed?I only installed through Windblows cos I couldn't get a decent cd burnt to install from there.Just noticed that it looks like the installer has locked up again becuase there is no mouse action. If it has locked up again, i think it may be the cd drive playing up. If i replace it temporarily with a newer drive will Ubunutu kick up a fuss when i out the old one back in. I don't intend using a cd-rom anyway. i just want to use it as a domain controller and file server.
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Feb 1, 2011
I have installed vista(Preloaded) and Ubuntu 10.10 in dual boot in my laptop. Now i want to get rid of vista, and want to have only Ubuntu, also i want to assign all space to Ubuntu. I have two query's
1. How could i cleanly uninstall Vista from my system? (I Used WUBI to install Ubuntu)
2. Can i install Vista in future? (As my Vista was preloaded, Vista didn't recognize the hard drive on which Ubuntu is installed)
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Apr 5, 2011
I have just installed Ubuntu (/dev/sda7) and Debian (/dev/sda4), but since I have updated all informations on Ubuntu, then Debian did not appear anymore on the grub list. There is an wiki I have found, but I an not really sure about what to do.
Here are the boot informations:
Boot Info Script 0.55 dated February 15th, 2010
Boot Info Summary:
=> Grub 2 is installed in the MBR of /dev/sda and looks at sector 488861020
of the same hard drive for core.img, core.img is at this location on
/dev/sda and looks on partition #3 for (,gpt3)/grub.
[Code]...
ps: on this file, it says that the /boot is installed on the MBR and /dev/sda3. I will remove the boot from MBR as I am now using /dev/sda3 instead. Sorry for my english
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Sep 11, 2011
One of the things holding me back from building a new system with nothing but Linux is the vague possibility that that I might need to use some proprietary program that only works on Wind'ohs in the future. So far it has been easy to keep dual boot systems around, but a new system will be > 4 Gb of RAM of course, so I can't just install one of my copies of Win XP on it. But buying a new 64-bit version of Wind'ohs for ~$200 seems a waste.Is it now possible to run XP in a "virtual" machine under Debian? More importantly, is it possible to install XP completely from within the virtual machine so it never sees the > 4 Gb or RAM and freaks out? What sort of hardware is required to do something like this? I presume a CPU with certain special capabilities is essential, but wouldn't those special instructions (whatever they are) be pretty standard now? Would the virtual XP install need its own partition?
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Jul 2, 2011
i am having some issues with dual booting my SL6.1 and Windows. The situation is that i recently acquired an old hard drive from a non-working computer of mine with Windows already installed (i know the windows is functional, as i tested it on my new PC with SL6.1 currently installed & everything runs fine)
The problem is that after editing the grub.config to include windows, windows will no longer boot after an attempt to install a legit version of McAffee anti-virus software which coincidently was only after the first attempt at running both OS's in a dual-boot fashion. Except past the windows start up screen before the dreaded blue-screen.
Which is weird because SL6.1 OS will still boot & works perfectly fine like always, so it doesn't really make sense.
My current setup is:
Disk 1: Solid-State:
Boot Partition
SL6 LVM1: Root Partition
Disk 2: Hard Drive:
SL6 LVM2: User, Temp & Swap Space Partitions (Different LVM to Root)
Disk 3: Hard Drive:
Windows 7 Professional 64-bit
My guess is its windows MBR. The reason i say this is because the Hard Drive contents of the Windows software still appears intact when accessing the drive from the Linux OS. I don't won't to go through the rigmarole of re-installing both OS's. So hopefully their is a relatively simple solution.
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Jun 5, 2010
I am ready to reclaim the disk space that is currently being used by XP in my dualboot scenario. Per the Gparted scan below, my hard drive is currently being sequenced as sda1 (NTFS data only, which I mounted in Ubuntu and write my working documents to), sda2 (XP operating system/boot drive). Ubuntu is on sda3, with home on sda4. I'm currently running 9.10.
I would like to eliminate the contents of sda2, and migrate sda1 contents to ext4. Question is, what are the best steps. I have good backups of everything, and sync my NTFS data to a NAS.
My grub.cfg looks as follows (am running 1.97)
Code:
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Jan 7, 2010
I have my pc setup with 2 hard disks, my main HD is running Win XP and the second HD is loaded with 9.1, the disk I loaded 9.1 on is a 40 gig HD, I wanted to try out 9.1 as a clean install before mucking around with dual boot. I really like 9.1 and now I want to change the way I am setup so I can run a dual boot. Right now the way it is I go through GRUB to choose either linux or win, it defaults to Linux, I removed the disk the 40 gig drive the other day and when I do I can't boot up, I get an error message telling me something like Grub not found (Duh right I took the HD out) I want to reset my comp so the 40 gig drive is visible to win and do the dual boot with 9.1 inside of windows.
