Dual booting trouble in windows

[khansubhan95]

I have a Lenovo laptop (640 GB HDD and 4 GB RAM) on which I am attempting to dual boot with Ubuntu 14.04.4 LTS.The hard disk sections on windows(under disk management) look like this in order.

Capacity Filesystem

200 MB NTFS Healthy(System,Active,Primary)
2.48 GB Unallocated
389.75 GB NTFS C:
203.75 GB Unallocated

However during installation ,"Install alongside windows 7" does not appear.Moreover clicking on "Something Else" option gives the following

device type size
/dev/sda
/dev/sda1 ntfs 209 MB
free space 2.7 GB
/dev/sda2 ntfs 418 GB
free space 218.8 GB

My questions is why is the above said option not appearing ?Or is this not a problem and can we proceed using the "Something Else" option?Also is the problem caused by the hard disk sections?

[oldfred]

Something wrong with sizes. 209+418+218 > 640

Post these from terminal in live installer's live mode:
sudo parted -l
sudo fdisk -lu

[Bucky Ball]

What you're seeing in Ubuntu in Gparted or the 'Something Else' installer is a direct, and more accurate, reflection of what you are seeing in Windows.

After sorting out whatever oldfred is asking about, you can and should proceed with Something Else rather than the 'Alongside' option. Safer. Presuming you are intending to install to the 218Gb free space?

[khansubhan95]

The sizes are
209.7 MB (0.204 GB)+2.7 GB+418.5+218.8=640 GB(approx)

After running sudo parted -l


Model: ATA TOSHIBA MK6465GS (scsi)
Disk /dev/sda: 640GB
Sector size (logical/physical): 512B/512B
Partition Table: msdos

Number Start End Size Type File system Flags
1 1049kB 211MB 210MB primary ntfs boot
2 2871MB 421GB 418GB primary ntfs


sudo fdisk -lu

Disk /dev/sda: 640.1 GB, 640135028736 bytes
255 heads, 63 sectors/track, 77825 cylinders, total 1250263728 sectors
Units = sectors of 1 * 512 = 512 bytes
Sector size (logical/physical): 512 bytes / 512 bytes
I/O size (minimum/optimal): 512 bytes / 512 bytes
Disk identifier: 0x446588b8

Device Boot Start End Blocks Id System
/dev/sda1 * 2048 411647 204800 7 HPFS/NTFS/exFAT
/dev/sda2 5606680 822977819 408685570 7 HPFS/NTFS/exFAT

@Bucky Ball while I know that proceeding with the "Something Else" option will be safer when compared to "alongside",the "alongside" option doesn't even appear

[Bucky Ball]

@Bucky Ball while I know that proceeding with the "Something Else" option will be safer when compared to "alongside",the "alongside" option doesn't even appear

Probably a good thing. Please use code tags for your terminal output. Thanks (see link in my signature for how).

PS: You have two partitions:


Number Start End Size Type File system Flags
1 1049kB 211MB 210MB primary ntfs boot
2 2871MB 421GB 418GB primary ntfs

The first one is a boot partition by the looks and the second would be Windows. You have no free space to install Ubuntu. You have two NTFS partitions.

[khansubhan95]

Running the Windows disc management gives the following

(http://<br /> https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B621iZr0p0N_a3U2eE5vV1NiWHVhZmZYYlpXSkpOd2VnaXV3/view?usp=sharing<br />)https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B621iZr0p0N_a3U2eE5vV1NiWHVhZmZYYlpXSkpOd2VnaXV3/view?usp=sharing

And Gparted gives the following

https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B621iZr0p0N_Qzd6VVVGUndaQkk/view?usp=sharing
(https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B621iZr0p0N_Qzd6VVVGUndaQkk/view?usp=sharing)

[Bucky Ball]

And the problem is? Yes, you have 203Gb of unallocated space to install Ubuntu. Your terminal output will only show partitions.

The empty space is shown in the Windows Disk Management, just not listed (it is in the blocks at the end of that screenshot). That is reflected in the Gparted output.

What you had in your first post:


device type size
/dev/sda
/dev/sda1 ntfs 209 MB
free space 2.7 GB
/dev/sda2 ntfs 418 GB
free space 218.8 GB

... is correct. Use Something Else, install in the 218Gb of free space. You will need a / partition and a /swap partition. The /swap need only be 2Gb. You can also include a /home partition for personal data, but you may have that already on the Win partition.

I'd have a bit of a think about how you're going to go about this before proceeding. If a legacy Windows install, then you are limited to four partitions and will need to create an extended partition and put Ubuntu on logical partitions inside that. And as mentioned, check how Windows is installed, in legacy or UEFI. Ubuntu needs to be installed in the same mode.

[oldfred]

Missed mixed MB & GB, sorry.

Looks like a typical BIOS/MBR install. Windows only boots in BIOS mode from MBR(msdos) partitioned drive.

If Windows is hibernated, and if Windows 8 or newer it always is hibernated with the fast start setting, the Linux NTFS driver will not see the NTFS. If that is the case that will explain why you do not get the along side option. It also happens if you just have resized the NTFS and not rebooted into Windows so it can run chkdsk.

[khansubhan95]

Looks like you were right about chkdsk .I ran it and got the following



The type of the file system is NTFS.


WARNING! F parameter not specified.
Running CHKDSK in read-only mode.


CHKDSK is verifying files (stage 1 of 3)...
1 percent complete. (101889 of 748544 file records processed)
Attribute record (128, "") from file record segment 113614
is corrupt.
748544 file records processed.
File verification completed.
817 large file records processed.


Errors found. CHKDSK cannot continue in read-only mode.


After some digging around in Google I found that 2 options can be used /f and /r,and which one should I use?Can running it cause any damage?

[oldfred]

Really question for Windows forum.

My old XP needed chkdsk once upon a time. I did use a Windows 7 repair flash drive and it ran a better chkdsk than the XP version.
If you have major damage it may move files or bits of files (that are already damaged).
This is why good backups are vital regardless of system used.

Comments by others:
Repair often does not work, some say run 3 times others recommend the command line bootrec.exe
Always run chkdsk and run again until there are no errors, that may be all that is required
chkdsk c: /b
/b includes /r
http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/cc730714%28v=ws.10%29.aspx

[khansubhan95]

After running chkdsk and fixing the errors the "install alongside" did not appear.So I decided to go with the "something else" option.So I successfully installed Ubuntu .However whenever I start my computer ,the GRUB screen ,showing the choice of the option does not appear.Could it be that the Windows 7 OS was wiped out?Also if it is of any value,a drive appears in Ubuntu showing all the files of my C: drive of Windows 7

[khansubhan95]

So I have solved this problem.Upon searching a post in a forum suggested to run



sudo upgrade-grub


And soon as the update was complete ,GRUB recognized Windows 7 and now I am able to dual boot between Ubuntu and Windows 7.I will now mark this thread as solved.

[Bucky Ball]

Well done and thanks for marking the thread as solved to help others.

Happy travels. :)