How to dual-boot Vista with Linux (with Linux installed first) -- the step-by-step guide with screenshots

Leigh:

Awesome guide, thankyou very much

Martin Barr-David:

Does the Partition reconfigure apply if Monopoly (aka Microsoft) Windows Vista is installed on one drive and linux on another?

Tony Sarno:

If you're installing the OSs to separate drives you may not have to repartition anything. However, if one of the drives carries data that you want to keep you will need to shrink the data-carrying partition (assuming it takes up the entire drive) to make room for another partition into which you would install the new OS. Otherwise the OS installation will overwrite the existing partition and you will lose all the data.

If Linux is the OS on the first drive and you install Vista on the second drive, Vista will still overwrite the Linux bootloader. So when you reinstall GRUB, you'll need to tell it where to find the Linux partition (on drive x, partition x). BTW, we're doing another step-by-step featuring dual-booting of OSs on different drives. It will be up shortly.

bartfast:

Would someone please point me to the howto mentioned in the last sentence above? Dual booting with separate drives?

squirrel4207 (New user):

what would be my advantage of doing this anyway. can i intergrate the two OS together to getthe best of both worlds? 3dvista?

Anonymous:

Actually with Suse it's far more easier even if it was installed first. You can shrink the partition from within Yast despite having a Reiser partition. No need to format the new created partition since Vista's installation can do it. After installing vista, grub will be removed, but then using the suse installation disk, through the normal steps of installation, you reach a point where the option of booting your linux partition is made available. Boot your linux and go to yast (system / boot loader) and reinstall grub (and add a mount point for the new windows partition in Partitioner). (Did it with opensuse 10.2, but it should work with 10.1 too).

makavelli:

Thanks for the info., i really hope this works. I would hate to have to reinstall windows. Thanks again, i'll keep u posted

trip:

I tried this to get my debian back after installing vista bt when trying to boot linux all I get is one word "grub" and nothing boots. I'm kicking vista off this box if I can't get linux back up soon...

John:

Did you fix this prob, and if so, how?? I have just installed Vista with Suse10.2 already installed, and this is what I am getting... (GRUB_ )
Any help appreciated!

DJ Sz@boka:

An awesome guide with clear, understandable sentences, and great pictures.
Thank You very-very much!
I will sure offer this guide to all of my friends!

Eric:

I have Linux on /dev/hdb. When I install Vista over my XP installation on /dev/hda, everything went fine. Once I had Vista installed, I rebooted with my Gentoo Linux LiveCD and reinstalled grub. I did it a little different than you. My setup is root(hd1,0) and I did setup(hd0). You mention that this wouldn't work, "If you type in “setup (hd0)” then GRUB will be reinstalled to the MBR and will overwrite Vista’s bootloader." How come setup(hd0) works for me? Just curious.

sankhonio:

Thanks a lot for this valuable information. It did work for me perfectly. However, this doesn't mean that there were no minor issues. After following this I was still not able to boot up my linux, which is Ubuntu6.10. Thing worked fine after that and that because I of the confusion regarding the parition number. I wrote this find /boot/grub/stage1 to get the result of (hd0,2). According to what is mentioned that linux starts numbering partion from 0 I thought I should specify 3 for the partition which was wrong. I give up and I started the process of installing xp again so I can reclaim my Linux partition after that. While I am still in the biginning, I noticed that the 1st linux partition was given the number 2 so I quit the installation went into vista changed the partition number from 3 to 2 and things worked fine.

pk:

Worked exactly as described with Ubuntu 7.04 and Vista. I have a Vista Upgrade DVD, and was even able to easily to the upgrade/fresh install trick.

Thanks so much for the guide!

Jo:

I want to use Vista with Gentoo.
Does anybody know if it works?

Barkhat:

I bought a new computer with Vista installed. Meanwhile, I took Linux Mint (based on Feisty) from my old computer and installed it into the new computer. Problem is I don't know how to set the computer up to be able to boot from Linux or Vista. Right now only Vista comes up. I have been wracking my newbie brain to figure this out but haven't been able to and as for Internet searches, this is as close as I've come to an answer. I don't want to lose my Linux drive because I have data I want to access and save that's on that drive. I keep Vista for a couple of programs I need to use, but would much rather use my Linux, which I love.

Please can anyone help me?

Ben Brown:

How about turning it into a Linux exclusive box and virtualizing Vista from within Linux?

