Dual boot with Windows 7 RC

[cob]

OP: There are no guarantees in any OS install or partitioning operation. Anything can happen at any time unexpectedly. That is why you are strongly suggested to back up your data before doing these operations. There are software that will make an image of your windows partition if you want or just simply back up files. When you jump out of a plane it is suggested that you pull the ripcord! It is suggested you back up your data prior to doing this. As for guarantees no one can make them for you.

Well, obviously. I've never had trouble with Ubuntu installations in another area of free space on a drive with XP, but this is looking wholly different. Again, I'm nervous since the partitioning portion of the installer does not seem to respect the dimensions of the /dev/sda2 partition (which is actually my Win 7 NTFS partition); why should I believe it isn't going to overwrite it, or damage the partition table irrevocably? I understand people have done this with Vista, and that Windows 7 is only slightly different, but this is definitely not expected, and seems to be different from the results others get with an NTFS partition with Vista installed.

I would shrink Vista's partition using Vista's disk management utility.

I already have the free space available, since I planned this from the beginning.

Then boot the ubuntu live CD choose "try ubuntu without any changes", when the desktop loads open a terminal and run and use gparted to create a ext3 or ext 4 partition for Ubuntu and a swap partition. Then install using the manual option.

I'll give it a shot, I guess. I'm not worried about losing any data right now since the Win 7 install is relatively new.

I think maybe you should do some reading to become familiar with what you are going to do:

https://help.ubuntu.com/community/GraphicalInstall
https://help.ubuntu.com/community/HowtoPartition
http://apcmag.com/how_to_dualboot_vi...lled_first.htm -shows how to use vista's disk management utility to shrink vista partition
http://www.ubuntupocketguide.com/ for a free pdf ubuntu pocket guide which BTW has a great step by step on the install process
https://help.ubuntu.com/9.04/switching/first-steps.html

I am pretty familiar with partitioning and bootloading via GRUB and the old NTLDR; appears GRUB will simply chainload the new Win 7 bootloader.

I'll come back here once I've tried it with my results. I'll try just using the graphical installer first, then a manual partitioning method.

[presence1960]

I am pretty familiar with partitioning and bootloading via GRUB and the old NTLDR; appears GRUB will simply chainload the new Win 7 bootloader.

I'll come back here once I've tried it with my results. I'll try just using the graphical installer first, then a manual partitioning method.

Sorry if that came off the wrong way but I have no idea how experienced you are. I usually suggest some reading for inexperienced members when it comes to partitioning and installation.

Creating partitions before the install and using the manual option will eliminate the risk of what you are afraid of happening. Using manual will not touch sda2, only the partitions you specify in the manual operation.

[louieb]

As your finding out the partition stage of Ubiquity is still a little flaky. All I know is that before putting Win 7 on my desktop, the partitions were already set up. I did a custom install of Win 7 - told it to format and install in sda2. After the install used a live CD to put GRUBs stage1 code back in the MBR. and added a WIN 7 chain-load entry to menu.lst.

Since my partitions were setup in advance could have just a easily installed Win 7 then installed Linux.

One thing I've been seeing is a lot of Grub error 18 threads. Might want to partition so that both OS install in the first 137 GB of the disk. What I do is set up partitions in the 1st part of the drive for the OS(s) and create partition for data in the remainder of the drive.

[presence1960]

One thing I've been seeing is a lot of Grub error 18 threads. Might want to partition so that both OS install in the 137 GB of the disk. What I do is set up partitions in the 1st part of the drive for the OS(s) and create partition for data in the remainder of the drive.

+1

Those with older machines need to be aware that their BIOS may not be able to read past a certain point on their hard disks and as you said should create their partitions for OSs within that boundary.

[cob]

Well, I manually partitioned with gparted, and I'm able to boot both OSes fine.

[presence1960]

Well, I manually partitioned with gparted, and I'm able to boot both OSes fine.

excellent!! Enjoy!

[Herman]

I don't believe there is actually any documented instances of GParted in Ubuntu's installer doing damage to Vista's boot sector. I spent a lot of my time reading through all the bug reports I could find in Launchpad last time this subject came up.
I also spent a lot of my own time installing Windows 7 and Ubuntu, and Vista and Ubuntu, and I was not able to reproduce any problem.
This time I didn't have time for an exhaustive search, but I didn't see any bugs reported about GParted in Ubuntu making Windows Vista or Windows 7 unbootable.

