Order Of Installation For Vista/Linux

[ozsenior]

I would be most grateful if someone would walk me through the dual-booting of Vista and Linux. I need to know in which order to install the two operating systems.
Secondly, I want to install more than one flavour of Linux - can I use EasyBCD to boot both Vista and all the different Linux distros?

[Computer Guru]

Hello ozsenior, welcome to NeoSmart Technologies.

Just install Linux first, and during setup, make sure to tell it to install GRUB to the boot sector of a partition and *not* the MBR.

Then install Vista. Install EasyBCD in Vista, and tell it to add a Linux O/S with the drive/partition = to those you installed GRUB to.

You can install as many other Linux distros as you like without a problem, just make sure to tell the setup to install GRUB to the same drive/partition as you did the first time around, or else your configuration will be overwritten.

[ozsenior]

Many thanks, that is very clear and will be easy to follow.

OzSenior

[james]

So does that mean that if you have a default installation of Linux (Ubuntu, for example) it WILL have installed GRUB to the MBR, and if you then install Vista onto some space space on the same hard drive, GRUB is lost and you have to use NeoGrub?

How does the scenario change if you have two hard drives in the machine, one of them with Linux and the other with Vista? Will Vista still overwrite the MBR? Is the MBR effectively drive-independent?

[Computer Guru]

The MBR is *partition* independant, however, only one MBR is read on a system - that on the primary drive.
So if you have Linux already installed with Grub working, installing Vista deletes the Linux MBR - and you have to either re-install GRUB or use NeoGrub.

In your second scenario it would still be overwritten, unless you changed the drive boot order prior to installing Vista then changed it back.

[refaelilara]

Hi...
This is Lara and I had installed windows OS and Linux simultaneously on my console.Well I have a problem that when going to the BIOS, windows partition are located but the Linux partitions are not located.Now I am thinking to remove Linux and reinstall it.So is their any requirement of windows 98 for that.Anybody can suggest, then please send a post to me.