Anon123:

Just wanted to thank you for the guide. Followed it to a tee and it works like a charm. I'm happily dual booted with my Vista and original installation of Ubuntu 7.04.

madcap:

Hi there

First off - beautifully written guide. Seems very straightforward. However, I've partitioned the drive according to your instructions, but when I've unticked the boot flag and rebooted, Vista will load the files then I get the loading bar and then a black screen remains. Nothing/nada - nowt happens! I have to ctrl/Alt/Del to reboot and even with the boot flag unticked Ubuntu still loads!

I have no idea why this is happening so can anyone please help and throw some of there knowledge/widom this way?

Thanks

Jamie:

I have followed all instructions and all worked perfectly. But now how do I uninstall Ubuntu so I go back to Vista alone?

Katakaio:

I stumbled across your guide after I installed Vista over XP on a Linux/XP dual-boot system and wondered where Linux disappeared to. Couldn't have asked for a more complete, easy-to-follow, and successful guide. Thank you SO much!

madjayhawk:

Great tutorial. Well written. Even I could follow it. Thanks.

One thing: a warning about using setup (hd0) instead of setup (hd0,0) - you will probably lose or corrupt your Vista loader. I did.

To correct this and get Vista back I inserted my Vista disk and did a repair instead of a reinstall. The first repair did not work - look in the details and it will say that the loader was corrupted or deleted and repaired The second one did and I have my loader back. Now I can use the tools described above to give me a Vista/Ubuntu.

Good thing I am retired or I wouldn't have all this time to have fun.

realtebo:

Can I know haw to install ubuntu like third s.o. on the same hd0 ?
1) Xp (i think
and
2) Vista

already installed in this order?

CrusherOz:

To Dual Boot SUSE 10.2 and Vista using EasyBCD, this is my method that I found that FINALLY worked. After doing multiple google searches for fixes I found that this procedure pointed me towards this EasyBCD that got me closer. But after messing with it for hours and giving up and going back to it, I finally did something that worked. First my setup is 1 SATA (80GB) drive and 1 IDE (120GB) drive. SATA drive is partitioned in half, first half Vista, second half SUSE 10.2. I first loaded Vista, then SUSE, finding out the expected, Vista deleted the possibility of options during boot, followed these directions, using EasyBCD it finally showed up in boot for SUSE as an option, however, SUSE didnt boot. Hours/days later, I did the same thing, but instead of picking the drive where Grub was, I click the check box no boot record written. FINALLY I got it to work! It gives you some funky messages and Grub comes up in a non-GUI but it comes up and options are there. Hope this helps someone, I spent days trying this out and determination paid off. Stay OpenSource! Vista sucks! Going back to XP just lazy.

Kaung Myat Thu (New user):

That is Awesome man, Awsome.
Thank you very much, man.
Really Thank you.

MG42 (New user):

Can I Install Vista on a new Hard Drive In Slave ? I've already Ubuntu 7.10 installed on a hard drive in master

baiddeviant (New user):

hi i just got a thinkpad t61 with preinstalled suse sled desktop, and i have never used linux in my life. Can you pls tell me how to install vista.

baiddeviant (New user):

hi i just got a thinkpad t61 with preinstalled suse sled desktop, and i have never used linux in my life. Can you pls tell me how to install vista.

baiddeviant (New user):

as of yesterday i got thinkpad t61 with preinstalled sled 10 suse linux, whatever that means, I have never used linux in my life, with the exception of today. does anyone have a step by step guide as to how to install vista and keep this preinstalled operating system. I have 250 gb harddrive which should be plenty.

baiddeviant (New user):

I just got preinstalled suse desktop sled thinkpad. I have never used linux in my life, with the exception of today. Pls tell me how to install vista and keep the preinstalled operating system.

baiddeviant (New user):

I just got preinstalled suse desktop sled thinkpad. I have never used linux in my life, with the exception of today. Pls tell me how to install vista and keep the preinstalled operating system.

Filipe Cruz (New user):

can i do this using a vaio VGN-AR31S with raid0 ?
Should i disable the hardware Raid0 and use the ubuntu studio 7.10 alternate cd software raid0?
Can i use the gparted and configure the space after shrinking ntfs or ntfs + or fast 32?

gilmore (New user):

This works for me with hardy (8.04) except for one exception, every time I restart it say startup disk is not present and I need my vista dvd for it to load. any ideas on how to fix this??

corticalaxon (New user):

Ok. not fair. It seems anything to do with OS management hates me.

I went through the process of shrinking my ubuntu partition through gparted on the ubuntu 8.04 live cd. I go into the vista installer, and i see that the partition i created is there, along with the linux and linux-swap partitions. However, when i go into the command line, the list does not show the partition i created for windows, only the linux and the 2 ones having to do with linux swap. but not the 30 gb partition i created for windows. Why? How do I fix this?

