XP Compatible Drive - NTFS, Whats wrong?

[jzacsh]

Hello,

I have a tower with two drives in it. Ubuntu 9.04 is installed beautifully on one of the drives.

I popped in my Windows XP CD, because I'd like to install it on the other drive, and rebooted. Once I booted from the XP install CD, using "setup" I hit "c" for "create partition" on the drive that wasn't formated (the empty one without ubuntu). Even though I partitioned that drive with Setup's help, Setup told me:

To install Windows on the partition you selected setup must write some startup files to the following disk:
xxxxx MB Disk 0 at Id 0 on bus 0 on atapi [MBR]

However, this disk does not contain a Windows XP compatible partition.
To continue installing Windows XP, return to the partition selection screen, and create a Windows XP-compatible partition on the disk above. If there is no free space on the disk, delete an existing partition and then create a new one.
To return to the partition selection screen, press ENTER.

So I thought, okay maybe it can't write an NTFS from scratch. So I booted into Jaunty, and installed "gparted" and "ntfsprogs" via synaptic package manager. I then used gparted to make that drive an NTFS drive. I rebooted using the XP install cd, and still I get the same error message. What should I do? does this have anything to do with me using ubuntu? or is this my lack of understanding Windows only?

Thanks in advance for any help!

[ohzopants]

For dual booting you have to start with Windows first. I'm not sure you can do it while still preserving your current installation.

Sorry.

[juanoleso]

I would try using gparted and create a small 100MB primary partition ntfs format before your Ubuntu ext3 partition and then try installing windows. I'm pretty sure windows setup expects that first primary partition on the boot HDD to be ntfs.

BTW, windows setup would then overwrite the MBR on the boot HDD which you would have to "reinstall" grub. You can follow these instructions here: https://help.ubuntu.com/community/GrubHowto

[ainsworth_t]

Basically what that message is saying is that it can't update the bootloader on the first disk with the new Windows XP install entry. This is because you installed Ubuntu first, which installed GRUB as the bootloader on the first disk. Not only is GRUB not recognized by Windows as a bootloader (since Windows can only write to it's own NTLDR bootloader) but GRUB resides on an ext3 formatted partition (which is not a partition format that Windows recognizes).

So just like ohzopants said, you must install Windows first. I would recommend installing Windows first on the first disk, then coming back and installing Ubuntu on the second disk.

This way, the Ubuntu installation process will recognize the existing Windows installation and will then install GRUB to the first disk and write the appropriate bootloader entry for both Ubuntu and Windows.

[jzacsh]

wow, i totally wouldn't have known any of this, or to query for any of this on my own. awesome, thank you everyone for the explanation. especially the details about the boot loader!

:)
cheers.

[presence1960]

switch the boot order of your disks in BIOS so that the disk you want to install windows onto is first. You probably have the Ubuntu hard disk set as first boot in the order so of course windows needs to write to that disk. You DO NOT HAVE TO INSTALL WINDOWS FIRST!! THAT IS BOLDERDASH! Then after you install windows switch the order back in BIOS. Then reinstall GRUB if necessary:

1. Boot your computer up with Ubuntu CD
2. Open a terminal window or switch to a tty.
3. Type sudo grub. Should get text of which last line is grub>
4. Type "find /boot/grub/stage1". You'll get a response like "(hd0,1)".
Use whatever your computer spits out for the following lines.
5. Type "root (hd0,1)", or whatever your hard disk + boot partition
numbers are for Ubuntu.
6. Type "setup (hd0)", to install GRUB to MBR, or "setup (hd0,1)" or
whatever your hard disk + partition # is, to install GRUB to a
partition.
7. Quit grub by typing "quit".
8. Reboot and remove the bootable CD.

You will probably have to add your windows entry to menu.lst manually. Don't forget to add the map lines in the entry so windows will think it is on the first boot device. Here is mine:

# This entry automatically added by the Debian installer for a non-linux OS
# on /dev/sdb1
title Microsoft Windows 7 RC
rootnoverify (hd1,0)
map (hd0) (hd1)
map (hd1) (hd0)
chainloader +1

I don't know where this stuff started that you MUST install windows first, but the fact remains that you can install either OS first. Some searching of our forum and some googling will turn up some info to show you how to do it. Do not limit yourself. What happens if your windows goes south on a dual boot? do you have to uninstall Linux too so you can reinstall windows? If you want to do it that way be my guest, but there is another way to do it.

P.S. I'll provide one of many topics on this subject : http://apcmag.com/how_to_dual_boot_l...lled_first.htm
It's not my favorite but it is a start.

Here is one straight from our community documentation : https://help.ubuntu.com/community/Re...tallingWindows

[jzacsh]

switch the boot order of your disks in BIOS so that the disk you want to install windows onto is first. You probably have the Ubuntu hard disk set as first boot in the order so of course windows needs to write to that disk. You DO NOT HAVE TO INSTALL WINDOWS FIRST!! THAT IS BOLDERDASH

Oh! awesome save, thanks presence1960 - I would've started my week off kind of sad tomorrow (having to re-set-up my ubuntu installation).

[presence1960]

Oh! awesome save, thanks presence1960 - I would've started my week off kind of sad tomorrow (having to re-set-up my ubuntu installation).

No problem, I would hate for you to have to do all that work for nothing!

[egalvan]

I don't know where this stuff started that you MUST install windows first, but the fact remains that you can install either OS first

Probably the same place that the "balderdash" about "32bit systems can see/use a max of 4GB RAM"

It's true that it's EASIER to install Windows first, because GRUB/Linux play well with others, while MS-Windows does not.
MS-Windows expects to be the ONLY system, and it expects to be on the FIRST drive.

GRUB/Linux don't mind sharing, and don't mind being loaded onto any drive in the computer.


People often have a problem, stumble onto a solution, but don't really understand either the problem or the solution.
And then they like to think that their solution is the only one.
And it soon turns into "balderdash"
But many believe it!

Thanks, presence1960.

EGalvan

[ohzopants]

Opps... I misread that to read that he had 2 PARTITIONS.

Sorry to have misinformed you. Presence's way of doing it will most definitely work with your setup.