Vista Ubuntu Dual Boot problem

L

leafyone

Member
Ok, I am trying to setup a Vista-Ubuntu dual boot, but I am new to Ubuntu and linux in general and having no luck.

Vista is already on a SATA hard drive ( C: ) and I am trying to put Ubuntu on a spare IDE hard drive. The install process of Ubuntu seems to go fine, following the Ubuntu instructions on the wiki to change the grub install location, but when I add an entry using EasyBCD, Ubuntu won't boot from the Vista Bootloader. it just flashes a few screens and goes back to the Vista loader. Vista still works fine.


In case this helps - the Ubuntu install info:
Ubuntu installs to partition 1 of hda. My vista HD seems to come up as sda (I assume that's because its a SATA drive?) So I go to the advanced options at the end of the install and install grub at /dev/hda1, right? I have also tried hda0 just in case but that didn't work either.

Anyone see where I am going wrong?
 
mqudsi

mqudsi

Mostly Harmless
Staff member
Hi leafyone, welcome to NeoSmart Technologies.

Ubuntu no longer follows the sda,hda standard for SCSCI/SATA and IDE drives respectively.
To the latest versions of Ubuntu and Fedora, all drives are seen as sd*.

So if Vista is /dev/sda1, then most likely Ubuntu is /dev/sdb1 ---- it should be very clear on the partitioning screen which is which.
 
L

leafyone

Member
Wow, thanks for the fast reply.

I will try using the sd? notation again later when I'm at my computer, but I am fairly certain that the hard drives came up in the ubuntu partitioner as hda and sda. Why would it report a drive as hda if that notation is invalid? The Ubuntu version I've got is gutsy gibbon (7.10) straight from the ubuntu website.
 
mqudsi

mqudsi

Mostly Harmless
Staff member
I'm pretty sure it said /dev/sd* for each entry; I believe it's been that way since Feisty Fawn.
 
L

leafyone

Member
Well, I am back at my computer and it definitely says my IDE hard drive is "hda," but maybe that isn't the same as the /dev/hda notation?

In the installer's partitioner I have been choosing "guided - use entire disk" and selecting "ide1 master (hda)" and leaving my vista drive alone, which is "scsi2 (0,0,0) (sda)"

Then, in the "Ready to Install" screen it shows this:

"The partition tables of the following devices are changed:
IDE1 master (hda)

The following partitions are going to be formatted:
partition #1 of IDE1 master (hda) as ext3
partition #5 of IDE1 master (hda) as swap"

So where should I put the bootloader? As I said before I have been trying to put it somewhere like /dev/hda1 or /dev/hda0. I don't want to mess up my Vista boot loader, so I don't want to play around more and get it wrong.
 
Top