issues with dual boot after windows 8

[rochford77]

back story:
-im using windows 7 right now, and wish to Dual Boot with Ubuntu
-ive used ubuntu before through WUBI. but its off the machine as of now
- i have a live/install cd with ubuntu on it that i just made
-i had a dual boot of windows 8 and windows 7, windows 8 is now gone, as well as the partition for it
-ive been on irc, they were not 100% sure how to resolve my issue

after taking windows 8 off my machine and now ONLY running windows 7, i put the ubuntu disk in, and i get the following options "install ubuntu alongside of windows 8, replace windows 8, advanced options" we think its just a boot issue, but my question is this: if i choose "install alongside of windows 8, will i loose my current/only OS (windows 7) or is grub just calling windows 7, windows 8?

i DO NOT want to loose my windows 7 OS and Data

[audiomick]

Ok, I'm guessing a bit, but I have seen several times where the Ubuntu side of things incorrectly identifies a windows install. On this machine, for instance, grub thinks that my Vista install is a windows recovery. I strongly suspect that what it is seeing as windows 8 is in fact your win7 installation.

What I would do is to boot into the live environment from the CD and use the partitioning program gparted to have a good look at your drive. You could even post a screen shot here so that people can have a look at it and offer their advice.

If you can boot into win7, and can only see one windows partition in gparted, then it is a pretty sure thing the the installer is just identifying it wrongly.

I probably don't need to tell you that it is a good idea to back up anything really important before you do your install. That is a good idea in any case, but in your situation even more so.

[rochford77]

"If you can boot into win7, and can only see one windows partition in gparted, then it is a pretty sure thing the the installer is just identifying it wrongly."

assuming you are correct, i will be fine with the "boot alongside windows" yes?

and im guessing "gparted" is in software center?

[Mark Phelps]

"If you can boot into win7, and can only see one windows partition in gparted, then it is a pretty sure thing the the installer is just identifying it wrongly."

assuming you are correct, i will be fine with the "boot alongside windows" yes?

NO -- not if you (1) do not have some unallocated space on the drive in which to create partitions for Ubuntu or (2) use the Ubuntu installer to shrink the Win7 OS partition to make room.

Shrinking using the installer can result in filesystem corruption in Win7, which can then render Win7 unbootable.

So, BEFORE you attempt that, if you don't have some unallocated space, shrink the Win7 OS only using the Win7 Disk Management utility.

Then, use the Win7 Backup feature to create and burn a Win7 Repair CD (if you don't already have one). This will provide you the tool needed to repair/restore the Win7 boot loader, should it become corrupted later due to your Ubuntu install.

and im guessing "gparted" is in software center?

Yes ... but ... you can't use GParted on a partition that is currently being used -- which is the case when you're running Ubuntu off your hard disk. IF you want to make changes to partitions that Ubuntu uses, you need to boot from a LiveCD or LiveUSB and run Gparted from there.

[audiomick]

NO -- not if you

I've been away for a bit, so I didn't notice that Mark had posted at the same time I was posting. What he says is true. Use the Windows tool to shrink your windows partition.

[audiomick]

assuming you are correct, i will be fine with the "boot alongside windows" yes?

Yes, if I am right, you can safely "install alongside", but do have a look for yourself

and im guessing "gparted" is in software center?

gparted is in the software center, and you can install it once you have Ubuntu installed.

In the Live environment, i.e. when you boot from the CD into the "try without installing" option, it is already installed by default.

[oldfred]

When you dual boot Windows the second install overwrites the boot files of the first. Only the partition with the boot flag has the Windows boot files & BCD.
So it probably is correctly identified, its just the Windows 8 boot files are still in your Windows 7.

Vista & XP but still the same:
Multibooters, Pictures here worth 1000+ words
http://www.multibooters.co.uk/multiboot.html

[NikTh]

Vista & XP but still the same:
Multibooters, Pictures here worth 1000+ words
http://www.multibooters.co.uk/multiboot.html

This definitely needs to be read.

