Ubuntu after Win 7 after Vista

T

TaintedShirt

Active Member
Hi guys,
It's me again, back for help from the guys who know all things boot. :smile:

Previously you all sorted out my system and I ended up triple booting with the best of them, running XP, Vista and Win 7. Unfortunately Vista has had an update go awry and M$ have recommended a re-install. I am going to use XP on another PC so that will now not be used on this pc.

What I would like to end up with is a triple boot with Vista, Win 7 and ('cos everyone these days has tried Linux) Ubuntu. I have two hard drives one with all my current OSes, the other with data.

What I thought to do was
1) Turn off pc and disconnect the data drive
2) Boot with Vista disc, format the OS drive and give a 100gig to each OS. (Is this enough do you think?)
3) Install Vista, power down.
4) Boot with Win 7 disc and install Win 7 power down
5) Boot with Ubuntu disc and install Ubuntu.
6) Power down, boot in to Vista and install Easybcd.

I am having one difficulty following the guides on the site here. Dual Booting Ubuntu Linux and Windows Vista At step 4, 5 and 6 it's the whole installing Grub to the Ubuntu partition thing. The default is the hard drive you are installing Ubuntu to, so for me that would be hd0. It'll also be the third partition so that'll be number two for Linux. I understand this (I think) but my problem lies with the example given in the wiki tutorial.

Quoting the tutorial it says:
"Instead of (hd#) we're going to use /dev/sda1 - the partition we installed Ubuntu to.
You can determine this number by looking at the drive Ubuntu is installed to in the on-screen text (as in the screenshot above) to get the sd* value, then suffix it with the partition number (starting from 1). "

So the example says hd0 and sda1 but in picture 6 (hd0,1) is filled in. Now please don't laugh but is the sda value the bit after the comma? Cos when I was reading the tutorial I was expecting to see something like "/dev/sd01" filled in to the box telling Ubuntu where to install Grub as 0 is the drive and 1 the partition. But there is no mention of /dev/sd at all. :? So would I use (hd0,2) ?

One final thing, with all your experience at multi booting and installing OSes am I missing anything in the above steps. I have downloaded all my AV/ firewall software for the windows OSes (don't know what is available for Ubuntu tbh) and have all my software discs piled up beside me so once installed I should be ready to go.

Thanks for reading all this and any advice. :smile:
 
Welcome back TaintedShirt,

Your order is fine, however, you may need to recover the windows bootloader from a Windows Vista or Windows 7 DVD using startup repair should you find you cant boot into Vista nor W7 after installing Ubuntu. If you can (Ubuntu installer around 7.10 I believe) picks up on Windows installs automatically and adds them to the grub bootmenu), boot into either Vista/W7, install EasyBCD as you planned to, and than re-install the Vista bootloader: Manage Bootloader -> Reinstall Vista Bootloader -> Write MBR. The last step would of course be to add a new entry for Ubuntu, which you can do on the Linux tab on the Add/Remove entries page.

Now when you get to installing EasyBCD, you should use the latest beta build of EasyBCD, as grub syntax has changed and 1.7.x can't handle it.
 
TaintedShirt said:
Quoting the tutorial it says:
"Instead of (hd#) we're going to use /dev/sda1 - the partition we installed Ubuntu to.
You can determine this number by looking at the drive Ubuntu is installed to in the on-screen text (as in the screenshot above) to get the sd* value, then suffix it with the partition number (starting from 1). "

So the example says hd0 and sda1 but in picture 6 (hd0,1) is filled in. Now please don't laugh but is the sda value the bit after the comma? Cos when I was reading the tutorial I was expecting to see something like "/dev/sd01" filled in to the box telling Ubuntu where to install Grub as 0 is the drive and 1 the partition. But there is no mention of /dev/sd at all. :? So would I use (hd0,2) ?
Click to expand...
(hd0,2) translates to /dev/sda3. :wink: The second form starts the count for partitions at 1, while the first form starts the count for both drives and partitions at 0. The second form uses letters, not numbers, to count hard drives. When you're installing Ubuntu, and using the Advanced option, select /dev/sda3 as where to put Grub.
 
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thanks for that
I was expecting the slash dev slash bit to be included and then the sd went and became a hd and ....

Right I'm off now to start this all off. Wish me luck. :smile:
 
Well that went surprisingly smoothly. Now I'm off to re-install all my software, which must really be one of the most boring things ever. Just sit there watching a progress bar. :frowning:

so thanks guys for your help. I've even ventured in to Ubuntu too. Looks nice and very responsive too. A whole new OS to play in :grinning:
 
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