Dual boot and partitions

[nicoliani]

By nicoliani at 2012-03-23

First of all, is this right? I thought C: should be formatted as a primary to work as it runs my OS. Now it's labelled as a systemstart (boot) under a logical drive.
There are 30 MB used in my system primary partition. If I want to dual boot is it here that OS's system files are going to be located, and if yes how many OS's can I place here as it's around 100 MB?
Should I create a new primary partition for a dual boot.

I plan to install Ubuntu.

[[R-COM]MaSSive]

The 100Mb partition is used by WIn7. Its a place where Win7 puts its recovery tools and boot configs, with OS loader.

If you want to use Ubuntu with Win7 in dual boot, I dont recommend you point Nix system to windows boot partition unless you want your system fubar.

Here is one of tons of guides on www how to do it.

How to dual-boot Windows 7 and Ubuntu 11.04

Make sure you read both pages and dont miss anything, especially the loader part.


Also you can choose to play 100% safe and simply unplug your Win7 OS drive while you're installing Ubuntu. This way you will have two separate systems on two separate drives. Only downside is that you will have to use bios boot menu every time you want to switch OS after reboot. Depends on you mainboard bios. Mine is F12 on boot, and then select hard drive you want to boot from.

Also a tip. Don't write anything from Ubuntu system to NTFS partitions. Use Ext3 or Ext4 for that.

[nicoliani]

Good guide! So it's no worry that my Win7 is installed on a logical drive and not as a primary partition?

[[R-COM]MaSSive]

Originally Posted by nicoliani

Good guide! So it's no worry that my Win7 is installed on a logical drive and not as a primary partition?

No its not. Just dont point linux to it, or system reserved partition and dont let him overwrite it and you'll be fine.

I suggest you use your non OS drive for installing linux. Maybe delete "G" or "H" partition and point Ubuntu to unallocated space on that drive. If you have second PC or laptop open guide on it while you're doing install. If you get stuck post here, well try to help.

[nicoliani]

I will install it on the same drive but on a different partition. Is it possible to keep the Master Boot Record (MBR) for Windows 7 and have a second Linux boot loader (GRUB) on a different partition?
Meaning one drive with two boot loaders but on different partitions.

[[R-COM]MaSSive]

Originally Posted by nicoliani

I will install it on the same drive but on a different partition. Is it possible to keep the Master Boot Record (MBR) for Windows 7 and have a second Linux boot loader (GRUB) on a different partition?
Meaning one drive with two boot loaders but on different partitions.

Then Ill suggest you to delete partition you do not use on that drive and point Ubuntu to make install on that unallocated space. Just follow the guide I linked above.

As for boot loader I dont recommend overwriting MBR. As they say in guide

If you install GRUB in the MBR, it will overwrite Windows? boot programs. This is the most common and requires no other configuration on your part. However, upgrading or reinstalling Windows, or even installing a Service Pack can overwrite certain aspects of GRUB. Restoring GRUB is not a very difficult task, but you can save yourself the trouble by installing GRUB in the boot partition of Ubuntu. This is the recommended method because it completely separate the two operating systems, even as they co-exist on the same disk. It does requires additional configuration on your part. That, however, is nothing compared to the potential headache of the other option.

Configuring boot loader is easy its all explained in tutorial. You may use MBR but if something goes wrong you might have both systems unusable.

[[R-COM]LITOralis.nMd]

Ninja'd, I wasn't paying attention. Use Massive's guide above, it is simpler and more up to date.

I suggest following this guide:
Download or buy BCDEditor 2.X Make sure it is 2.0.X or higher, the 1.X builds do not work correctly for windows 7.
Download and burn Gparted.
Follow this simple guide to load both OS onto the MBR:
How to Dual Boot Windows 7 and Linux using BCDEdit | iceflatline

[Pedz]

Another method is to install Wubi


Download | Ubuntu

Don't need to partition at all, just allocate it some room on your HDD ( I have 50GB) you can access all your files in windows and Linux across platforms, and to uninstall it, just remove it like you would any other program. Couldn't be simpler

[nicoliani]

I installed it with no dual boot, it's the only OS on my netbook.
I have tried numerous times, both by letting Ubuntu do the install automatically and me setting the partitions, although I end up with the same outcome and that is when I look in GParted I see the swap file doesn't exist, and I can't even set that partition as swap in GParted.

By nicoliani at 2012-04-01

The swap file should be sda5, and as you can see its file system is unknown.

[[R-COM]LITOralis.nMd]

I'm guessing you chose Swedish as your local language.

Feck, my first reply is wrong.
the answer is in the gparted manual, ....
give me a second, I'm supposed to know this for work and can't remember...
I'll get you answer soon.

edit, is that Ubuntu 11.10 netbook edition?