Ubuntu Installation :: Dual Booting Ubuntu With Vista - Partition Blanked
Feb 8, 2010
I was dual booting Ubuntu with Vista.
Here is what I did:
1. Booted the Ubuntu CD at startup and opened the installer
2. Clicked forward on time, keyboard, etc. and came to PARTITION
3. Manually Partitioned Drives...
I made a EXT4 File System 50 GB for Ubuntu
And a 3 GB swap area for ram
(BUT in the process, my NTSF 250 GB Drive with Vista and my files was wiped)
4. I continued with setup and successfully installed Ubuntu
My boot menu at startup (GRUBS)
Now has:
Ubuntu
Ubuntu(recovery mode)
Memory Test
Another Memory Test
Microsoft Windows XP Embedded (on /dev/sda5)
The XP one gives me an error: The windows boot configuration data file does not contain a valid OS entry
Is there a way to get Vista and my files back? If not, how can I dual boot Ubuntu and get Windows Vista or Windows 7?
I have a Lenovo thinkpad T400 with Vista x64 that I want to dual-boot with fedora 10. The T400's original config has 3 primary partions:
1) Vista boot partition (some weird partition that it only uses to boot... this is my first time using Vista so I don't know the details, but I think it has to be there and it has to be a separate partition from the "data" partition)
2) Vista data partition
3) Lenovo Rescue and Recovery partition (a separate bootable partition that is used for recovery, backups, ...)
My first attempt was to shrink the recovery partition and add a new extended partition that has the two standard fedora logical volumes and an extra NTFS to be shared between the OS's (I usually use FAT32 for this one, but NTFS support seems to be pretty solid now).
Everything was fine, but I couldn't boot into the rescue partition. According to this site:
[URL]
You *have* to have a linux boot partition be your primary partition. Other people have told me the same thing and that site has an explanation, but I don't get it =)
So, it seems that I need 5 primaries (3 original vista/lenovo primaries, 1 linux primaray to put the boot stuff into, and 1 extended for everything else) to make this work (which is not possible). Can anyone think of something else I could do (other than getting rid of Vista and the Lenovo stuff and giving them both the finger?) I'm thinking maybe I could make an extended partition and move one or more of the Vista/Lenovo partitions in there, but I'm not sure if they could boot.
The problem is, on a machine, you can only have 4 primary partitions. sda1 and sda2 are my Vista and Recovery partitions respectively, which eliminates two of my primary partitions already. I myself have never used logical partitions, and was wondering if any of the partitions the Beginner's Guide recommends (/, swap, /var, and /home) could be made logical, and if I even need a swap partition.
i have recently started my masters degree program and i have to install fedora 11 for one of my courses. The problem is when i try to install fedora 11 on my laptop, it wipes out my windows vista installation. I want to keep vista. I have a sony vaio laptop model VGN-FW340D. 4GB RAM and 400 GB HD. i first shrink my hard drive to free up around 100 GB. Then i run fedora 11 DVD and let it make the partitions on my free space.. I have tried everything.. I chose use free space the first time, but i didnt work, it wiped out my vista, next time i chose custom layout and defined boot, root and swap partitions , but again it wiped out my vista.. I have read many guides to dual boot vista and fedora and have carried them out step by step, but nothing works.... Also i dont have vista installation DVD, i just have the recovery CDs, so everytime it wipes out my vista, i have to do system recovery, ive been trying for a week now, and its driving me crazy, i asked a friend of mine to help me out, he has dual boot system, and he tried it and it did the same thing, wiped out my vista... i just have one drive C: with two partitions, one small partitions which contains recovery files, and the rest of the partition has vista.......
i decided to install ubuntu in my PC,i downloaded the .ISO image and i installed it in my USB. After trying it and all that i observed that i really liked it and i decided to formally install it to my computer in the hard drive. When i reached the partition thing,i selected to dual boot with Vista and select between each them in every startup,when i clicked FORWARD it gave me an error which i did not read(because,again im a noob) so i clicked cancel.
Today i wanted to go through the process again and now really install it,so again i went to the time zone part and i clicked forward but then,instead of taking me straight to the partition phase,it appeard a window saying "The installer has detected that the following disks have mounted partitions: /dev/sda ...." I clicked yes,to unmount this partitions so it took me to the partition thing,once there i selected the option to install Ubuntu with Vista and select between them i neach startup,then i clicked forward and went to the username/computer name process,once i finished i continued to the next part,the installation,but i selected to import all of my WIndows VIsta default user data,after that i clicked forward and went to the installation process,i went down stairs to eat soemthing while it finishes,i came back and it was finished,it asked me to reboot so i clicked in Restart Now.
