Vista Ubuntu Dual Boot problem

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