14.04 LTS 64 bit adding windows 7 for dual boot installation fails

[KieranFitzgerald]

I have a system with UBUNTU installed on a SSD HDD combo. I have a windows 7 pro 64 bit installation CD.
I have made 50Gb unallocated space on my SSD to take W7.
The installation from the CD starts and I selected custom install to the the unallocated space.
File copy starts but at the the first reboot the system wont restart and aborts the installation.
Ubuntu still boots after this.

Any ideas on how to proceed?

Thanks

[oldfred]

Is Ubuntu booting in UEFI or BIOS boot mode.
And then if Ubuntu is in BIOS boot mode, is drive MBR or gpt partitioned.

If BIOS Windows only installs to a MBR primary partition formatted NTFS with the boot flag. Do not have the primary partition after the extended partition or you may have issues.

If UEFI, not sure as Windows has several partitions as requirements. And Windows only boots from gpt partitioned drives with UEFI.

How you boot installer is how it will install, so if system is both UEFI & BIOS you must have correct partitioning and boot installer correctly.

Are you sure you just have CD? That is usually just an upgrade. Full installs are DVDs.

[KieranFitzgerald]

Sorry my mistake it's DVD installer.
I think my system is has both UEFI and BIOS. The "BIOS" boot menu has two entries for each disk with one labelled as UEFI.
The Linux boot partition mount point states /boot/efi.
How do I check for the partitioning scheme?
I'll have another go at installing.

Thinking of a virtual box install instead!

[oldfred]

If you reinstall, see caution in link in my signature.

Post this:
sudo parted -l

If UEFI and drive is gpt partitioned, you must then boot Windows in UEFI mode.

[KieranFitzgerald]

Hope this helps


Model: ATA Samsung SSD 840 (scsi)Disk /dev/sda: 120GB
Sector size (logical/physical): 512B/512B
Partition Table: gpt


Number Start End Size File system Name Flags
1 1049kB 512MB 511MB fat32 boot
2 512MB 27.8GB 27.3GB ext4
3 27.8GB 44.6GB 16.8GB ext4
4 44.6GB 97.0GB 52.4GB ntfs boot




Model: ATA WDC WD10EZRX-00D (scsi)
Disk /dev/sdb: 1000GB
Sector size (logical/physical): 512B/4096B
Partition Table: gpt


Number Start End Size File system Name Flags
1 1049kB 4000MB 3999MB ext4
2 4000MB 9000MB 5000MB linux-swap(v1)
3 9420MB 790GB 781GB ext4
4 790GB 979GB 189GB ntfs msftdata




Model: ATA ST3250410AS (scsi)
Disk /dev/sdc: 250GB
Sector size (logical/physical): 512B/512B
Partition Table: gpt


Number Start End Size File system Name Flags
1 1049kB 538MB 537MB fat32 boot
2 538MB 82.4GB 81.9GB ext4
4 82.4GB 246GB 164GB ext4
3 246GB 250GB 3967MB linux-swap(v1)




Warning: Unable to open /dev/sr0 read-write (Read-only file system). /dev/sr0
has been opened read-only.
Error: /dev/sr0: unrecognised disk label

[oldfred]

You can only have one partition per hard drive with the boot flag.
In BIOS the boot flag must be on the NTFS primary partition with the Windows boot files.
But in UEFI/gpt the boot flag is on the efi partition.

You have two boot flags, which then confuses everything. Remove boot flag from sda4.
But when installing Windows in UEFI mode it really wants another partition - system reserved just before the first NTFS partition.

Microsoft suggested partitions including reserved partition for gpt & UEFI:
http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/dd744301%28WS.10%29.aspx
Order on drive is important: msftres
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Microsoft_Reserved_Partition

Then be sure to boot USB installer in UEFI mode.

[KieranFitzgerald]

My first attempt at this was with unallocated space on the ssd after sda3 hoping that Windows would setup its partitions during install.
The additional partition and boot flag were a recent attempt to resolve the problem.

Would a USB installer be better than a DVD based one?

[oldfred]

Have not installed Windows since XP. :)

Have not see details, but most use flash drive as it is faster & flash drive is reusable. But does DVD boot in UEFI mode?
Others have posted with Windows 7 that it does need to be copied to flash drive and some minor updates done to have it boot in UEFI mode.

[KieranFitzgerald]

The DVD boots fine.

I had another go.
Set computer "Bios" to boot UEFI only. Start live Ubuntu session and delete sda4 . Run boot-repair.
Boot DVD and start windows install to unallocated space on the SSD (sda).

The following message appears after the first phase of file copying

"Windows could not prepare the computer to boot into the next phase of installation"

Only option is to restart the installation.
Ubuntu still boots.

latest partition table


Model: ATA Samsung SSD 840 (scsi)Disk /dev/sda: 120GB
Sector size (logical/physical): 512B/512B
Partition Table: gpt


Number Start End Size File system Name Flags
1 1049kB 512MB 511MB fat32 boot
2 512MB 27.8GB 27.3GB ext4
3 27.8GB 44.6GB 16.8GB ext4
4 44.6GB 44.7GB 105MB fat32 EFI system partition boot
5 44.7GB 44.8GB 134MB Microsoft reserved partition msftres
6 44.8GB 120GB 75.2GB ntfs Basic data partition msftdata




Model: ATA WDC WD10EZRX-00D (scsi)
Disk /dev/sdb: 1000GB
Sector size (logical/physical): 512B/4096B
Partition Table: gpt


Number Start End Size File system Name Flags
1 1049kB 4000MB 3999MB ext4
2 4000MB 9000MB 5000MB linux-swap(v1)
3 9420MB 790GB 781GB ext4
4 790GB 979GB 189GB ntfs msftdata




Model: ATA ST3250410AS (scsi)
Disk /dev/sdc: 250GB
Sector size (logical/physical): 512B/512B
Partition Table: gpt


Number Start End Size File system Name Flags
1 1049kB 538MB 537MB fat32 boot
2 538MB 82.4GB 81.9GB ext4
4 82.4GB 246GB 164GB ext4
3 246GB 250GB 3967MB linux-swap(v1)




Warning: Unable to open /dev/sr0 read-write (Read-only file system). /dev/sr0
has been opened read-only.
Error: /dev/sr0: unrecognised disk label




This appears to be similar to the partition scheme recommended, two boot flags again!

This should be easy, not sure what to do next.

[oldfred]

Windows created a second efi partition!
It should have seen the first one.

Has it copied efi folder /EFI/Microsoft into the efi partition? It may have failed in copy to efi partition as now you have two?

[KieranFitzgerald]

Forward and back

I now have Windows installed and running, another site recommended unplugging the other disks while installing.
No Ubuntu boot as expected so I ran boot repair. I pressed continue after the secure boot warning but all appeared to work. Now if I select Ubuntu in the boot menu it boots up but is finding home on my sdc (which was in before as a backup instead of sdb)? Any thoughts?

[oldfred]

Windows does not correctly see Linux partitions, so it often rewrites partition table without Linux partitions.
Or did you install Windows in BIOS mode which then converts drive to MBR and erases all gpt info?

May be best to see all details:
Boot Repair -Also handles LVM, GPT, separate /boot and UEFI dual boot.:
Precise, Trusty, Vivid, & Utopic all should work now with current ppa
https://help.ubuntu.com/community/Boot-Repair

[KieranFitzgerald]

Solved:
Ran boot-repair working with windows dual boot. Fantastic.
Thanks for all your help.