Gaming Dual-Booting

[Rowan]

Hi there, I'm an ubuntu newbie,

I have successfully installed Ubuntu 9.10 onto my external hard drive and I think it's great

However, I have windows vista installed onto my internal hard drive and that's the reason I have ubuntu on my external,

I tried partitioning my internal hard drive and successfully shrank it down leaving unallocated space available,

I then restarted my computer and the boot screen left me with an error, meaning vista couldn't be loaded, so I had to use my recovery disk to reinstall it

So I eventually installed ubuntu on my external hard drive, this is great except for the fact I need to have the external hard drive plugged in to boot my computer even if I only want to go on windows,

Is there a way around this? Possibly by moving an ubuntu boot file onto my windows hard drive or something?

Thanks in advance

Rowan

 

[Elritha]

Sounds like GRUB may be an issue. It'd be easier to simply have both OS on your internal drive.

If you really want to continue to use Ubuntu on your external drive you should write GRUB to the MBR of your external drive. Also be sure that your bios supports booting from usb.

Basically it should make your external drive bootable that should run on any pc that supports usb booting, and it will leave your Windows installation and Windows bootloader untouched (though you may have to repair it from your previous install).

Windows should boot normally this way when the usb drive is unplugged. With the usb drive plugged in Ubuntu should boot (you could add in a further GRUB entry to boot from Windows when the usb drive is plugged in). You will have to set your usb drive to be bootable first in your bios, followed by your internal drive.

 

[kylehaas]

Listen bud, you're going about this all the wrong way.
Download Wubi. Google it and then install.

Wubi lets you install and dual boot windows and ubuntu, but it does all the confusing stuff for you!
Try it, it's never given me any problems!

Good luck and PM me if you need more help.

 

[Rowan]

Hi, when you say dual boot, I'd still have to load up windows to load up wubi to use ubuntu, to me that defeats the object of having ubuntu, I mean I want to be able to boot it from the start

 

[murkurie]

Use, Wubi, no need for partition, what it does, is it makes a virtual hdd on your main hdd, biggest it can go is 30gb, and it will add a option to your windows boot loader to start Ubuntu. so when you press power, it will say start Windows Vista, or below that it will say Ubuntu, and you use the arrow keys to choose which one you want, and if you dont want ubuntu anymore, you can uninstall it.

 

[Frederica Bernkastel]

Use, Wubi, no need for partition, what it does, is it makes a virtual hdd on your main hdd, biggest it can go is 30gb, and it will add a option to your windows boot loader to start Ubuntu. so when you press power, it will say start Windows Vista, or below that it will say Ubuntu, and you use the arrow keys to choose which one you want, and if you dont want ubuntu anymore, you can uninstall it.

Wubi isn't a real install, it's a glorified Live install.


If you're doing a dual boot, just use GRUB2, and it's OS prober. It'll set up everything for you.

 

[seahorsepip]

yea do what Antoligy say,
Install vista(bad idea-> install 7 and if not wanna pay use "remove mat(replace m with w, did it to bypass another warning for it XD)") then make vista install smaller with live ubuntu and gparted then install ubuntu on free space with the desktop shortcut.
after that you will restart and see options for linux(other modes and standard mode) and windows

 

[nutella]

Please don't use wubi. That's not really a good idea in the long run. You can't hibernate or sleep, you won't be able to boot into it if something happens to your Windows partition, any viruses from Windows can affect your Ubuntu files and you will be subjected to fragmentation. Just do what seahorsepip said and if you feel like uninstalling it, use EasyBCD to restore the Windows bootloader then delete the partition.

 

[trumpet-205]

Please don't use wubi. That's not really a good idea in the long run. You can't hibernate or sleep, you won't be able to boot into it if something happens to your Windows partition, any viruses from Windows can affect your Ubuntu files and you will be subjected to fragmentation. Just do what seahorsepip said and if you feel like uninstalling it, use EasyBCD to restore the Windows bootloader then delete the partition.

Not to mention that if there is a power outage, most likely you'll corrupt the file system.