When it tried to boot,appeared an error saying: Error: no such devide found: #################### Grub load(or something like that) grub rescue: and it was a command line,since there i havent been able to boot into vista or Ubuntu,im really scared because is the first thing related to OS installing ive done,so i booted my USB and ran the trial and right now im trying to find out what to do from that trial version. I just went to the INSTALL UBUNTU 10.04 LTS application under the System>Administration Menu and found out that in the partition phase the Install and allow to select between both systems in eahc startup option,i dont know what to do,i foudn out that my HD has still all its data(MUsic/Videos/Folders/Programs/ect.)its just that i cannot boot from it. Also in GParted it appears as /dev/sda1/ and a warning icon besides it,also when i go into information, thers this warning there [URL]
I am severely confused when it comes to partitioning. I have Fedora 11 on a liveCD now. I first tried to install that on to my Acer Aspire 1 netbook alongside another distro, but that failed due to my lack of partitioning knowledge. (It needed a /root device to install in I think).
Well, I would LOVE to have Fedora 11 with Vista (on my main laptop rig - acer aspire 7520) when I go back to college next week (go hokies). But I need Vista for work with my lab applications that uses windows. Can someone please provide me a noob-proof method to install Fedora without corrupting Vista? I really need Vista, but I really enjoy linux.
What I'm running: Acer 4810t intel centrino dual core 1.40 4 gb ram 320 HD Vista home premium 64 bit
1. what do I need to do this I have a program to make a new partition already what I need is to know what is the best boot selector to use I'm thinking of buying VistaBootPro will that work well?
I'm trying to find a simple solution to dual-boot Fedora 11 onto Vista Home Basic Edition, using the live disk as the installation media, but I can't find one anywhere. Maybe you could point me in the right direction... (But first let me explain that I am a newbie when it comes to Linux.)
So, my computer specs are... Make/Model: Dell Inspiron 1525 Processor: Pentium Dual-Core CPU T4200
I recently recieved Ubuntu 9.04 Desktop Edition CD-ROM through snail-mail after requesting a copy online and I want to install it on my laptop, although I wish to keep Vista which is on it now.
My laptop has a 250GB hard drive. Although when in Vista this is represented as two separate drives each of 110GB, (C or ACER and (D or DATA.
Using the CD, I start the installation and everything is straightforward and self explanatory, until I get stuck at step 4...
Where I am told by the ubuntu installer: "This computer has several operating systems on it." (I'm confused now, I thought it had one, Vista.)
Beneath I am shown a bar representing my disk space which is divided between...
I am given the option to use the entire disk: 'SCSI1 (0,0,0)(sda) - 250.1GB ATA WDC WD2500BEVT - 2', (and from the mention of 250BG in the name I'm assuming this is one disk and not the two separate drives named C: & D: in Vista.) ...along with a warning - "This will delete Windows Vista (loader), Windows Vista (loader), Microsoft Windows XP Embedded and install Ubuntu 9.04". (The aforementioned "several operating systems" obviously.)
But I wish to keep Vista, so I select the option to "specify partitions manually" and am brought to a screen named 'Prepare Partitions', where there is a table somewhat like this:
I am then given the option for "New partition table", and if I select any of the bottom four devices I can 'edit partition' or 'delete partition'.
Selecting the device /dev/sda3 (because it is the one that I'm guessing has no operating system data on it, judging by the previous screen) and choosing 'edit partition', allows me the following options...to create a new partition size, to select what I want to use the partition as. (There are also two options for formating a partition, which is a checkbox, and Mount point. These are both greyed out.)
When I look at the 'Use as:' option, within 'edit partition', the drop down box allows me to use the partition in the following ways: - do not use the partition - swap area - NTFS - FAT 32 file system - FAT16 file system - XFS journaling file system - ReiserFS journaling file system - Ext2 file system - Ext4 journaling file system - Ext3 journaling file system
I'm still not all confident using sudo, so if you could explain what I need to do in simple steps including the commands I would be ever so grateful. I need my Windows back 'cause while I'm perfectly happy on ubuntu at home, my boss at work thinks Linux is an exotic metalworking tool (or something like that).
I'm installing Ubuntu 10.04 for a friend, dual booting it with windows vista. The installation was going just fine up until the 4th step- partitioning the drives. After designating space for vista and ubuntu and running it, it popped up the window and displayed 0%... for the next hour. After looking around on ubuntu forums for a solution, I tried manually partitioning the drives in vista. Vista wouldn't let me, saying that access was denied. I tried using gparted next, which had an error with it as well. Does anyone know what i can do to work around this?