My questions are this.
1. How would change the current boot config. so that windows loads and I don't have to use GRUB to choose my O/S.
2. How would I go about removing 9.1 from the 40 gig drive and leaving it blank so I can utilize it for windows.
my main concern here is getting the pc set back up so I can boot into windows without using the GRUB menu, I'm on my work pc and getting some greif from my boss on this. I'm worried that if I just remove 9.1 from the 40 gig drive that I won't be able to load windows, like when I physically removed the HD from the pc.
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Mar 3, 2010
Can i even format without removing windows in the progress? If not, what would be the best way to just remove everything i have on the computer to get it as close as possible to a new computer? I don't have windows install CD because the laptop had Vista pre-installed. So i must be careful what i remove or my brother won't buy the laptop I'm mostly concerned about killing the GRUB and making me unable to start the computer.
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Mar 22, 2010
I've recently installed Vmware on Vista and I am using that to run Linux. I prefer this method over duel booting as I can quickly switch between the two OSes. So here is what I would like to do.
1) Remove swap partition (not needed).
2) Remove Linux and format partition to NTFS for windows use.
3) Remove Grub.
What I don't want to do.
1) Reinstall Windows Vista (Lots of programs installed).
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Dec 15, 2015
I'll start off with stating my problem and summarize how I got to it.
I installed Windows 10 on an SSD. I installed Debian 8.2 after it. The SSD was/is a GPT disk. I installed both installations from a UEFI booted device (DVD for Windows, and USB drive with Live CD for Debian).
I tested it after each installation making sure I could boot via UEFI into Windows, then Debian, then Windows, to make sure nothing broke.
I rebooted the machine. Suddenly, no more UEFI. Nothing. I didn't change any BIOS/UEFI setup menu settings. Not even my USB drive with Live CD will boot through UEFI anymore. Even when nothing else is plugged into the system.
My situation is actually a bit more complicated than that, but I think that will suffice for now. I can still boot into the Live CD on the USB drive, just in Legacy mode only. I mounted the EFI partition on /mnt/boot after I mounted the file system for Debian on /mnt. It is identical, as far as I can tell, to as it was before when it was working.
My motherboard has CSM and Secure Boot, both have been set up how they need to be to boot UEFI into Debian. Tinkering with them further after things broke did not fix it. I tried all variations of options/settings.
The GRUB Reinstall guide says to be in EFI mode before starting it, so I can't do that.
My motherboard is an ASUS X99 Deluxe, and I've heard ASUS has special "features" (read: bugs) that come with their boards. Searching hasn't brought up any other people with this issue. I believe the firmware is updated to it's most current one.
I've tried dd-ing my backup of my old system, from before trying to migrate to a Dual Boot system, to the SSD (after backing up the dual boot setup with dd -> <name>.img via the Live CD USB). However, that won't boot either as it is a UEFI install as well.
The layout of my EFI partition is as such:
/boot/EFI/Boot/bootx64.efi
/boot/EFI/Microsoft/<Microsoft-naming>.efi
/boot/EFI/debian/grubx64.efi
I've heard that the standards on how that's supposed to be set up isn't a standard. However, since it worked booting into the OS' the first time, I don't see how that could be the issue (a bad hierarchy layout leading to the UEFI not being able to see the OS installs).
I've seen that I can boot to an EFI shell (called Shell.efi, apparently) via an option in my UEFI BIOS setup menu on my motherboard. Is that an option here to somehow bypass this strange issue?
All I can think to try is burn it all and start over. But not knowing what caused it means I could just make it happen again. Plus, I can't boot into UEFI install media, so I can't install UEFI boot OS'. :/
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Dec 13, 2010
I've recently bought a new computer and installed Windows 7 on it, but left 100GB of space on a separate partition so I could put Debian next to it in dual boot. I have the new Intel i7 950 processor and I run Windows 7 Proffesional 64 bit, so I assumed I had to pick the ia64 debian image. However the CD I burned from the ia64 image didn't boot. (a black screen started and an underscore kept flashing, but nothing else happened)[URL]
I've managed to install i386 Debian on a older intel pentium 4 computer before and that worked fine. I believe I used another application to burn the CD then. This time I've burned the CD with the default Windows CD burn application. I can try burn more CD's but I don't have much left so I want to make sure this is the problem before attempting again. (the burned files on the ia64 CD look exactly the same as the files on the i386 CD, when browsing through the cd files in windows) "If your PC has a 64-bit AMD or Intel processor, you will most likely need the "amd64" images (though "i386" is also fine), the "ia64" images will not work."This seems a bit strange, they recommend me to use the amd64 image if you have a "64-bit AMD or intel processor". I dunno if this is a typo, but it seems weird to me that the AMD-64 Debian version would also work on my Intel machine
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Jan 28, 2016
I have set up authentication when I am logging from my laptop using windows 7 (putty) into Debian server (see this post [URL].....) but since my laptop is dual boot (Windows 7 and Ubuntu) how would I set up authentication when i am using Ubuntu since from Ubuntu I will be logging into Debian SSH as same user that I am when logging from windows?
