Trying to Dualboot Ubunto 8.10 and Vista


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Ok... All morning I have been trying to dualboot Vista and Ubuntu 8.10. I have Ubuntu installed first, and I am a Linux noob. I have next to no idea what I am doing, but I like it.

So. I installed Ubuntu, no problems. Got everything configured and was enjoying myself. But then I realized, no matter how much I enjoy using Ubuntu, I will still need Windows. I need it for my MP3 player, and my games, unfortunately. If it wasn't for those 2 things, I would never use Windows again. But that is a different story.

Ok, back to topic. I am trying to dual boot. I got Vista installed just fine on a seperate partition. But, surprise, now I can't see my Linux install anymore. So I try to use 'EasyBCD' (I think that's what it's called) to install NeoGrub so I have the option to dual boot with Vista. I copy the backup I made of the menu.lst from Ubuntu in to the configuration file for NeoGrub. Save everything, and restart. NeoGrub pops up and gives me the option to boot into either Vista or Ubuntu. So I select Ubuntu, and I get this message 'TRY (HD,0,0): EXT2:' and it just stays there... I wait a few minutes, still there. PC doesn't appear to be doing anything.

So I do some searching around the net and came to the conclusion that some how, the GRUB on my Ubuntu install must have gotten messed up when I installed Vista.

So I boot into Ubuntu via LiveUSB and go to terminal and enter the following strings:

sudo grub

find /boot/grub/stage1 (I found it at HD0,0)

root (hd0,0)

setup (hd0)

then I quit out of grub and terminal, everything went ok. So by doing this I was able to boot back into Ubuntu, but surprise! No more Vista. Haha, I have been having a fun time all morning trying to figure this out, and I just cracked a fresh beer. I will not give up. Do you guys have any suggestions? Any help at all would be greatly appreciated. Thanks a lot for reading!

Edited by chevyordeath
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Well, I think I've solved my problem. Since I got GRUB back I decided to see if there was a way I could make Vista bootable using Linux insted of vice versa.

I found a tutorial that showed a pretty easy way of being able to use GRUB to boot into Vista. I just opened menu.lst and added the following information into the bottom of the file

title Windows Vista

root (hd0,1)

makeactive

chainloader +1

After doing this, I saved the file, and rebooted. Worked like a charm, all I have to do is hit escape when the GRUB is loading and it brings up the Grub menu and I can select Vista. It boots into Vista just fine.

I still can't figure out why I couldn't get NeoGrub to boot into Linux using Vista. Oh well I guess, I think I would rather have Linux in charge of my boot process instead of Vista.

Are there any disadvantages to using GRUB to boot into VIsta instead of NeoGrub? Or are they about equal?

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what is your MP3 player brand and model?

and about your games, enter this command in a terminal: sudo apt-get install wine

and then try to open the .exe with /usr/bin/wine. Most of them should work.

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Well, you have GRUB set as your boot manager, and it can handle booting Linux, or passing control to Windows (if you tell it where it is). When you install Linux on top of an existing Windows install, it will set it up for you. But you seem to have gone about it the other way. :p

At this point, let's see what your partitions are. Boot Ubuntu, open a terminal, and post the results of the command

sudo fdisk -l

(that's a lowercase letter "L", not the number one)

You can just drag-select the line above with your mouse, then middle-click in an open terminal to copy/paste it without using the keyboard. You will have to enter your password to run the command, though.

This will tell us where your Windows partition is, and we can add an entry into your /boot/grub/menu.lst file to point there, so you have a choice when you boot. (Y)

EDIT: I see you made another post, and you already figured all of that out. :p

Good work!

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Ubunto? Never tried it. Ballcap or OpenSuShi either.

Excellent that you figured it out; I always end up in a mess with bootloaders; I'm not sure why.

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Thanks Elv13, I'll look into that. I got Vista and Ubuntu playing nice together right now. I can switch between the two fairly easily. I don't have to switch to Vista too much. Mostly on the weekends... If I am having company over or a party or something, I'll keep it on Vista. None of my friends even have any idea what Linux is, let alone use it. So when we are partying I'll just keep Vista going so they can easily navigate my music and stuff.

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