I had a fresh copy of Windows Vista installed (original from the factory)- and I followed a document of dual booting - however I think I did some mistake or automatic skip of install Grub boot loader-
Now my fedora 11 is running smoothly but windows vista is gone or does not boot - I don't have any boot disks- they give examples having floppy disk a boot disk- my laptop doesn't have floppy drive- I guess I could manage in cd or flash drive.
I see my computer's config in fedora desktop as computer:///250%20GB%20ATA%20WDC%20WD2500BEVS-6.drive computer:///250%20GB%20ATA%20WDC%20WD2500BEVS-6-1.drive computer:///PIONEER%20DVDRW%20%20DR-KD08HB.drive computer:///root.link
I noticed that the partition NTFS still exists and it has not been erased. I did install linux on hda5 since hda1 was partitioned with NTFS
Is there any manual and precaution to be taken while doing the same dual boot system ?
Or is it possible to have dual boot with the present config- although i am ready to install fresh window vista and fedora as my dual booting systems...
I can dual-boot on my PC by using my SATA drive for Windows & a second IDE (PATA) one for Ubuntu.However when I try to install both OS's on the Primary SATA drive side by side only one is detected (and I have no option to boot the other).
I have a friend with the same problem who is trying to boot Win7 and Ubuntu off the same SATA drive and the same issue occurs on his (He doesn't have the second drive as an option as I do).
Does anyone know a way to get side by side installation to work on one (SATA) drive? Failing this is it possible to boot Ubuntu off and External hard drive and still be able to dual boot Windows & Ubuntu?
I downloaded Ubuntu about 5 months ago and love it.Problem is, I didn't know if I wanted to make it permanent on my computer, so I used the option which allowed me to download it as an application on my Windows Vista Control Panel.How can I increase the partition (I think I only have 9 GB left on my home folder) without loosing all of the preferences, applications, and hardware solutions that I have put on there?
Last week I installed Ubuntu 10.04.1 on his Windows Vista machine, it has a 200GB hard-drive and he wanted 100GB for Vista & 100GB for Ubuntu on there. So instead of selecting the default partition I split it to 100GB each.
Now, however, I can't boot back into Windows and when it loads I am taken to the 'Recovery Tools' options. Have I 'cked up his partition? I can still view all the files/folders on his Windows partition from within Ubuntu however, so maybe there is a chance I can shrink down the Ubuntu partition again and restore his Windows partition?
I wanted to start exploring web development and perhaps hosting my own server as well as learning about linux and all the things that go with it so I downloaded the ubuntu 9.1 Server edition and burned it to a CD. I thought to put it on my Dell laptop as it is newer than my main PC and I could bring it to and fro between class. It had Vista installed and I definitely wanted to keep that in the meantime until I got more familiar with Ubuntu. The laptop has a 320GB hard drive with a 10 GB recovery partition. I went ahead and formatted the 10GB to make room for ubuntu. Also I was able to "shrink" the main windows partition by 16GB to make even more room. I could not combine the two small drives but alas. I had hoped to use the 16GB partition for the main install and the 10GB for a necessary swap drive (I am completely new to all this).
So I reboot on the server CD and get to the partition section. I was following this guide here: [url]
It seemed I did not want to do anything "guided" or "automatic" because the options were listing the entire drive and again i wanted to keep my vista untouched. So I go to manual partitioning and although the guide didn't go into enough detail I went ahead and assigned an "ext2" filetype to the larger partition and a "swap" to the smaller partition. Then I went to write changes to disk and after completing one of the two successfully the installer failed to configure the swap drive. I don't know why. I restarted to make sure windows was OK and surely it was not, as I got the dreaded "missing operating system" screen. I ran the windows recovery CD and lo and behold it could not find any drives at all, much less repair them. The data I had on the vista partition were not particularly vital, but it would be nice to have it back.
