Just about to install Karmic on laptop

[sqrooup]

As it says above I am about to install Karmic on to my laptop, wish me luck!
I intend to have dual boot; my laptop has a 500GB hard drive, I intend to use 200GB for the Karmic, leaving 300GB for the original Windows 7.
When I first got the laptop Windows insisted I make a recovery disc or USB stick; this is available!

I am going to hold off for about an hour, so that any comments can be posted: some questions are;

If it's a total failure, how to run recovery mode in windows 7?
If GRUB does not recognise windows , how to set it up?
What else can go wrong?

This is not the first time I have tried to partition an existing drive, my main PC was partitioned with Hardy / Karmic, but GRUB only recognises Hardy; hence my reluctance! So any help / comments would be useful.

[khelben1979]

I would recommend that you take backups of your Windows system before you proceed. Other than this, booting Windows 7 and Linux from two different harddrives would be the most pain free solution, in my opinion.

From what I've read from this thread (http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=1312894), you can expect problems.

[sqrooup]

OK have followed the threads, have been to http://bootinfoscript.sourceforge.net/, and got the following;

Boot Info Script 0.55 dated February 15th, 2010

============================= Boot Info Summary: ==============================

=> Windows is installed in the MBR of /dev/sda

sda1: __________________________________________________ _______________________

File system: ntfs
Boot sector type: Windows Vista/7
Boot sector info: No errors found in the Boot Parameter Block.
Operating System:
Boot files/dirs: /bootmgr /Boot/BCD

sda2: __________________________________________________ _______________________

File system: ntfs
Boot sector type: Windows Vista/7
Boot sector info: No errors found in the Boot Parameter Block.
Operating System: Windows 7
Boot files/dirs: /Windows/System32/winload.exe

=========================== Drive/Partition Info: =============================

Drive: sda ___________________ __________________________________________________ ___

Disk /dev/sda: 500.1 GB, 500107862016 bytes
255 heads, 63 sectors/track, 60801 cylinders, total 976773168 sectors
Units = sectors of 1 * 512 = 512 bytes
Disk identifier: 0xcfa505bf

Partition Boot Start End Size Id System

/dev/sda1 * 2,048 19,458,047 19,456,000 7 HPFS/NTFS
/dev/sda2 19,458,048 976,771,119 957,313,072 7 HPFS/NTFS


blkid -c /dev/null: __________________________________________________ __________

Device UUID TYPE LABEL

/dev/loop0 squashfs
/dev/sda1 3CC49F13C49ECF10 ntfs System
/dev/sda2 982EA0A02EA07940 ntfs Windows

============================ "mount | grep ^/dev output: ===========================

Device Mount_Point Type Options

aufs / aufs (rw)
/dev/sr0 /cdrom iso9660 (rw)
/dev/loop0 /rofs squashfs (rw)


Any advice from this point?

For the record the laptop is an Advent Roma 3000, with an Intel Pentium T4300.

I will hold off for a bit longer.

[darkod]

Boot win7 and use Disk Management to shrink the system partition (/dev/sd2 in linux terms) for as much as you want. Leave the space as unallocated, don't create any parttion for ubuntu from windows. Boot win7 few times after that.

Then when you are sure win7 is fine after the shrink, boot with the ubuntu cd, select Install Ubuntu and in step 4 tell it to Use Largest Available Free space which will install it into the unallocated space you left for it.

That's it.

Did you run ubuntu in Try Ubuntu mode first to see if the hardware on the laptop will work as expected?

[2hot6ft2]

Well I'll add this. A lot of the problems people are having with win7 rebooting is that they are using bootleg copies of it, and there are problems with the bootlaoder hacks as shown in these threads.

Program based Windows 7 loader (http://forums.mydigitallife.info/threads/8632-Program-based-Windows-7-loader)
RemoveWAT - A safer activation solution. (http://forums.mydigitallife.info/threads/10895-RemoveWAT-A-safer-activation-solution.)

And since no one is going to admit they have a bootleg copy that they are using it makes it hard to tell who has a genuine copy of win7 with issues.

[sqrooup]

Did you run ubuntu in Try Ubuntu mode first to see if the hardware on the laptop will work as expected?

I did indeed, and pleased to see it works.

Will start proceeding with operation. Will let you know how how I get on.

[sqrooup]

Update;

IT'S ALIVE!!

CHAMPAGNE FOR EVERYONE!!!
I now have a dual booting laptop (win 7/karmic)!
Thanks to all who helped (especially Darkod, your idea helped)!

sqrooup