“How to” Dual boot Ubuntu and Windows 7 (Ubuntu installed first)

[khristian]

It may be to do with that windows 7 takes over the winxp bootloader.

Well, it was expected: upon installing 7 it would overwrite the XP bootloader, including a reference to it in an "Earlier version of Windows" entry. The problem was that, when performing the steps to restore grub, it would result in the vista/7 loader being corrupted.
After some more trials, the problem was solved by reinstalling Ubuntu... go figure.
Anyway, I've adopted a different approach now: I've installed Ubuntu, 7, installed the Ubuntu bootloader to its root partition, and used EasyBCD to add an entry referencing that bootloader to the Vista/7 bootloader.
No more bootloader updates for me, as long as I don't reinstall windows.

[Cain67]

ok, i have a problem
was running windows 7 on the 4th part of partition.
then installed ubuntu on the first partition.

i have followed your awesome guide, but no matter which i load, (hdd0,0,1,2,3) it wont work...

i have a 500gb hdd.
first is 12gb partition, with ubuntu installed.
2nd and 3rd are 200gb partitions with files on.
4th is the windows 7 partition.

someone please help!
cheers

[hyperdude111]

ok, i have a problem
was running windows 7 on the 4th part of partition.
then installed ubuntu on the first partition.

i have followed your awesome guide, but no matter which i load, (hdd0,0,1,2,3) it wont work...

i have a 500gb hdd.
first is 12gb partition, with ubuntu installed.
2nd and 3rd are 200gb partitions with files on.
4th is the windows 7 partition.

someone please help!
cheers

I think your problem is that you are typing hdd0,2 hdd0,3 in grub istead of hda0,1 hda 0,2 .

I think that hda0,4 or hda0,5 or hda0,6 will boot win7 from your setup

[Cain67]

ok, slight hitch, you were right about the hdd issue and so i have corrected that.
however iv listed the options for partitions, and it recognizes the 4 partitions.

0=ubuntu
4,5 = data
6=windows 7

however, when setting the first line to (hd0,6) it come up with
invalid device requested

any ideas???
cheers

[Cain67]

ok, new issue:
missing NTLDR press ctrl+alt+del to restart

was given a link to a NTLDR iso which worked... until i selected the correct partition and screen went black.

[hyperdude111]

ok, new issue:
missing NTLDR press ctrl+alt+del to restart

was given a link to a NTLDR iso which worked... until i selected the correct partition and screen went black.

AH You can now boot into win7 BUT your windows install is corrupted. This happened to me when i re-sized the win partition after install.

Your only choice is to re-install windows 7 the do what you did earlier. (On a positive note you already know what partition it is, so it should be a lot easier)

Good Luck

[Ubuntme70]

Well, was not from ubuntu first but was second just had to flip flop hard drives cause the drive with 7 on it did not have a boot manager file used windows 7 install disk to write the Bmgr on the 7 drive!!
Works fine now!

[fathafiga]

Hello, and thanks so much for this walk-through. I followed it, and sadly my machine reboots and goes right back into GRUB every time I select "windows 7 beta (Loader)" from the boot menu. I'm 100% sure I have the correct partition selected in menu.lst (hda0,1). (When I select the incorrect partition, it gives me the "Cannot find Boot Manager" error.)

I followed this guide to a T with the exception of two minor(?) details:

1) I did not use GParted to create the partitions. I used the Ubuntu installer to create them during an old install. I created one for Ubuntu and one for Windows 7, and installed each OS respectively. Then I re-installed both OSes over both partitions so that I could follow this guide. I didn't think it would matter how the partitions got created.

2) I'm using the newer release candidate of Windows 7 rather than the original beta. I figured the process would be the same for each version of Windows 7. Maybe I was wrong?

I don't think this particular reboot issue has been resolved directly in this thread. I'm not sure where to go from here. Should I use GParted to wipe this entire drive clean of partitions and create new ones? Or perhaps the Windows 7 RC1 has some booting issues that the older beta didn't have. Sorry to resurrect this ancient thread, but any advice would be much appreciated.

[hyperdude111]

Hello, and thanks so much for this walk-through. I followed it, and sadly my machine reboots and goes right back into GRUB every time I select "windows 7 beta (Loader)" from the boot menu. I'm 100% sure I have the correct partition selected in menu.lst (hda0,1). (When I select the incorrect partition, it gives me the "Cannot find Boot Manager" error.)

I followed this guide to a T with the exception of two minor(?) details:

1) I did not use GParted to create the partitions. I used the Ubuntu installer to create them during an old install. I created one for Ubuntu and one for Windows 7, and installed each OS respectively. Then I re-installed both OSes over both partitions so that I could follow this guide. I didn't think it would matter how the partitions got created.

2) I'm using the newer release candidate of Windows 7 rather than the original beta. I figured the process would be the same for each version of Windows 7. Maybe I was wrong?

I don't think this particular reboot issue has been resolved directly in this thread. I'm not sure where to go from here. Should I use GParted to wipe this entire drive clean of partitions and create new ones? Or perhaps the Windows 7 RC1 has some booting issues that the older beta didn't have. Sorry to resurrect this ancient thread, but any advice would be much appreciated.

1. I doubt using the RC will make any differences, it is still the same OS with a few bug fixes and it has not affected anything with me.

2. The way you set up the partitions is fine, a partition is always the same the tool you use to do it doesn't matter.
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On to your problem, i would **guess** the partition you have labled in your menu.lst is wrong. Just to be sure make about 4 different entries in your grub with hda0,0 then hda0,1 then hda0,2 and try that. If win7 is on partition one it will be hda0,0 not 1.

If that does not work try a full re-format the follow the guide from the beginning but only do this if there is nothing important on that hard drive because you will lose EVERYTHING. But the most likely problem is your grub setup so play with that.

BTW You can change the name from beta to RC or whatever you want, i just never bothered updating this thread. I should also post a link to the RC but i CBA.

Good Luck

[adifire]

I've a situation. Initially I'd 3 OS, ubuntu, vista and win 7. Then my vista crashed and I thought I'd format it. But then later I realised that the Windows7 boot depends on vista's. So without vista, 7 won't boot (shows bootmgr missing) and now I've ubuntu.
I tried figuring out how wimdows 7 boots, but there's no bootmgr file, nor boot.ini or any boot file for that matter I've noticed when only win7 is installed (I seperately installed it on virtual box).

Is there any way I can reload Win7 without having to reinstall it? I know it's ubuntu forums, but hey if you guys know, let me know to!!!