So my questions are, is there a way to recovery the windows partition? And how is the correct way to configure a dual boot system with Vista and Ubuntu 9.1 Server edition?
i installed ubuntu 9.10.. i remember splitting my HD into 125gb/125gb and i installed ubuntu 9.10 on one of them.. worked awesome. now i wanted to play some games so i wanted a dual boot system.. i have a windows vista ultimate CD and i installed it on the other 125gb. installation went fine now when i boot it always goes into vista. how can i enable dual booting with vista?
yesterday i was interested in Ubuntu,so i got the Lice CD and tried it out for a bit, seemed really cool and i decided to install it! So i partition during the installation setup (Yes i defragged on Vista really well before that), and it loaded all the stuffs. So at the Grub screen i chose vista, let it understand the partition changes, and let it finish all of that. Then i went onto Ubuntu, almost to the interesting part, So i tried to update, that worked, then it said to restart, so i restarted it and it said some line like:
*Shutting down now (not exact) In the white text on the black screen and it just sat there. So i Ctrl+Alt+Del it and it ran the Grub again, i went back into Ubuntu and tried to install my driver for my Graphics card (nVidia GeForce GT 130M w/1gb of vram)and it said it didnt come up with anything. So i decided to get rid of ubuntu cause i didnt know how it worked and because i fugured something was wrong or my computer couldnt function properly, or that i did something... Well anyways, so i go into Vista and knock out Ubuntus Partition.
So i restart Vista so it can recognise the changes in Partitions, and it gives me Grub Error 22! So i put the Live CD in and partition the drive and iand install Ubuntu again after trying to use Acers Recovery Disks that i made when i first got the computer (Thursday, and no they arent vista disks, there Acer Recov Disks) And it seemed to work fine, so im al ok. I workked on vista for awhile getting back my wiped Hdd, and i go to Ubuntu after to work on it.
it wont go into Grub, just boots to Vista, so once again i put in the Live CD and click install, and nitice that Ubuntus P:artition is Corrupted! So i delete the partition from Live CD and reinstal once again. now i did the Graphics card and updates on Ubuntu again and now i have mre errors then ever. Whenever i start up Ubuntu i get six mini screens on the screen and it gives me that line of words when i try and shut down/restart. It also wont let me change the Visual effects. Ubuntu seems like a pain in the butt right now, and unless theres any hopw of sucessfully dual booting then i wanna know how to get it off. I dont understand how linux works at all, and i feel much more comfortable using Vista, although Ubuntu may be cool n all.
I have booted from the .iso cd I made on my Mac last night and was tempted to install it on a 6gb partition that I have on my main HDD but was a bit scared to go past the fourth (or so) step in manual installing where I pick that partition and *do what?* Is it going to install the OS on that partition and leave everything else alone to give me a dual booting PowerMac? It doesn't quite say. I am fearful of screwing up my little ol' machine. Can anyone direct me to something that gives a step by step in manual installation on an already created (HFC+) partition to create a dual booting PowerMac?
I'm trying to achieve my dream (but indeed not perfect) boot scenario: dual-boot OpenSUSE and Fedora with shared /boot, /home and SWAP partitions. First I installed OpenSUSE (sda3 on my layout below) with separate /boot (sda2), /home (sda5, encrypted) and SWAP (sda6), next I installed Fedora on /dev/sda1, and pointed it to mount sda2, sda5, sda6 with respective mount points, without formatting. I proceeded with the installation without installing new GRUB bootloader (overwriting an existing one).
It was successfull and now I'm back in OpenSuSE trying to edit menu.lst file (under /boot/grub) to make GRUB boot Fedora.
I attached a copy of menu.lst I cooked up for now. OK, it's a mess. Life would be allot easier if I didn't have a separate /boot partition, as I could just chainload, but it's no longer possible (or is it?). May be I needed to specify the resume device or problem is in initrd? below are the contents of /boot:
I have a single hard-drive on a spare computer and I decided to try out Ubuntu on recommendation from a friend. I really like it now but at first I just dual-booted it, and now I want Vista gone. I know it's unnecessary to have just one OS but my hard-drive isn't particularly big and I'd prefer to have Ubuntu by itself. Can anyone tell me how to eliminate vista and leave Ubuntu as my sole operating system (I've all my files from computer on another computer so I don't have to worry about losing anything).
My cousin just deleted his Linux partition and another smaller partitio nand now Windows is not booting, no he does not have the recovery disc. When Windows tries to boot it goes to "GRUB" and says "partition not loaded". What are some GRUB commands? And is it possible to fix this without using the recovery CD?
Trying to boot alongside windows (just in case!). I downloaded the ISO from Ubuntu website before I saw the windows installer. After which I downloaded the windows installer! Now each time I try to load either one it tries to download the iso again. I'm only on a PAYG connection ATM so downloading again is not really viable this month!
I've tried to make a new partition using: my computer/ management/ shrink
But the size that windows allows is 140MB which obviously is not enough, I tried burning the ISO to a CDROM and booting this way but windows did not bother booting the disc. I entered F2 BIOS and changed the boot order to my CDRW drive 1st but still UBUNTU did not boot. Windows recovery manager or something booted.