Thanks oldfred

[rochford77]

NO -- not if you (1) do not have some unallocated space on the drive in which to create partitions for Ubuntu or (2) use the Ubuntu installer to shrink the Win7 OS partition to make room.

Shrinking using the installer can result in filesystem corruption in Win7, which can then render Win7 unbootable.

So, BEFORE you attempt that, if you don't have some unallocated space, shrink the Win7 OS only using the Win7 Disk Management utility.

Then, use the Win7 Backup feature to create and burn a Win7 Repair CD (if you don't already have one). This will provide you the tool needed to repair/restore the Win7 boot loader, should it become corrupted later due to your Ubuntu install.

Yes ... but ... you can't use GParted on a partition that is currently being used -- which is the case when you're running Ubuntu off your hard disk. IF you want to make changes to partitions that Ubuntu uses, you need to boot from a LiveCD or LiveUSB and run Gparted from there.

so what your saying is yes, but not without risk.

my original intent was to create a new partition using windows disk utility. i put in my ubuntu install disk and chose "advanced/other options" then i saw the 70Gb partition i made for ubuntu, selected it, hit "install now" and it gave me a (and im going off memory here) "no root system dected" or something along those lines. after looking further into it, it looked like i had to set up 3 or more disk partitions all formatted difffrently to install ubuntu. so i gave up and expanded driveC (windows 7) to swallow the partition i made for ununtu and then the OP issue began.

i would not mind setting this all up manually using windows disk utility, but how many partitons do i need and about what size. i plan to use about 80GB total for ubuntu.

so how many new partitions do i need to make using windows disk managment, how big should i make each one, (out of my 80GB im allocating for ubuntu).

once i have the partitions made should i format them at all in windows disk managment or do that in the ubuntu installer? and how do i format them?

if someone could walk me through manually setting this up id rather just do that

[audiomick]

OK, so you look like you are not to fazed by the concept of messing around with partitions. Here is what I would do.

Use the windows tool to shrink down the windows partition to what ever size you want to have. I believe it is then a good idea to start windows a couple of times to let it decide it is happy and to run ckdisk if it wants to, and that de-fragmenting before you start is to be recommended.

I would leave the rest of the space empty. The windows tool can't format the free space into the type of file system you need for a linux install

Start the installer and choose the option "something else" (at least I think that is what it is called. The one that lets you do the partitioning manually.)

I like to make a separate partition for my /home folder. Doing that allows you to simply re-mount that partition if you need to do a fresh install for any reason. That is where your data and your config files are stored. Being able to re-mount that has saved me some bother a few times.

So, make an extended partition using up all of the free space. Linux can be installed in a logical partition without a problem. (I hope no-one comes along and contradicts me on that...)

Inside that, make a partition of around 15GB and choose / as the mount point. This is the partition that the system goes in to. You can give it a bit more space if you have plenty of room on your drive, but, say, 50GB would be overdoing it. You can see from the attached screenshot that the /partition on this machine is just under 12GB and only has a bit less than 4GB in it.

With the rest of the space, you need to make a swap partition and one for /home. I always put the swap at the end so that I don't have to move it if I want to change the partition set up at a later date, but that is just me.

If you want your standby function to work, you should give the swap partition a little more that you have RAM. When the computer goes to standy, the contents of RAM are written into the swap space. If you never use standby, about a GB of swap should be more than enough unless you do things like really intensive video editing, or having hundreds of photos open at once.

The rest of the space becomes one partition that is mounted at /home.

I hope that is clear enough. If it seems confusing, go into the installer and have a look at it. The installer doesn't do anything permanent without telling you it is about to do that. You do have a chance to bail out if it all gets too confusing. Just look carefully at what you are seeing on the screen.

Doing a backup of anything important in the windows install is a very good idea before you start doing any of this stuff. The installer is quite ok, but you never know. A power failure, for instance, half way through the process could be bad news.