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Jul 30, 2010
I had to boot into my Windows 7 install on my laptop for the first time in a few months and I noticed that the Windows clock was 4 hours ahead. Windows sync'd its time with the internet, then I booted back into Debian (Lenny) and my clock was now 4 hours behind. Both OS's are set to the same time zone (EDT). The minutes were correct in both systems. Could the fact that EDT is UTC-0400 be relevant?
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Aug 30, 2014
I recently installed Debian 7 on a dual boot with Windows Vista. Thus, when I boot the computer, I am prompted by a GRUB screen to select Windows Vista loader, Debian, and Debian (recovery mode). I would like to upgrade Windows Vista to Windows 7. Will this cause an issue with GRUB? Will a Windows 7 loader be added to the list or will a Windows 7 loader replace the Windows Vista loader? Will there have to be a setting change within Debian? Within Windows?
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Sep 4, 2015
I have a Dell laptop (inspiron 1150) which was dual booting Windows XP and Ubuntu 9.04. I have successfully installed Debian Jessie Standard over the Ubuntu. I pre-partitioned using gparted-live to make a separate single partition for the Debian install. Guided partitioning was then carried out by the installer producing separate /, /home, and swap partitions. After installation, the grub menu shows an entry for Debian and Windows XP. I can boot Debian, but not Windows XP. The symptoms are the same as reported in other forums: A terminal is displayed, vanishes and the system reboots defaulting to the Debian boot.
The grub.cfg file for the Jessie system has an other-os entry:
Code: Select allmenuentry "Microsoft Windows XP Home Edition (on /dev/sda2)" {
  set root=(hostdisk//dev/sda, msdos2)
  search --no-floppy --fs-uuid --set=root cc0ce0ab0ce091ae
  drivemap -s (hd0) ${root}
  chainloader +1
}
The original Windows entry for the Ubuntu install was:
Code: Select allmenuentry "Microsoft Windows XP Home Edition (on /dev/sda2)" {
  insmod ntfs
  set root=(hd0,2)
  search --no-floppy --fs-uuid --set cc0ce0ab0ce091ae
  drivemap -s (hd0) ${root}
  chainloader +1
}
The partitions produced by partman look OK (during the pre-partitioning I did not touch sda1, sda2, or sda3):
Code: Select all~ # fdisk -l
Disk /dev/sda: 37.3 GiB, 40007761920 bytes, 78140160 sectors
Units: sectors of 1 * 512 = 512 bytes
Sector size (logical/physical): 512 bytes / 512 bytes
[Code] .....
Partition table entries are not in disk order.
The os-prober found XP:
Code: Select all~ # os-prober
/dev/sda2:Microsoft Windows XP Home Edition:Windows:chain
So it seems that everything is in place, but there are perhaps important differences in the grub.cfg files. Are the two "set root" commands equivalent for example?
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Dec 28, 2015
I have Windows 10 and Deb 8 dual boot, and I need to re-install Windows but want to avoid (or at least plan for) losing Grub/Linux boot.
Last time I re-installed Windows after Linux I ended up having to re-install Linux again afterwards as well, because I couldn't recover it (seemingly due to complications from encryption). So this time I'm wanting to plan and avoid that.
CURRENT DISK PARTITIONS:
Code: Select allsda1Â |Â 550MÂ Â |Â EFI System
sda2Â |Â 128MÂ Â |Â Microsoft reserved
sda3Â |Â 175.8G |Â Microsoft basic data
sda4Â |Â 286MÂ Â |Â Linux filesystem (Boot)
sda5Â |Â 28.2GÂ |Â Linux filesystem (Root)
sda6Â |Â 91.3GÂ |Â Linux filesystem (Home)
sda7Â |Â 1.9GÂ Â |Â Linux swap
[Code] ....
As there is a "Microsoft Reserved" partition and a separate Microsoft directory within the EFI partition, if I just go ahead and reinstall Windows will it install it's boot loader/image to one of it's own partitions? And NOT affect anything else like Grub and other Linux things?
Logic tells me yes, but there seems to be many issues on the internet about installing Windows after Linux.
My primary concern is whatever happens with Windows or anything to do with dual loading etc, is that Linux will still just boot, or I can get it working again without much hassle.
Why is there a reserved Microsoft partition AND a Microsoft directory in the EFI partition? Which one boots Windows?
