Used wubi want to reinstall windows, don't want to lose kubuntu setup

[goye2cz]

Hello,

I am in need of reinstalling windows xp pro. I don't need help with that. I used wubi to install Kubuntu and get the option at startup to boot in linux or windows. I'm quite happy with Kubuntu and when I reinstall windows I don't want to lose the way I have Kubuntu set up. Is there any way to accomplish this?

Either way, is there a better way for me to install Kubuntu since I have decided that I will be keeping it?

I've tried searching for an answer to this but didn't find it. Feel free to point me to it if I've just missed it.

Thank you!

[Gediminas2]

Re: Used wubi want to reinstall windows, don't want to lose kubuntu setup

make a backup of the wubi image (the one file that kubuntu is installed) file, and make a backup of windows boot.ini file.

After installing, update the boot ini in msconfig according to the old one. Simple as that.

[goye2cz]

Re: Used wubi want to reinstall windows, don't want to lose kubuntu setup

Hmmm... possibly I was wrong... There doesn't seem to be one file... maybe I've done something different. Could you specify what this file is and basically where it should be found?

There is an "ubuntu" directory on my root drive.

Thanks.

[Gediminas2]

Re: Used wubi want to reinstall windows, don't want to lose kubuntu setup

I can't say it specifically as I only tried installing using wubi only once. IIRC It's big (5GB or 10 GB or even bigger)
It resides somewhere in the disk you chose to install ubuntu with wubi.

[kd8hho]

Re: Used wubi want to reinstall windows, don't want to lose kubuntu setup

interesting, idk about you but if it was me i would just do a complete reinstall.

partition the drives (partition1,partition2,and 2gb partition3 swap)

install win on part-1
kubuntu on part-2

[jglen490]

Re: Used wubi want to reinstall windows, don't want to lose kubuntu setup

Dual booting Linux and Windows and Linux is a very popular sport. There are at least as many ways to do it as there are opinions about it. If you want to install both OSes, install Windows on a partition. then have 3 partitions for Kubuntu (one for /, one for /home, one for swap) The sizes are your choice based on the availability of real estate on your hard drive(s). Multi-gig swap partitions are really not necessary, unless you have a lot of really amazingly large apps open at the same time doing "stuff" simultaneously. On my machine, I have about 512MB of swap with 512MB of RAM -- runs what I want with no sweat.

(Here's a picture of my Kubuntu 8.04: )

john@john-laptop:~/.linuxcounter$ df -h
Filesystem      Size Used Avail Use% Mounted on
/dev/sda1       4.7G 3.2G 1.3G 72% /
varrun        252M 156K 252M  1% /var/run
varlock        252M   0 252M  0% /var/lock
udev         252M  52K 252M  1% /dev
devshm        252M   0 252M  0% /dev/shm
lrm          252M  39M 213M 16% /lib/modules/2.6.24-23-generic/volatile
/dev/sda2       6.1G 4.1G 1.7G 72% /home

I currently have a very small drive (12GB), but it works well for me.

So, based on that, whtever you need for Windows, make your Windows partition that big. Whatever is left can be divided up such as: no more than 1GB for swap, 40% of the remainder for /, and the remaining 60% for home. Or pick your own scheme. Why a separate /home? As you upgrade your chosen distro, or more to another distro, it preserves your personal settings and files. Simple.