First attempt to create a dual boot failed

[Tom_ZeCat]

Hi, I'm looking to rejoin the Linux world. I had an Ubuntu 8.04 PC set up as my jukebox PC (with Amarok). I had it set up as a tri-boot with Windows 7 and XP on one hard drive and Ubuntu on its own drive. Sadly, the Ubuntu drive crashed. I just kept using it as a dual boot with the two Windows versions.

Fast forward to today. I want to rejoin the Linux world, but after testing both the Ubuntu DVD and the Kubuntu one, I think I want to go with the latter. It's the same PC as before, except now it only has one hard drive. XP is gone and it's just a Windows 7 PC. I watched some videos on how to install Kubuntu as a dual boot on a PC that already has Windows 7. All of them used the Win 7 tool to create an unallocated space on the drive that Kubuntu could format. I did things a little differently. I have a Gparted boot CD which I used to make an ext4 partition of about 450 gigabytes. I figured the Kubuntu installer would see that partition and offer to install on it. It didn't, at least not in a way that was obvious to me.

So I went back with Gparted and deleted the ext4 partition, leaving it unallocated. I hoped the installer would see that and offer to format it and install onto it. I went through the install process and instead ended up with a Kubuntu PC using the entire 1 TB hard drive and Windows 7 overwritten. Don't worry. That's not a disaster. I had the PC fully backed up with a ghosting utility named Acronis True Image. It's restoring back to a Windows 7 PC as I write this.

I guess the Youtube videos I used didn't sink in or weren't the right instructions or whatever. I was hoping someone could refer me to an online guide that I can just print and follow step by step. That's what I did some years back when I made the Win 7/XP/Ubuntu PC.

[Tom_ZeCat]

Thanks for your help. Here's where I am. The computer I described in my previous post may have hardware issues. I'm therefore not going to install Kubuntu on it until I resolve its possible issues. However, I have been working on getting it installed on my Lenovo Windows 7 laptop.

I decided I would follow your guide and do it approximately as follows:

340 GB ntfs partition remains as Windows 7 drive
wipe 30 gig Lenovo recovery partition, which I don't need
340 GB partition becomes Kubuntu home drive
30 GB partition becomes Kubuntu root partition
4 GB partition becomes swap partition

I booted with the Gparted boot disk and wiped the Lenovo recovery partition. I don't need it. My Windows 7 installation is well backed up from the original install to numerous incarnations. I split approximately 320 Gig off the main partition, making it unallocated. Then I combined that with the 30 gig that formerly was the recovery partition. (These numbers are all estimates.)

However, Gparted only lets me make one more partition. If I try to make more than one, I get this error:

It is not possible to create more than 4 primary partitions.

Okay, I don't really need to separate home from root. I see why that's a good strategy for some people, but it's not for me. I don't keep any of my work data on any of my PCs. For me, the internal hard drive is for the operating system and all applications and nothing else. I keep all my work data on external media like thumb drives and external hard drives. I typically work with a thumb drive and then just before I finish, copy everything from that drive to yet another thumb drive so I always have two copies, none of which are on the internal drive.

Okay, so I wanted to go with just one big Kubuntu partition and a 4 Gig swap file. I created the ext4 partition (approx 340 Gig) and had about 4 Gig unallocated space for the swap partition. However, when I try to turn that into an ext4 partition, in Gparted, I get the dreaded error again:

It is not possible to create more than 4 primary partitions.

What the hey? The above are all approximate numbers. I've typed up the exact numbers as it now stands and you can see that here:



How do I proceed and make sure that the Kubuntu installs on my 337 Gig ext4 partition and then uses the 3.9 Gig unallocated space as the swap file? I want to make sure it doesn't wipe out my Windows 7 and take the whole space.

Also, will Kubuntu 13.04 automatically create the Grub file that gives the user the choice between Kubuntu or Windows 7? Or am I going to need to manually edit that? I remember I needed to edit it back when I was installing Ubuntu 8.04.

[oshunluvr]

You might want to slow down just a bit - a little reading about partitioning might be in order.

If your system is using MBR (vs. GPT) drive formatting, you are indeed limited to 4 primary partitions per hard drive. However, one of those can be exchanged for an extended partition. Linux can address up to 15 logical partitions with a scsi (sata) drive or 63 logical partitions if it's IDE - within the extended partition.

So with your current setup as listed above, I would delete the "New Partition", create a new Extended partition, and then any number of Logical partitions within the extended partition.