So, I installed Ubuntu using Wubi.exe for Windows. Is there a way to access the files I have on Windows while I'm on Ubuntu? Basically, how can I access files on the other side of the partition?
After four attempts and diverse partition map problems, I finally managed to install successfully clean versions of both Mac OS X Snow Leopard and Ubuntu Lucid Lynx on my old MacBook Pro C2D (2,1) and a new 320 GB HDD, by following these instructions:[URL]
Now, I've got a big partition for Mac OS X (286 GB) and a small partition for Ubuntu (30 GB, as well as two smaller partitions for grub and swap). However, I'd like to shrink the Mac OS X partition to, say, 35 GB, and use the freed up 251 GB as a shared partition to keep files for access from both OSs. But Mac OS X Disk Utility won't let me resize the Mac OS X partition (and warns that it might not be a smart thing to do, as the disk has been partitioned for Boot Camp, etc).
Is there some way I can resize the partition, or do I have to start all over again?
I got an old Sony Vaio from a friend & wanted to keep a stripped down version of windows along side 10.04. During installation when I saw two Windows partitions. I saved the first one which was about 5 gig & deleted the other bigger partition & used ext4 on the free space for Ubuntu. I assume I only kept the recovery partition so basically I have sda1 (recovery partition)ntfs & the rest ext4. If I pick Windows from the grub menu at start-up the recovery starts but then shuts down with an error. I'm assuming its looking for the other ntfs partition to install & can't find it but I'm not sure what to do. I haven't done anything with Ubuntu yet so deleting & reinstalling is not a problem but if I do getting back to the restore menu probably will be. I don't have any disks that came with the computer either.
Two days ago I repartitioned my laptop HD and added the latest Ubuntu (2.6.35-25-generic) to the existing Vista and existing Ubuntu (2.6.32-28-generic via upgrades from 9.14(?)). Prior to this install it was using Grub with menu.lst from the old/upgrade Ubuntu. After the install the boot menu labels the partition with Vista as the Windows Recovery partition and the recovery partition item is no longer present.
At first I wondered how I could get Vista to boot. I found that SuperGrub cd would boot it OK. Then, it dawned on me that the boot menu item was not the recovery partition, but instead the Vista OS partition mislabelled . Vista loads just fine from it. The recovery partition is no longer listed as it was with Grub/menu.lst. SuperGrub will not boot the recovery partition, showing an error "missing BOOTMGR".
I installed Opensuse 11.3 on a separate partition to vista on my Acer 5115. It runs fine but the GRUB boot loader failed to show the Vista OS. I tried to add it by editing menu.As far as I can see (and I don't have much experience with these things) the Vista OS is there, on sda5, but doesn't boot correctly because the winload.exe is in the wrong directory. Why the sdax numbers are all rearranged is a mystery too, but I have reinstalled vista several times so that could be why.I don't have a vista recovery cd (wasn't given one), is there any way to fix this within opensuse (which works fine)?
I'm try to setup a wireless network with my linksys wireless router and my HP laptop dual booting Vista & Suse 11.2. I have the vista networked, just fine. Where I can share files and the printer connected to my desktop. But I want to be able to use Suse in the same way, full time and to stray away from Vista. My wife and kids like easy. So I'm trying to transform them and show them something new.
I am trying to boot up Vista Home Premium from USB since my internal (bootable) CD-RW drive has failed and I cannot boot up Vista from CD.
I have Ubuntu running in the Windows partition and all my windows files are in there so I don't want to do a full installation of Ubuntu (yet).
I formatted an 8GB USB stick into two partitions
I then copied over to /dev/sdb1 all files from a Vista CD using an external CD-RW drive (which is not recognised as bootable on USB port).
In my Dell BIOS settings I changed the boot sequence to be bootable from USB disk first.
then I tried to reboot Vista installation in the USB stick.
But I get this message ..."this is not a bootable disk .. insert a bootable floppy"
So I could not boot up the Vista installation files.
When the boot flag is "on" in a GParted created partition does this make the partition DOS bootable for Vista installation?
My question is - What utility in Ubuntu 10.10 can create a DOS bootable partition on a USB stick? It seems that the MBR might have been overwritten when I installed Grub 2.0.
I can Grub dual boot between Windows and Ubuntu but I can't get very far with Windows .. stalls in safe mode.
So a Vista repair is called for. I would prefer not to reinstall Vista afresh at this stage.
There is a thread here explaining how to repair Vista bootloader
[url]
But it assumes that I am able to boot from CD-RW drive.
