ManyBeers said:
Thanks Steve but I have in fact already done so uses that very thread as a
guide.
The deal is I am thinking of dual-booting with linux Ubuntu 8.04 and ther
are basically 2 ways of going about it. When Ubuntu is installed it asks
where you want to install GRUB it's bootloader and if you install it in the
MBR it will overwrite Windows bootloader And make Ubuntu the default op
system to boot with Windows as an option. However according to a guy on
Ubuntu's support forum I would lose my Recovery Console entry. I don't like
that part.
A secondary method retains all of my boot options since it
uses Windows own bootloader and adds Ubuntu to boot.ini. This method is a
little riskier I think because at one point in the install there is a point
where neither OpSys can be booted but is relativelt easy to fix-at least
according to this
guide:
http://www.linuxdevcenter.com/pub/a/linux/2006/05/08/dual-boot-laptop.html?page=1
So I think letting Grub be my bootloader is probably eaier for me but my
concern is if I ever dump Ubuntu I want to make sure I can get my Windows
bootloader back. I have an image of my Windows C: partiton made with Image
For Windows(Terabyte) and looking at it's imaging parameters it does appear
that the image includes the MBR so I am probably covered there. What method
would you use if you were me?
In my previous post I said the url you provided was out of date.
https://help.ubuntu.com/community/WindowsDualBoot
"If you have a problem with changing the MBR code, you might prefer to
just install the code for pointing to GRUB to the first sector of your
Ubuntu partition instead. If you do that during the Ubuntu installation
process, then Ubuntu won't boot until you configure some other boot
manager to point to Ubuntu's boot sector. Windows Vista no longer
utilizes boot.ini,..."
SH: Dual booting with XP is easier than with Vista. Since the boot code
is written to the first sector of the Ubuntu Partition, it shouldn't
mess with the MBR, which means it should just boot to Windows. One
should still have their backed up original MBR handy on a floppy disk
or USB stick ready to restore the original MBR just in case.
So in XP, which does still use boot.ini, just safely add the line
C:\ubuntu.bin="Ubuntu" to the boot.ini.
[boot loader]
timeout=5
default=multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(1)\WINNT
[operating systems]
multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(1)\WINNT="Microsoft Windows XP
Professional" /fastdetect
C:\ubuntu.bin="Ubuntu"
SH: You can add this before installing Ubuntu. And maybe the
Ubuntu boot file information is menu.lst rather than grub.conf.
You can add ubuntu to the windows boot loader:
Boot from the LiveD.
Step 1) Install Ubuntu. On the last screen click on the "advanced"
button and replace (hd0) by /dev/sda3. (Here you need to replace sda3 by
whatever partition Ubuntu is on)
Don't reboot immediately. Instead stay on the LiveCD.
Step 2) Mount your Windows partition:
sudo mount -t ntfs-3g /dev/sda2 /windows
(Here replace sda2 by whatever partition Windows is on)
Step 3) Copy the first sector of the Ubuntu partition to a file on the
Windows partition:
sudo dd if=/dev/sda3 of=/windows/ubuntu.bin bs=512 count=1
(Be very careful when using "dd". Info on dd
(
http://linuxreviews.org/man/dd/))
[alternative method]
Step 4) Add ubuntu to the windows boot loader:
Open "boot.ini" from the Windows partition via
sudo gedit /windows/boot.ini
Add this line to the end of the file:
c:\ubuntu.bin="Ubuntu"
Save the file.
Reboot and you get should get a menu with a Windows and Ubuntu choice."
SH: You should have a file named ubuntu.bin in your root directory,
C:\ , where the hidden file boot.ini resides. Just the reference to
the file ubuntu.bin is contained within boot.ini, C:\ubuntu.bin="Ubuntu"
One can often tell what is the right name for the partition
by looking at the size of the partition related to that name.
