Thinking of installing ubuntu and making a dual boot xp machine.

[freebird73717]

I'm considering installing Ubuntu 7.10 onto my main machine with xp and having a dual boot. I have already installed ubuntu to a very small, old hard drive i had lying around and have played around with it. So far I like it but it is a pain to switch the hard drives...which is why I'm considering a dual boot system. I don't want to switch completely to linux because I am more comfortable with windows for video creation. The thing is I'm leary of doing it because I don't want to lose any data already on my xp drive. Yes I know I can and will backup before doing anything but I am hoping to not have to re-install everything. I read in an article that you can just use the ubuntu livecd to repartition the xp drive and it won't overwrite anything. Could it be that simple? Any advice would be welcome.

Here is the article I read.
http://apcmag.com/6101/dualboot_windows_xp_and_ubuntu

[AlanHK]

Yes, you can repartition. It's reasonably safe, but if the power goes off in the middle, the disk could be scrambled.

Otherwise, why not install your Ubuntu hard disk as a secondary (if you have room)?

It's possible that the BIOS will detect you have two bootable drives and present a boot menu -- this is a feature of some motherboards at least. If that doesn't work, try bootpart which can add Linux to XP's own boot menu.

[CubDukat]

I'm considering installing Ubuntu 7.10 onto my main machine with xp and having a dual boot. I have already installed ubuntu to a very small, old hard drive i had lying around and have played around with it. So far I like it but it is a pain to switch the hard drives...which is why I'm considering a dual boot system. I don't want to switch completely to linux because I am more comfortable with windows for video creation. The thing is I'm leary of doing it because I don't want to lose any data already on my xp drive. Yes I know I can and will backup before doing anything but I am hoping to not have to re-install everything. I read in an article that you can just use the ubuntu livecd to repartition the xp drive and it won't overwrite anything. Could it be that simple? Any advice would be welcome.

Here is the article I read.
http://apcmag.com/6101/dualboot_windows_xp_and_ubuntu

You can, indeed, and it really is that simple. But I would strongly suggest that if you are going to use it for anything, don't use 7.10. For all the problems I'm having with it, it's not worth the minimal improvements. If you do install it, by all means, DO NOT install the realtime kernel; it'll lock your system up every time.

[freebird73717]

Otherwise, why not install your Ubuntu hard disk as a secondary (if you have room)?

That's just it. Don't have the room. Otherwise thats exactly what I'd do.

[freebird73717]

You can, indeed, and it really is that simple. But I would strongly suggest that if you are going to use it for anything, don't use 7.10. For all the problems I'm having with it, it's not worth the minimal improvements. If you do install it, by all means, DO NOT install the realtime kernel; it'll lock your system up every time.

Just out of curiosity what issues are you having and what version of ubuntu do you recommend.

[Afterburner]

Install Microsoft Virtual PC and then install Ubuntu ver. 6.10 inside that
There are a few tricks during setup regarding screen resoluton.
This setup allowes me to run Windows 987SE, Windows 2000, and Ubuntu (or more)
inside the Virtual PC

[freebird73717]

I don't have the horsepower to run a virtualpc (well anyways). I have 3 hard drives in my system. One is my system drive with xp installed. The other two are a 60 and 40 gb emptys for video work. I think I'll just install ubuntu onto one of those two drives and let it repartition them. Then I'll either change the drive boot order in bios or look into bootpart like AlanHK suggested.

Thanks for all the replies and suggestions.

Last question. Why do you suggest Ubuntu 6.10 instead of 7.10?

[GMaq]

Hi,
If I could chip in I would strongly recommend defragmenting your system before installing Ubuntu (or other). I would even recommend defragging twice even if the utility say's it's unnecessary. That will increase the ability if the Ubuntu installer to work with the free space.

Also Linux Mint 4.0 "Daryna" www.distrowatch.com is a distro built on Ubuntu 7.10 except all of the obvious things like multimedia support and other tweaks that Ubuntu can't do for legal reasons are already done. It is 100% compatible with all the Ubuntu 7.10 software repositories and in my experience is solid as a rock. (Realtime kernels are a dicey proposition in most distros and usually not necessary) Mint also has NTFS support built in and I have encoded and moved hundreds of files back and forth to my NTFS internal and external drives with absolutely no issues.

[the_man_one]

easiest way i have found to do it is with hirens boot cd.... use a disk partitioning tool to resize the windows partition, then just load any linux u want & use grub to boot... simple & easy.... install it on the windows hdd

[GMaq]

easiest way i have found to do it is with hirens boot cd.... use a disk partitioning tool to resize the windows partition, then just load any linux u want & use grub to boot... simple & easy.... install it on the windows hdd

For the record there are several Partitioning disk tools: "GParted" "SystemRescueCD" also at www.distrowatch.com, just scroll down the distro list on the right hand side to find them. I am not familiar with "Hirens" but i have set up numerous dual-boot machines with the GParted disc, It's basically "Partition Magic" on steroids in a LiveCD format.

[the_man_one]

hiren's is more than that.... it has multiple partition programs (9 i think), something like at the very least 30 programs... all on 1 cd, bootable, simply the best boot cd ever compiled... did i mention it is free?




http://www.hiren.info/pages/bootcd

[reylafo]

Just use the old Hard Disc you already tried and install as slave or in another IDE port as master. Install Ubuntu in this hard drive. It will be recognized as "hdb". Make 3 partitions: /as ext3, /home as ext3 and swap(1gig or less). /home should be the largest as all your stuff will reside there.
When you reboot, Grub(the boot loader) will ask you what OS to load.
Soon you will be using Windows less and less.

great tutorials here:

http://www.psychocats.net/ubuntu/

enjoy Ubuntu.

[freebird73717]

Well I have installed ubuntu and everything has gone without a hitch. I'm currently booted into ubuntu right now. Now I just have to download the 145 updates available.....

I just installed it to one of my secondary empty video drives. It left my windows drive untouched. Now I have the best of both worlds.

Thanks for all the help and replies guys.

[ahhaa]

Just for future reference, removable HD trays are a cheap way to swap drives and also useful in video editing transfers.

[freebird73717]

Okay I've been using ubuntu for about two weeks now and I have to say I like it. It took a while getting things set up the way I want but now I think it's pretty much there. The hardest thing to get working was getting wine to cooperate with my ntfs drives. Got that fixed though. Going to be using linux more and more I can tell. Heck even my wife (who hates it when I do/install something new with the computer) likes ubuntu better than windows!

[GMaq]

OK,
Glad you like it! Now hurry up and get that HC Enc Batch utility ported over!

[freebird73717]

OK,
Glad you like it! Now hurry up and get that HC Enc Batch utility ported over!

It's on my list of "to do's"!

Gotta do a lot more learning of the linux OS first!