If you want to control the installation process, select "Manual Partitioning" during install and select the correct partition.

I suggest you create 3 logical partitions: 12-16 GB for /, 2-4 GB for swap, and whatever's left over for /home.

Note the logical partition numbers will begin at 5 and increase from there as 1-4 are reserved for primary/extended partitions.

[Tom_ZeCat]

You might want to slow down just a bit - a little reading about partitioning might be in order.

If your system is using MBR (vs. GPT) drive formatting, you are indeed limited to 4 primary partitions per hard drive. However, one of those can be exchanged for an extended partition. Linux can address up to 15 logical partitions with a scsi (sata) drive or 63 logical partitions if it's IDE - within the extended partition.

So with your current setup as listed above, I would delete the "New Partition", create a new Extended partition, and then any number of Logical partitions within the extended partition.

If you want to control the installation process, select "Manual Partitioning" during install and select the correct partition.

I suggest you create 3 logical partitions: 12-16 GB for /, 2-4 GB for swap, and whatever's left over for /home.

Note the logical partition numbers will begin at 5 and increase from there as 1-4 are reserved for primary/extended partitions.

Thanks for the info, oshunluvr. I tried making extended partitions in Gparted, but I still got that same error message. The partition I created definitely was extended. It said so right next to it. So instead I left the space unallocated and used Kubuntu's installer to do all the partitioning. I found a page with information on how to do partitioning via the Kubuntu installer:

http://www.linuxbsdos.com/2011/05/12...kubuntu-11-04/

That was helpful. I got through the install process. Here are the settings I used:



[Image not showing in the preview ... if it doesn't post, here's the link to it: http://imageshack.us/photo/my-images/545/m29q.jpg/ ]

I might change some things later, but that's how it's set at least for now. The thing is, I don't keep any of my work files on any of my computers. I use thumb drives and external hard drives for everything (and keep at least two copies of everything). That way I can always reinstall any PC without having to backup and restore any data.

Right now the laptop still boots up straight to Windows 7 without offering the choice of Kubuntu. I suspect I'm going to need to edit the Grub file. Right? I remember I needed to do that back when I created my Win 7/XP/Ubuntu 8.04 PC. That one had a hard drive just for Ubuntu and then a different physical hard drive for Win 7 and XP. It would boot to the Ubuntu drive and then Grub would give the person the choice of Ubuntu or Windows. If you chose Windows, then there was some kind of tool from the Windows drive that would give the user the choice of 7 or XP. Not super elegant, but it worked.

I'm trying to remember what that Windows boot tool was. Maybe that's what I need to give the user the choice of Win 7 or Kubuntu? Not Grub?

Right now I need to dash, but I'll be back to look up info on all this. If you have any favorite resources for that, please speak up.

[oshunluvr]

To me, the three Windows partitions look normal enough: sda1 = boot. sda2 = system, sda3 = recovery.

I don't know if it's your terminology or if you are in fact trying what you're describing but you can't have extended partitionS, only one. It will hold the logical partitions. So create sda4 as extended, then select it and select Create>Logical. You should then get the full range of creation options and be able to create sda5, sda6, sda7, et al...

[Tom_ZeCat]

I'm still used to Microsoft terminology, which confusingly calls them "logical drives," even though they're not drives at all.

Anyway, I think this thing is installed, but I haven't properly set up the option to boot to Kubuntu somehow. I can show you what I'm seeing. First, here's an image of Gparted showing me the drive and everything I've done:



I booted up in Kubuntu via the install DVD and looked at everything. Here are the images of that:









Looks like the OS is there to me. Plus, the Kubuntu install wizard said it was successfully installed when I got to the end of it. It's just booting straight to Windows 7. I used some kind of Windows-based boot organizing utility back when I set up my Win 7/XP/Ubuntu 8.04 PC. I wish I remembered the name of it. I had a primary hard drive in which you chose between Windows and Ubuntu. For that choice, I edited Grub. If the person chose Ubuntu, the Windows drive (a separate physical drive) was not used at all. If Windows were chosen, the secondary drive would be accessed and then the person would be given the option of Windows 7 or XP. That was done with this Windows-based utility, but I remember from the instructions that you could also use it to choose between Windows and Linux. I'm going to look into my records to see if I can remember the name of that utility. I'd bet it's an edit of a Windows file that can give the user the choice.

Of course, if I need to, I can wipe this thing and start again. Windows 7 and all my applications are fully backed up, and there's no work or personal data at risk.

