Dual boot Win7 64bit & Ubuntu 9.10 64bit

V

VideoRoy

Member
I ran into a strange problem trying to setup a dual boot with EasyBCD 2.0 build 76 and Win7 64bit and Ubuntu 9.10 64bit. When I try to boot Ubuntu it drops to Grub4dos grub prompt and cannot find a boot partition.

I have 1 drive with Win7 first, a separate NTFS partition for shared space and Ubuntu after that. So my partitions looks like this:

Win7 W:\ boot (100mb)
Win7 C:\ (250 gb)
NTFS D: (800 gb)
Linux ext4 (320gb) /sda5
Linux swap (5mb) /sda6

I have actually done this almost exact boot a couple of times and no issues before. The only difference here is 64bit OSs but I doubt that has anything to do with it.

I verify I had a good Ubuntu install I booted to the live cd and repaired the grub boot loader and the system booted fine to the Ubuntu Grub menu and loaded fine. In fact I could boot Win7 from there as well no problem but I really wanted the Win7 / EasyBCD loader instead.

Any ideas if I missed something or what went wrong. If I cannot resolve I may just put in a second drive instead but hate to do that if not necessary. Oh and I am not running Raid, I have just a 1.5TB drive.

Thanks.
 
Last edited:
Terry60

Terry60

Telephone Sanitizer (2nd Class)
Staff member
Ubuntu 9.10 uses grub2.
Delete the current linux entry from the BCD
Add it again, select grub2 from the dropdown
(all options will "grey" - they're not needed - Easy2 will find what it needs)
 
V

VideoRoy

Member
Hi Terry, thanks for the reply. I am using Grub2 and successfully completed a couple of other Windows / Ubuntu configs.

After sleeping on this I am pretty sure this is NOT a EasyBCD problem. I will prove my theory this afternoon but I think this is a primary partition problem. I thought I was at 4 primarys but I think there is a phantom in there besides the Win7 100mb. From grub prompt I did a find late last night and it does not find the partition that Ubuntu is on but I know I can boot from it if the boot loader is loaded on hd0,0.

I think I need to either delete the extra NTFS partition or the little Win7 100mb or go to a second drive which was my preference to begin with but did not have one.

I will report back but pretty sure this is my own config problem.
 
Terry60

Terry60

Telephone Sanitizer (2nd Class)
Staff member
Make sure you Easy2/ Diagnostics / Change boot drive, to copy the W7 boot files into C: from the unlettered drive, before you get rid of it.
 
V

VideoRoy

Member
Just to close out this issue, it was indeed a primary partition problem. Ubuntu really wants the bootloader to be on a primary. It seems there is a phantom primary partition and it is not the Win7 100mb because I know about that and I always give it a drive letter W:

My resolution was to add another drive instead of changing the other partitions. I prefer to have the OSs on separate drives any way when I can.

So this was my own problem and NOT EasyBCD :smile:
 
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