How to avoid problems when installing Ubuntu and Windows 7 in dual-boot?

Posted by BlaXpirit on Ask Ubuntu See other posts from Ask Ubuntu or by BlaXpirit
Published on 2010-12-22T21:50:40Z Indexed on 2012/09/27 3:49 UTC
Read the original article Hit count: 211

Filed under:

10.10

|

partitioning

|

windows-7

|

dual-boot

|

grub2

I want to try out Ubuntu (and hopefully choose it as my primary OS). After looking at many versions of it in VirtualBox and from Live CD, I've finally decided to install it.

So I defragmented and shrinked one of the partitions to make room for Ubuntu.
My current setup (after shrinking the D: partition):

[·100 MB·] [······250000 MB······] [·······600000 MB·······] [··100000 MB···]
 Reserved   Windows 7 system (C:)          Data (D:)            Free space
   NTFS             NTFS                     NTFS              (for Ubuntu)

The Internet (including AskUbuntu) is full of scary stories about Windows not loading after installation of Ubuntu, something about installing GRUB to a wrong partition, etc.
As I am a newbie to Linux and Ubuntu, it is very easy for me to do something wrong. Please mention the problems that may appear and explain how to avoid them.

Ubuntu version that will be installed: 10.10 Desktop amd64

Please note that I have installed Windows 7 about a year ago, so I have much to lose if something goes wrong. I want to be very careful because there is no way for me to backup all the data.

© Ask Ubuntu or respective owner

Related posts about 10.10

How can I upgrade to 10.10 from 10.10 beta

as seen on Ask Ubuntu - Search for 'Ask Ubuntu'
Can you please tell me how can I upgrade to ubuntu 10.10 release from ubuntu 10.10 beta? I have go to update manager, it keeps saying there is no update. And what I go to synaptic package manager, I see this error: W: A error occurred during the signature verification. The repository is not updated… >>> More
Bridged network between Ubuntu Desktop 10.10 host and Ubuntu Server 10.10 Guest

as seen on Ask Ubuntu - Search for 'Ask Ubuntu'
I run Ubuntu 10.10 Desktop on my machine and have installed Ubuntu Server 10.10 in a Virtualbox VM. I'm running Virtualbox 4.0.2. It is not virtualbox-ose. I'd like the guest OS to have an IP address on my local network so that I can run server software and access this from the host OS. My intention… >>> More
Merging /boot and rearranging grub2 entries

as seen on Ask Ubuntu - Search for 'Ask Ubuntu'
I have used 10.10 and now for testing purposes installed 10.04 to a separate partition. 10.10 is currently on a single partition, while for 10.04 I decided to separate /boot to a third partition. Now my questions: How can I move and merge 10.10's /boot on the new /boot partition What do I have to… >>> More
Merging /boot and rearring grub2 entries

as seen on Ask Ubuntu - Search for 'Ask Ubuntu'
I have used 10.10 and now for testing purposes installed 10.04 to a separate partition. 10.10 is currently on a single partition, while for 10.04 I decided to separate /boot to a third partition. Now my questions: How can I move and merge 10.10's /boot on the new /boot partition What do I have to… >>> More
Boot failure : No DEFAULT or UI configuration directive found!

as seen on Ask Ubuntu - Search for 'Ask Ubuntu'
I've tried to install Ubuntu on a VMWare Virtual Machine, but it never get's past the bootloader : ISOLINUX 4.01 debian-20100714 ETCD Copyright (C) 1994-2010 H. Peter Anvin et al No DEFAULT or UI configuration directive found! boot: _ I've also tried to burn this .iso image to a CD and go from… >>> More

Related posts about partitioning

Partitioning Webcast Details - 17/03/2010

as seen on Oracle Blogs - Search for 'Oracle Blogs'
Hi AllHere are the details for Wednesday's (17th March 2010) webcast on Partitioning:Webcast is at http://strtc.oracle.com (IE6, 7 & 8 supported only)Conference ID for the webcast is 6168728There is no conference keyPlease use your real name in the name field (just makes it easier for us to help… >>> More
UNR Installation: Partitioning Error

as seen on Super User - Search for 'Super User'
Hi all, I have a Samsung N120 netbook (with upgraded 2GB RAM). I'm trying to install Ubuntu Netbook Remix, but when I set my partitions, I get an error. The setup I want right now is: Recovery Partition - 6 GB Windows XP Home Partition - 40 GB General Partition - remaining space UNR Partition -… >>> More
Parallelism in .NET – Part 5, Partitioning of Work

as seen on Reed Copsey - Search for 'Reed Copsey'
When parallelizing any routine, we start by decomposing the problem. Once the problem is understood, we need to break our work into separate tasks, so each task can be run on a different processing element. This process is called partitioning. Partitioning our tasks is a challenging feat… >>> More
How do I mount a "DiskSecure Multiboot" partition?

as seen on Ask Ubuntu - Search for 'Ask Ubuntu'
For a hard drive that has 4 or 5 partitions, I was able to mount one of them using Ubuntu LiveCD: sudo mount /dev/sda1 /mnt but is there a way to mount to the other partitions? (if using sudo fdisk -l, it only shows /dev/sda) GParted's snapshot is: Right now, the fdisk info is as follows: ubuntu@ubuntu:~$… >>> More
Can't remove GPT data from MBR

as seen on Ask Ubuntu - Search for 'Ask Ubuntu'
I am having difficulty getting the Ubuntu installer (and gparted) to recognize the partitions on my MBR type disk. Other operating systems and disk tools read the disk structure and the files on it fine. I have used fixparts to write a new MBR but the issue persists. I assume the issue stems from… >>> More