Edit:
I remembered the name of the Windows-based utility that helps you set up dual or multi-boot systems. It's Easy BCD and I still have it. Though it's Windows-based, it supports Linux OSes. Tomorrow I'll see if it can help me make this work.

[oshunluvr]

All that looks good. Why wipe it?

Now you need to research dual booting with Win7. You can use the windows boot manager or Grub.

Did you by any chance select a partition to install grub to or did you select /dev/sda ?

[Tom_ZeCat]

All that looks good. Why wipe it?

Now you need to research dual booting with Win7. You can use the windows boot manager or Grub.

Did you by any chance select a partition to install grub to or did you select /dev/sda ?

I selected a partition to install it to, or at least I thought I did. I've now used that Easy BCD utility and have successfully gotten a menu that gives users the choice of Windows 7 or Kubuntu. Unfortunately, if you choose Kubuntu, you don't get it. You get a Grub4DOS command line instead.

I've been looking for an online tutorial specifically on setting up a Windows 7/Kubuntu dual boot, but have not found anything. I did find this tut on Win 7/Ubunutu:
http://lifehacker.com/5403100/dual+b...erfect-harmony

I'm going to use that to see if I can figure out how to get Grub or bootloader set up to handle these two OSes.

[oshunluvr]

You can't boot to a partition. If you installed grub to a partition you can't boot it directly, you have to boot from the MBR first.

Either use the Win7 bootloader (I believe you have to have your /boot partition as FAT32) or re-install grub to the MBR. You can do that from the liveDVD or USB without re-installing.

[oshunluvr]

No offence intended but I don't believe you can't find any posts on the web about dual booting with Windows 7 - there must be thousands and at least several dozen threads here. Your search criteria is faulty somehow. I searched for "dual boot linux Windows 7" and got 3,550,000 hits using google.

I recommend this:

Boot to the LiveDVD/USB.
Back up your MBR to a thumb drive.
Install grub to the MBR (/dev/sda NOT /dev/sda1, etc.)
Reboot.

Likely, it will just work. The first time you boot into Windows again it will run a disk check, but that's fine.

Re. the webpage you linked to: I'd be careful following directions that are 4 years old, however I've not run into any insurmountable problems doing this.

[Tom_ZeCat]

No offence intended but I don't believe you can't find any posts on the web about dual booting with Windows 7 - there must be thousands and at least several dozen threads here. Your search criteria is faulty somehow. I searched for "dual boot linux Windows 7" and got 3,550,000 hits using google.

I recommend this:

Boot to the LiveDVD/USB.
Back up your MBR to a thumb drive.
Install grub to the MBR (/dev/sda NOT /dev/sda1, etc.)
Reboot.

Likely, it will just work. The first time you boot into Windows again it will run a disk check, but that's fine.

Re. the webpage you linked to: I'd be careful following directions that are 4 years old, however I've not run into any insurmountable problems doing this.

That's just it. I've found plenty of information on dual booting, but absolutely nothing specifically about Win 7/Kubuntu 13.04. Some of it recommends editing Grub from the Live Linux disk. Some recommends using Easy BCD or some other utility. Would you say material back to Kubuntu 11.04 is fairly safe? What about Ubuntu, not Kubuntu? Interchangeable?

[oshunluvr]

Yeah, grub hasn't changed much since then - at least not in ways that matter for install. I've never had to use any utilities of any kind that aren't already in your install and I've messed about with grub a lot (see some of my other threads ). Making a backup of your MBR will allow you to restore it to pre-grub state if something goes wrong. Instructions to do that are here (see post #4).

You'll need to boot into a liveDVD or USB session and open a konsole to do those commands. Be sure you address the correct drive. Once the file is saved somewhere, then from the same konsole, re-install grub. I'll post back later if you need more help. There should be a thread here somewhere explaining how to restore grub.

[Tom_ZeCat]

Yeah, grub hasn't changed much since then - at least not in ways that matter for install. I've never had to use any utilities of any kind that aren't already in your install and I've messed about with grub a lot (see some of my other threads ). Making a backup of your MBR will allow you to restore it to pre-grub state if something goes wrong. Instructions to do that are here (see post #4).

You'll need to boot into a liveDVD or USB session and open a konsole to do those commands. Be sure you address the correct drive. Once the file is saved somewhere, then from the same konsole, re-install grub. I'll post back later if you need more help. There should be a thread here somewhere explaining how to restore grub.

