Dual booting Windows 7 and Ubuntu 10.04

brighty22

Member
Hi,
I am trying to dual boot linux with 7... with windows installed first, keeping the windows 7 boot manager in control. I heard about easybcd from a friend and decided to use it... I looked into the documentation, and was planning on following this tutorial, but had problems with step 3 as the install process has been updated since it was made, and (being inexperienced) I'm not sure how to do the same thing with the new interface.

I need someone with experience/knowledge of installing Ubuntu 10.04.. this is the screen I got after completing step 2 of the tutorial:

photo 2.jpg
(sda1 is my windows 7 partition, sda5 is the recovery partition that came with my pc, and free space is where i want to install ubuntu - I created it by shrinking C:/ using disk management in win7)

I already made the free space, but since I did it using windows, do I have to format it to ext3 like the tutorial says? Or will ext4 work (i heard it's better)? This is what came up when i clicked on the format checkbox:

photo.jpg
(I filled in all the boxes as shown.. are they all completely right? Then hit cancel as I was too afraid of breaking something :x)

If I format it like this, will it just format this partition, or my entire hard drive? I think I know the answer.. but want to be safe :smile: Also can I change the size value to 20480, as this is what I shrank c:/ by in win7.. so I am slightly confused as to why it has gone up - I don't want it eating into either the win7 or even worse recovery partition..

Finally, can someone tell me what to put in the 'device for boot loader installation' box in step 6? I have no idea.. despite reading the instructions twice. This is what disk management looks like from windows 7:

Capture.PNG

Any advice would be greatly appreciated :smile: If you need any more screenshots, please don't hesitate to ask..

Thanks,
brighty22
 
I'd format it as ext4, which is basically the same as ext3, only it is a "journaling filesystem" (meaning it keeps track of the changes it intends to make in a journal before commiting them to the main filesystem; in the event of a system crash or power failure, such filesystems are easier to bring back online and less likely to become corrupted).
And make sure to install Ubuntu's grub (or Grub2) to the partition and not to the mbr. When you get to that stage, just select the Ubuntu partition as where to install Grub.
And no, it wont format the entire drive if you just select the free space. It will only operate on the free space. I'd keep it as the default value though for formatting, and use a primary partition instead of logical.
 
I've had another idea: could I just install using 'largest continuous free space' then on the screen before install, hit 'advanced' and just uncheck the 'install boot loader' checkbox, then when it reboots straight back into 7, use easybcd to add ubuntu to the boot menu? Would this work? Thanks :smile:
 
Install it using largrest continuous, and install the bootloader.
Use the Ubuntu bootloader to get into Windows. Run EasyBCD, add a GRUB2 Ubuntu entry and from the MBR repair page select the "Windows Vista/7" MBR then write the mbr.
 
er.. no it didnt. I added the ubuntu entry, then overwrote the mbr using easybcd, and ubuntu didnt boot... but luckily windows did. I left the box about the bootsector blank... this might be the problem :/ anyway I deleted the ubuntu partitions, so now they are 'free space' again.

This is what the advanced boot loader options looks like... last time I left it as the deafult (the one at the top). Which one should I pick?

photo.jpg

Thanks :smile:
 
Leave the "Install Bootloader" checkbox checked, and select the Ubuntu partition in the drop-down menu (if you leave it as the default, Grub will be installed to the MBR and you don't want that). Then after Ubuntu is installed, use EasyBCD 2.0 to add a Grub2 Ubuntu entry.
 
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