Windows Vista and Windows 7 have departed from tradition and no longer have their partition starting in sector 63, after the first track of the hard disk. Instead, their first sectors start in number 2048, I don't know why. Perhaps is has something to do with an expected increase in the popularity of SSD drives. The flash memory in SSD drives is erased a block at a time, and is is thought that having the partition starting at the start of an erase block will help the performance and reduce wear in flash memory drives. I'm only guessing about that though, there might be some other reason for Microsoft suddenly departing from convention and switching to sector 2048.

It is possible to accidentally allow GParted to move the Windows partition if we use GParted in the Ubuntu Live CD or some other version of GParted as a program by itself, but not in the Ubuntu installer.
GParted has a check box to let the user decide whether partitions should be aligned on cylinder boundaries. Users of Windows 7 and Windows Vista should be careful to remove that checkmark before working on their Windows partition in GParted. However, no real harm will be done even if the user doesn't know or if they forget to remove the checlmark because GParted in Ubuntu will run the program for updating the Windows boot sector, which Ubuntu does have.
GParted in the Ubuntu installer doesn't have such a checkbox, because the Ubuntu installer doesn't move the Windows partition in any case, so the Ubuntu installer is quite safe.
I deliberately did my worst to my test installations of both Vista and Windows 7 repeatedly, using GFParted in Ubuntu separately from the installer, and on all occasions, much to Microsoft's credit, the boot loader was always able to repair itself automatically after a short wait. On most occasions I needed to use the installation CD, but it was always easy to repair.

There was a bug in GParted Live CD quite some time back which had nothing at all to do with GParted in Ubuntu. Apparently the GParted LiveCD was made with a small program omitted which was for updating the Windows boot sector if the start of the Windows partition is moved.
It seems to me that's the likely origin of these ongoing complains about GParted, but it has never had anything to do with Ubuntu's GParted, only GParted in GParted LiveCD, which is a different distro from Ubuntu.

There's probably no harm in advising people to use Windows Vista or Windows 7's partitioner, and err on the side of safety.
However, on the other hand, the problem in GParted Live CD has already been solved long ago, and this problem has never been a Ubuntu problem at all. I don't think there is any real need to keep repeating warnings in Ubuntu Web Forums about a problem that existed in an obsolete version of some other distro.

[cob]

Herman,

gparted didn't give me any problems, and recognized (and reported) the Win 7 partition correctly in size and in NTFS format. The only problem was that the Ubuntu installer wasn't recogizing (or reporting) on that partition correctly. It would also allow me to make a larger ext3 partition for Ubuntu than there was available free space on the drive for, which led me to believe that it was not going to respect the NTFS partition and destroy it, or at best, resize it.

I've seen screenshots of the 9.04 installer reporting on Vista NTFS partitions correctly, and didn't think there was much difference between the Vista and Win 7 partitioner, and since both are NTFS filesystems, you'd think this wouldn't have been an issue.

I'll submit a bug against it.

[Herman]

Okay. it does seem like something the developers might be interested in taking a closer look at, possibly a bug either in Windows 7 or in Ubuntu's installer.

originally posted by presence1960,

I would be very wary of using gparted to shrink a vista partition. it may or may not work. While some have done it successfully, it is a documented fact that a lot of users who used gparted to alter their vista partition wound up with vista being unbootable among other problems. I would recommend shrinking vista's partition to create free space for ubuntu with vista's disk management utility.

Can anyone provide links to these documents? It looks like I'm going to be spending a lot of my spare time searching through Launchpad for bug reports again for any documented case of GParted messing up people's partition tables after Windows Vista or Windows 7 have been installed. I'll need to update my website rather urgently if that's true as I recommend using GParted in Ubuntu to resize the Windows partition and I don't want to be giving people the wrong information.

[presence1960]

Herman,

http://bugzilla.gnome.org/show_bug.cgi?id=379482

http://www.howtogeek.com/howto/windo...sta-partition/

Plus the very numerous threads in here from those who used gparted live cd or gparted from the Ubuntu installer to shrink vista and create space for ubuntu.

There have been so many instances of posts pertaining to this that along with numerous other forum members I have been recommending using Vista's disk management utility to shrink Vista's partition to make room for Linux installations.

Gparted plays very nicely with XP and w2k.