Thanks for your help. Here's where I'm at. Long story -- but I've done a complete system restore from my previous ghost image so that the Lenovo laptop was exactly as it was before. Then I used the Windows utility to make space for Linux. After that I installed Ubuntu 13.04 (not Kubuntu) using the "side by side" setting. The result of this install means my drive/partitions is in this shape (as shown by Gparted):



Prior to this Ubuntu install, with only Windows 7 on the PC, it had looked like this:



[Hot link is refusing to work for some reason -- here it is: http://imageshack.us/photo/my-images/203/q6ii.jpg]

One of the utilities I had tried had messed up Windows' boot -- but that's what ghost images are for. Ubuntu offered that side-by-side install option that I did not find in Kubuntu, and I wanted to try it. I researched it and found that it's supposed to be not hard to migrate from Ubuntu to Kubuntu, so Kubuntu is on hold for now and I'm just working to get the dual boot working with Ubuntu.

Per your advice, I backed up my MBR without a hitch. I've got that safety net, and of course the additional safety net of the ghost image. Plus, none of my work or personal data is anywhere on this PC. It's all on external drives, saved redundantly.

I've googled your instruction "install grub to MBR Ubuntu" and have found some material that hopefully will lead to success. Here's a link that seems promising:
http://askubuntu.com/questions/19759...mmon-scenarios

Does that material look like it's good quality for what I'm doing? I found other promising links. I'll paste them at the end of this post. My brain is too fried right now to attempt this, so I'll hit it tomorrow. If there's an instruction link that you think is better than the one I've found, and it's not too much trouble, please post it. I very much appreciate your help.

cheers, Tom

the other links:

Install grub to MBR
https://help.ubuntu.com/community/Grub2/Installing

Multiple OS Installation
http://ubuntuguide.org/wiki/Multiple_OS_Installation

restore grub
http://www.kubuntuforums.net/showthr...D-Restore-Grub

defenitive dual booting guide
http://apcmag.com/the_definitive_dua...stepbystep.htm

[oshunluvr]

I'm totally baffled as to how you keep getting *buntu installed but grub never installs. Either something is wrong with the way you're installing or you have some BIOS boot sector protection turned on or something odd like that.

This best guide I've seen is Ubuntu wiki page here. About half way down you'll see "Fixing a Broken System." and a little farther down "via the LiveCD terminal." Read that section.

Basic run-down of the steps:

Boot to the liveDVD/USB.
Open a terminal (konsole).
Mount the partition that contains /boot (in your screenshot above - /dev/sda5)
Run grub-install using the "--boot-directory" option pointed at the above mounted partition and install it to the hard drive MBR.
Reboot

A little about Ubuntu vs. Kubuntu: While there is nothing wrong with installing Ubuntu and adding KDE desktop to it, it's not as simple as a one-click. If you search around the forum a bit you'll see some others have run into trouble BUT as far as I can tell that happens when they try to remove the Unity desktop from their systems, not so much using it with both installed. I haven't tried it myself. I can say at your current level of exposure it's good to keep an open mind and try several desktop environments so go for it. However, in the very near future (next year) Ubuntu is planning on breaking away from the open source video standard (X and Wayland) and creating their own video system (Mir) that no one else including Kubuntu will be using. At that point it will not be possible to have Unity (Ubuntu) and KDE (Kubuntu) desktops on the same install. Not a big deal at the moment because you'll want to upgrade by then anyway so you can decide down the road which DE you prefer.

Regarding the "wipe and restore" approach: As a Linux user, this is rarely a required duty. In the Windows world, so much of what's going on within the system is hidden from the user that there's often no way to repair a problem and paving your install is the only solution. Not so with Linux. Nothing is hidden and almost all problems can be solved. My point is: Wiping your hard drive clean and restoring the entire thing because of a grub install issue is equal to using a bulldozer to squash a cockroach. You'll learn more if you don't do that again and instead focus on problem solving > Just my Two Cents.

A final bit of advice and I'll stop acting like I'm your Dad : I, as many others on here, advocate a separate home partition. This allows one to re-install or change your Linux distro without endangering your personal files and settings. Clearly, you're familiar with backups so it's not so much about file protection as it is about convenience. If you're interested on how to do this now without re-installing (again) post a new thread.
<EDIT> Never mind the above paragraph - I re-read and saw you addressed this already.


Let me know how the grub-install goes.

[oshunluvr]

BTW: With over 300 GB's of hard drive space you could install like forty distros at once. Not that anyone would, but once you get grub working you might consider making space for a couple more installs so you can try others or have Ubuntu along side Kubuntu to see if there's any difference or personal preference.