Dual booting Vista and Ubuntu

K

Kasa

Member
Hello.
Well lets just say I am a nub at Ubuntu atm, and I am looking for help.
I am installing on a External drive.
/dev/sdb
when installing the bootsector I have tryed
(hd1)
Which got me to a page saying (this is after I have rebooted and set easyBCD
Bootsector-
loading partition
Fail partition not found

which continues untill it reboots
I am going to try next time
(hd1,0)

I am wondering if this would fix it, or is there another way ?
I am using the full drive as the bootsector, that is why i think it would be that.

Thanks for you time in helping this poor old noob
 
You cannot use the drive as the bootsector (that's actually the MBR). The bootsector needs to be for a single partition...
 
Computer Guru said:
You cannot use the drive as the bootsector (that's actually the MBR). The bootsector needs to be for a single partition...
Click to expand...
It has been partitioned and formated.
I have 2 drives on this computer one external one internal.
So but booting on to the
(hd1,0) which is the first partition of the external drive
would it work ?
I do not wish to use the internal drive, as that hold all my vista (all 300gig of it)
so if i boot to the
(hd1,0) would it work ?

Addendum:

So, By using
(hd1,0)
I am not loading into the MRB of the drive.
So it would work.

Addendum:

I tryed the
(hd1,4) (partition had changed location :/)
still didnt work.
I will now try then
/dev/sdbY

y= the number of the partition

If this doesn't work any ideas ?
 
Last edited:
Ok, I have tryed /dev/sdb2
/dev/sdf1
/dev/sdb1

All say when installing grub (within the live cd)
Grub installation failed could not find (/dev/sdxy)

My repository for this is sbf installing on the first partition of a ext3 formated drive

Addendum:

Heres an Idea.
What should I type in the Advanced section ??

if my location is sbf
format ext3
and its the first partition of that drive (sbf)

wat do i type in ?
 
Last edited:
It's very simple. On the partioning screen, you'll be told EXACTLY what /dev/sd** combo your / partition is.
 
OK, I have done that, rebooted and opened up longhorn then easyBCD
Now,
when under the linux tab i only see the Main drive, I can not find the Linux drive.
I still have one other one I made that points to the drive anyway, rebooted, clicked on it and got error 22.
one. What is it
two. How can I fix it.
 
Bah... EasyBCD isn't detecting Removable Drives there :frowning:

****FLAGGED AS A BUG FOR 2.0****

Solution:
You'll need to manually create a bootsector image:
Boot from the Ubuntu DVD. When the Live CD environment starts up, open a shell (terminal, console, whatever you want to call it) and execute this:
Code: 
sudo dd if=/dev/sdf1 of=~/Desktop/nst_grub.mbr bs=512 count=1
That'll create a file called "nst_grub.mbr" on your desktop. Email it to yourself, or put it on a floppy, flash, etc.

Boot back into Windows.
EasyBCD -> Linux -> select *any* drive and press add.
Replace C:\NST\nst_grub.mbr with the one you just created.
Reboot and test.

Sorry about the roundabout way.
 
Ok, I dont know how i did it, but I kinda tricked it into connecting to the ext drive(without doing that :?)
I used one of the older boot loaders i made when i was just using (hd0)
seems that using that bootloader works fine :?
Dont know how but it does.
also, my splash screen isnt showing or loading :?
anyidea how to fix it and stop my monitor turning off and on again :/
 
that's good to hear :smile:

You'll need to install the latest closed-source drivers to get rid the VGA flickr.
 
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