Installing dual boot Precise (12.04) alongside Windows 7

[kjaspan]

Installing dual boot Precise (12.04) alongside Windows 7
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This should not be SO DIFFICULT!!!:

In my wisdom I bought a new HP p7-1247c Pavilion 64 bit AMD computer to replace my old trusty Dell E 320, which was running Win XP and recently upgraded Xubuntu 12.04. I have never had trouble with installation before but this has been very frustrating, to say the least.

I initially tried the default installation, installing XUbuntu 12.04 alongside Windows 7. This clobbered the MBR so I had to use boot-repair to be able to access Windows since then. I must note I had an external WD 1tB drive connected.

I could not, after that, access the Xubuntu installation. When I selected Xubuntu from the dual boot menu, I got a grub menu which looked hauntingly like the grub menu from my old computer, which was probably mirrored on my External (backup) drive.

I tried EasyBSD, as in one of the posts in AskUbuntu, to set up a dual boot menu, but I still get the old grub menu, which says the disk is not found and I have to install the kernel. I tried to use this post:
http://askubuntu.com/questions/28099...ng-all-kernels
but that did not help.

I have also tried several times to follow this post:
http://www.linuxbsdos.com/2012/05/17...d-windows-7/2/

I am running out of ideas, posts and patience!! Please help, someone! This should have been worked out by Canonical and should have been simple.

Kevin

[kjaspan]

I retried the "Something else" installation in the http://www.linuxbsdos.com/2012/05/17...d-windows-7/2/
post but got the grub> prompt. This was using EasyBSD to add my Xubuntu installation as a Grub2 item, with EasyBSD automatically locating the loader (which it found on F:\NST).

If I use EasyBSD to select Grub (Legacy) Loader and specify the Xubuntu boot partition, I just get a blinking cursor.

If I use EasyBSD's default Grub (device automatically detected) with the NeoGrub OS tab, I get the grub prompt again. The loader used was, again, F:\NST

If I specify the boot drive in the Advanced tab, I still get the grub prompt.


I think I have exhausted the simple options.

Why is this so difficult???

[darkod]

No, the simple option is to use grub2 on the MBR. Any reason to insist on windows bootloader and EasyBCD?

Are you sure xubuntu is installed correctly at all? You should run the boot info script (you can do that with boot-repair too since you already used it once) and see what you have and where. Even if grub2 didn't install on the MBR we can help install it.

Use boot-repair again but only to create the boot info results (not to do any repairs) and post the link it gives you.

[kjaspan]

Darko,

Thank you for your reply. Here are the results, attached.

I have been using Ubuntu for more than 5 years but have never encountered this sort of installation problems.

I look forward to your suggestions.

Once again, I appreciate your help.

Kevin

[wilee-nilee]

You have two 12.04 installs the sda5 could boot it looks like all the grub files are there the sda6 is missing them which one is the one you want?

The sda6 will need the grub files loaded.

[oldfred]

It looks like the fstab for sda6 calls out sda5 as a /boot partition, so it may have overwritten boot files in sda5?

I normally do not suggest /boot partitions as it just adds this type of confusion.

Herman on advantages/disadvantages of separate system partitions post#3
http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=1410392