Win 7/Ubuntu 9.1 Dual Boot

[spike53]

Hey,
Now what I have a spare drive, I've decided to take a dip into Linux. I tried installing it, it works, on its own though. However, I can't figure out how to get it to dual boot. I have 2 drives (not partitions but physical drives), one is dedicated Windows 7, the other one is dedicated for Ubuntu. 7 is my primary and is the only one that works from the boot menu I created. I used Easy BCD to create the MBR. When I use any other bootmanager other than GRUB, I get a message saying that Ubuntu can't boot from its hard drive. When I use GRUB, it comes up with some DOS looking GUI which I don't know what to do with. I'm a Linux beginner so I don't know many codes.
I want to know what I need to do in order to get my 7 and Ubuntu discs to cooperate together so I can successfully make a dual boot.
Thanks for the help,
Spike

[Arand]

What I would do is (re-)install GRUB to the mbr of the Ubuntu disk, and then setup EasyBCD to chainload GRUB from that disk.

Reinstalling GRUB via a liveCD should take care of getting past the GRUB rescue screen (which is due to grub not being able to load the GRUB configuration file):


Boot a liveCD
Start a terminal from [menu]Applications>Accessories>Terminal
Find out what partition is the Ubuntu root:
sudo fdisk -lThe Ubuntu root should be the one designated Linux (not Linux swap) e.g.
/dev/sdb1 * 1 15504256 488384032+ 83 LinuxI will thus use sdb1 for the Ubuntu root, if yours is ootherwise, change all following commands accordingly.
.
If you have a separate /boot partition these instruction does NOT apply (it needs to be mounted to /mnt/boot in addition)
.
Mount current ubuntu root partition :
sudo mount /dev/sdb1 /mnt Reinstall GRUB:
sudo grub-install --root-directory=/mnt /dev/sdb

Now GRUB should be setup to load if the mbr of the second harddisk is initiated.
Then make BCD load the mbr of the second disk, using EasyBCD or otherwise.

- Arand

[spike53]

Thanks for the help Arand!
I tried what you said and it gave me a confirmation that GRUB was installed. However I didn't know about the way BCD wants it to be done so it never really worked until I came across the documentation on how to do it.
http://neosmart.net/wiki/display/EBCD/Ubuntu is the link to the steps I followed and they worked like a charm. Apparently I didn't do many things right the first time.
Regards!
Spike