Why is there a separate Linux Boot partition AND a Linux directory in the EFI partition? Which one boots Linux? Where is Grub invoked from, is one redundant, etc?
How these work. It is possible I've set them up wrong, or with redundant partitions, but both systems have been booting ok for months.
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Feb 3, 2016
I've been using Debian for a few years but always on dedicated boxes and/or VMs.
Finally decided to dual boot Debian and Windows on my main Desktop PC.
Installed as I normally would using, however this time using a seperate drive (one for the existing Windows 10 install and the other for Debian), Debian install detects that windows has an EFI partition and sticks an entry in there, which is fair enough, and everything working fine. Then I spent some time configuring all my software and set it all up just the way I like it. I've rebooted Debian a few times to check it's working correctly and it is.
The issue arrives when I reboot and load into Windows 10. It boots fine.
However after a further reboot GRUB no longer loads... and the machine just boots directly into Windows 10.
After doing some further digging into my EFI partition (and reinstalling various times) it would appear that after a reboot Windows 10 deletes the entry GRUB creates in my EFI partition after EVERY reboot.
Done some googling and most people advise turning off 'fast boot' in Windows as it locks certain partitions to facilitate the machine going into hibernation, only to find that it's always been turned off on my machine (I recall due to a driver issue with my graphics card this had to be turned off when I installed Windows 10).
I've found this article on the Ubuntu forums : [URL] .... however I've tried their steps and windows is still doing a hostile takeover of my EFI partion after a reboot!
Any way to stop Windows 10 from interfering with my EFI files after a reboot? (without doing the obvious thing and kill Windows off).
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Feb 1, 2011
I have used dual boot systems using various versions of windows and Debian for many years and have encountered no problems. However, I have a problem with installing Debian on a EeePC (ASUS PC1201) which uses Winows 7. I can not even get started because I can not understand the information that I have on my hard drive partitions. Windows 7 says that I have the following :
Local Disk(C:) 78.1 GB free of 99.9GB
Local Disk(D:) 49.8 GB free of 83.8.GB
NewVolume(G:) 948 KB of 0.99 GB
Local Disk(F:) 37.9 GB free of 38..0 GB
(Originally the ASUS only had two partitions C: and D: I used Gparted to genetate F: and G:)
gparted-live-0.7.1.5 says that I have the following :-
/dev/sda1 ntfs 992.5 KB
/devf/sda2 ntfs 100.00 GB with 66.09GB unused
/dev/sda3 ntfs 132.88GB with 129.88 GB unused
unallocated 1.00 GB
Debian Squeeze (the net install version) will not install. G was the result of trying to provide some swap space. How do I prepare the hard drive so that Squeeze it will install on F: ?
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Jul 29, 2011
how to install Debian after Windows is already installed. Could someone give me a brief guide to begin the process of installing Windows? When I installed Debian I already made a partition for windows (in the same hard disk), I hope I did it right.
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Mar 26, 2010
me a easy and right answer to this post
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Feb 16, 2009
I am building a new PC from scratch and want to dual boot XP and Ubuntu. I have two 1TB drives. I was planning to run RAID 1, whereby one drive would mirror the other drive, and install XP, Ubuntu, and all data on the single drive. Now Im thinking maybe I should reserve the 1TB drive for data and install two smaller drives, one to hold XP and one to hold Ubuntu and their respective programs. In this latter config, the OS and programs would not be mirrored. Im new to dual booting and linux.
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Mar 28, 2010
how to use Grub2 to boot Windows XP and Linux.
[code]...
there were no entries in the Grub 2 menu after booting. I don't really understand the numbering of hd0,0 to like sda, but I changed "root (hd1,0)" to "root (hd0,0)" if Windows is on hd0, but after rebooting, I still didn't see it. I read somewhere that Grub2 starts partitions at 1, but wasn't sure that was true because in menu.lst they start with 0 sometimes. know entry-level steps to solve this?
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Oct 27, 2010
I upgraded a while back to Windows 7. I run two separate HDDs, with debian on sda and windows on sdb. Everything worked fine, up until i upgraded to windows 7. The installer forced me to unplug sda. After installing I repositioned the HDDs and was stuck with a "NTLDR is Missing" message. After removing the search -fs--uuid tag from grub.cfg, Windows 7 booted for a good 0.5 sec and then rebooted. All that flashed was the "Starting Windows" page. I see similar bugs reported in the launchpad, but nothing that directly parallels this.
Here's my windows entry in grub.cfg:
Changing ${root} to (hd1) makes no difference. Also, I've been using Windows 7 for moths now without a problem, it's only when I try and boot it form grub2 that I get a problem. Physically removing sda lets Windows 7 boot fine.
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