Ubuntu Installation :: Dual-booting - Vista - No Root File System
Jan 3, 2010
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
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Nov 18, 2009
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.......
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Jun 24, 2010
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]
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Aug 16, 2009
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.
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Sep 4, 2009
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?
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Sep 11, 2009
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
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Apr 11, 2010
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...
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May 7, 2010
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).
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Aug 10, 2010
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?
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Mar 2, 2010
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?
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Jan 8, 2009
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.
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Feb 13, 2010
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.
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Apr 11, 2010
I have a Dell Studio laptop, which I am trying to make dual boot and in big trouble. These are the steps I completed.
1. Backedup all my important data on a USB drive.
2. Prepared a Ubuntu LiveUSB and booted in Ubuntu.
3. Used GParted tool to repartition my hard drive (320GB) as follows,
Partition 1 NTFS (Primary) ~50GB
Partition 2 NTFS (Primary) ~100GB
Partition 3 EXT4 (Extended)
Root EXT4 (Logical) ~20GB
Swap Linux-swap ~2GB
Home EXT4 (Logical) ~129GB
4. Accepted all these changes in GParted and restarted the machine.
5. Used VISTA installation disk to start VISTA installation on 1st NTFS partition (Partition 1).
-Everything was fine until now -
6. The VISTA installer took a really long time (around half hour) just showing copying files with 0% completion status message.
7. Somehow I got impatient and tried to cancel the installation.
Now, the problem is the system does not boot up even with my USB LiveCD or Windows VISTA installer. It just shows blank screen and nothing appears.
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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?
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Jun 15, 2011
I have just downloaded Ubuntu 11.04 and am trying to install it on a dual boot system with Windows Vista. I get as far as "Allocate drive space" but there are no partitions to choose from. I currently have Windows and Linux Mint on the hard drive and want to install Ubuntu in the same partition as Mint to overwrite it.
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Feb 9, 2010
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?
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Aug 3, 2009
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.
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Jun 26, 2009
I actually have a Suse running on a partitioned harddisk of 27GB but I prefer Fedore anyway. I would like to install Linus Fedora on my computer to make a dual boot system (Vista and Linus) by overwriting the previous Suse. My question is
Will I be in OS booting trouble (i.e unable to resurect the previous boot screens, windows might possibly be deleted, or not be present in the boot options) if this is done ?
Also, because I have only one disk (the first disk of Fedora 11 downloaded), will it be fine with just one first disk ? (there are several to download but I think I assume I am not going to use all of them during installation, right ?)
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Mar 18, 2011
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).
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May 8, 2011
First off I must state that I am basically completely foreign to linux. I have 2 hard drives, one with windows 7 and storage partitions, and the other with my linux partition, linux swap, and unpartitioned space.I initially partitioned my drives with Disk Management in Windows 7. I created an NTFS partition on sda and installed Ubuntu from within Windows (a Wubi install I suppose). I originally intended to install by booting from the iso I burned onto a CD,but the installer was failing to load (fonts would change and it would error message). LiveCD was failing to load too in the same fashion. After hitting alt and tweaking the F6 settings, LiveCD successfully loaded (my very first taste of Ubuntu, albeit somewhat bland). I then decided to reinstall Ubuntu with proper linux partitions from within LiveCD. Now when I select Ubuntu in the Windows Boot Manager, a WBM screen says the file:
ubuntuwinbootwubildr.mbr is missing or corrupt. I do not know if this file is the problem or merely a symptom of it Below I have copied my Boot Summary (my apologies for the length and extra partitions):
Boot Info Script 0.55 dated February 15th, 2010
============================= Boot Info Summary: ==============================
=> No boot loader is installed in the MBR of /dev/sda[code]....
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May 2, 2010
I have upgraded to ubuntu 10.04 but now can't boot into win vista, ubuntu and vista are on grub but vista will not load, I have tried sudo upgrade-grub which seemed to work but had no effect on loading windows. I did think of using win dvd to fixmbr but only as last resort, I entered the commands suggested by nitstorm and got "command not found". Followed link to source forge.net and test disk, followed the instructions to install and run test disk which repaired the boot sector in the vista partition, I can now choose to boot into win or ubuntu.
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Jan 29, 2011
How to uninstall ubuntu 10.10 from windows vista dual boot system?
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Jan 22, 2011
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)?
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Apr 10, 2010
I want to set up grub for a dual boot system of xp and vista. The thing is that I have vista installed and would have to install it ance again after setting up XP in order to use the microsoft bootloader. And secondly I slowly want to get into linux...
This is how I tried it: I have four partitions on my HD and want to install the Bootloader on /dev/sda3. I started up the ubuntu live cd, mounted partition3, opened the console and tried this command line which I found in a tutorial
grub-install --root-directory=/media/hda3 --recheck /dev/hda However I get the following error message:
mkdir: cannot create directory '/media/hda3/boot': No such file or directory
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Aug 27, 2010
Is there a way to pull up my windows password file while on my suse 10.3 operating system so that I can reset it? I am not able to log on to my windows partition. Either I misspelled the password when entering it or it has become corrupted.
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Feb 6, 2010
Trying to install from netbootin...gives me that error.
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Jun 20, 2010
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.
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Mar 1, 2011
I installed 10.04 (clean install) on a 250G drive (partitioned to 107G for the system files). It was working fine, until I wanted to install Window$ for the use of Adobe stuff. I popped the Windows XP disc in, it loaded its files, then I tried to choose a partition for installation. There was an error saying that I can't do that, and needed to delete a partition blah blah. I thought it was too much trouble, so I quit and just wanted to use my 10.04. Booted, and it says "Error booting operating system" I WAS SHOCKED.
I tried to install grub (but don't need that right? I DO NOT want to dual boot now), but the usual method ( the sudo grub; root (hd0.0)...) doesn't work ,because something like "stage1" is missing. I tried many methods by still the same error. The reason I do not want a clean install is that I did many fixes on my 10.04 so that it would work with my EeePC 1001pxd, and I do not want to go through that again. I will be checking my email frequently on other computers if I have a chance.
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Jun 10, 2010
So I have an external hard drive (wd passport) that I want to install ubuntu on. I created 100gb partition via diskutility (fat32) and it seems I can't install ubuntu on this partition.
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Aug 8, 2010
I would like to start off by saying this: I am very new to Linux, and this is my first time installing it, therefor I am having some very newb-like issues. Please bear with me.I am currently at step five of the installation process of Ubuntu, and I clicked on the partition which I have set aside to install Ubuntu onto, but when I proceed by hitting forward, I get the following error message:"No root file system is defined.Please correct this from the partitioning menu."My question to the community is, how would I correct that? How do I turn my 20GB partition into the root file system?P.S. I searched the forum for this issue, and being that it sounds so simple, yet I found nothing about it being previously asked, I feel sort of dumb....
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