Burace17’s Weblog

How to Dual-boot Windows Vista and Ubuntu (Ubuntu installed first) May 28, 2008

Would if you want to dual-boot Windows Vista and Ubuntu but Ubuntu was installed first? Well that’s a little harder to do because when Vista installs, it overwrites the GRUB bootloader which is what Ubuntu uses to boot. Here’s how you would get Windows Vista installed:

1. Download the Gnome Partition Editor from here or use the Ubuntu Live CD to partition your drive. We will use the Gnome Partition Editor

2. Boot from the live CD and press ENTER twice to select your language and keyboard layout

3. Right click on /dev/sda1 (depending on how you have your drive partitioned, this may be different) and click Resize/Move

4. Move the slider to select how much space you need for Vista and Resize/Move

5. When you’re finished, quit GNOME Partition Editor, restart your computer and boot from the Vista DVD

6. Follow the instructions form the Vista installer until you get to the Where do you want to install Windows? page.

7. When you’re there, select Unpartitioned Space and click Next

When Windows Vista is installed, you’ll notice that you cannot boot Ubuntu anymore. Here’s how you can fix that:

1. Boot from the Ubuntu Live CD

2. Open GParted

3. Right click on the partition where Windows Vista is installed and click Manage Flags

4. Uncheck boot

5. Close GParted

6. Open Terminal

7. Type sudo grub

8. Type find /boot/grub/stage1

9. Type root (hd0,0)

10. Type setup (hd0)

11. Type quit then exit

You should now be able to boot Ubuntu and Windows Vista.

If you want to change how Windows Vista is listed on the GRUB menu, do this:

1. Start Ubuntu

2. Open Terminal and type: sudo gedit /boot/grub/menu.lst

3. Scroll down to the bottom and you should see Windows Vista’s entry at the bottom

4. Change the title line to whatever you want (but don’t take out the word title)

You can also change other options such as the timeout option.

Dual-booting Windows Vista and Ubuntu (Vista installed first) May 26, 2008

Ever wanted to have Ubuntu and Vista installed on the same computer? Well, that’s really easy to do.

1. Click Start, Control Panel, type administrative tools

2. Click Administrative Tools

3. Click Computer Management

4. On the left pane, click Disk Mananagement

5. Right click on your system drive (it should be blue) and click Shrink Volume

6. Type how big you want your Ubuntu partition to be and click Shrink

7. DO NOT FORMAT IT. Insert your Ubuntu CD and restart your computer

8. When you see the Welcome screen press ENTER

9. Once the desktop is up, click Install

10. Once you get to the partitioner, select Guided Partitioning – use largest contintous free space

11. Finish the installation

12. When you restart, you’ll notice that the Vista boot loader has been overwritten but you can still boot Vista. If you want to use the Vista boot loader and not the GRUB boot loader, follow these steps:

1. Start Vista and download EasyBCD

2. Start EasyBCD and click Manage Bootloader

3. Select Reinstall Vista boot loader and restart your computer

You’ll notice that Ubuntu is no where to be seen becuase Vista can’t read Linux Partitions. Here’s how you get Ubuntu back.

4. Start EasyBCD and select Manage Entries

5. Select the Linux tab

6. Type the name you want to call this entry and then select the drive where Ubuntu is located.

7. Click Save Settings and restart your computer

You should now see the option to boot Ubuntu when you start your computer