BustedInkPen (New user):

I had the same problem. What I did was boot to the LiveCD again, open the partition editor, highlight the unallocated partition, click 'New partition,' and make it NTFS. That got it to show up in the command prompt for me. I had no problems with the rest of the process. Thanks SO much to the person/people who wrote this.

luiz (New user):

I got in touch with an HP support team member through online chat, and the guy said unfortunately I cannot dual-boot using my pre-installed, OEM version of Vista on my new laptop. Only with a retail version that's possible, he said. But, wait a minute, is that right??? Or, was anyone able to dual-boot OEM Vista and Linux? How??

thanks everyone!!

luiz (New user):

hello, everyone,
I got in touch with HP support through online chat, and the guy said I could NOT dual-boot my new laptop with pre-installed Vista (OEM version) and linux, only with the DVD of a retail version of Vista in hand. That's crazy, if it's true!!! Can anyone confirm that, or has anyone been able to dual-boot OEM Vista and Linux?? How??

thx, luiz

drden2000 (New user):

Partition Magic used to be able to re-size the partition without any damage. I would check to see if it works with Vista BUT it should. Example: the drive is 300 gigs. Now just re-size NTFS partition (C: drive) to 150 gigs. Then re-format other 150 gig to whatever you want (NTFS for XP or Vista, FAT32 for both Linux, 2000, and XP) install new OS on other 150 gig you made. OEM should make no difference since it is staying on the HDD and not being removed.

LuvSuse (New user):

I have Suse Linux 10 and want to install Vista (really don't want to but I have to!), so does this tutorial works for Suse as well?

LuvSuse (New user):

I have to install Vista on my Suse enterprise 10 machine. Does this tutorial work for Suse as well?

rickyd (New user):

I have Vista on drive 1 and Kubuntu on drive 2. I would like to put XP Pro on drive 2. Is there a way to do that without reinstalling Kubuntu? Will I be taking a chance of messing up Vista?

yetanotherlinuxnewbiewithadeadbox (New user):

Two points. I'm having "fun" doing this tonight, and there's a couple of bits that I had to add to make it work. The empty space didn't get picked up by the Vista installer until I'd 1) added a step in the GParted bit; not only do you have to make the empty space, but following that format it as an NTFS partition. Without this, diskpart wasn't able to see the empty space at all, which made it a bit hard to select it.
Then, in the Vista install, 2) format it again (it's a button at the bottom of the partition selection screen). My boot disk doesn't have SP1 on it, which may make a difference.

thommm (New user):

did all the steps till the end, worked fine, but now i want to boot up vista, it tells me "error 13: invalid or unsupported executable format"
can anyone tell me what to do?

Hozey (New user):

Did you figure this out? I cannot get dual boot to work on either Vista instructions or Ubuntu. When I try to do the sudo grub instructions it gives he errors on the hd0,0 part. If you found a solution, please respond to ghozey44@gmail.com. Thanks for your help.

John Shewsbury (New user):

I need help, when I try to install the Ubuntu (on my Vista laptop), it stuck on the screen where they show Ubuntu logo and progress bar - stuck at 25% for half an hour and after several attempts, I decided to abort the installation. The same happens when I just want to "Try Ubuntu"

By the way, when I try the CD in my other laptop running Windows XP, it works fine, I can "Try Ubuntu" and "Install" it accordingly, so I guess it's not the CD but maybe something else.

Is it something to do with my Vista Home Premium?

Can any of you help me please????

feliduca (User):

Some things you need to know.

ambra4's link does not tell the whole story, as it uses a "Guided" install, rather than a manual installation.

It *is* critical that you decide how you want to dual boot, and therefore, which boot manager you want to use. (a boot manager, manages the operating systems on your computer).

You can in fact use boot.ini within Windows, but it's a fairly complex route for a novice Linux user and I wouldn't recommend it.

You could use a boot manager, such as the one supplied with the Partition Magic suit, or the one Acronis has available. There are any number of third party boot managers available.

Or you can let Linux use it's own boot manager. However, you should be aware, that if you choose this method and want later on to un-install Linux, it can be problematic building Vista's boot sequence.

The *only* time you would let Linux write it's boot manager to your C: drive would be if you accept the last option. And that's what will happen with an automated installation.

For any other options, you would tell Linux to install it's boot manager to the first sector of the drive you are installing to. This is done via the "Advanced" settings during the installation procedure. Your selected boot manager will then pick up the new operating system and offer it when booting the computer.

You need to understand what you are doing to dual boot these systems. Please don't take this as trying to put you off - far from it! That's the last thing I want to do, but I also don't want you demoralised and upset because it has not gone according to plan.

If you're anywhere near Southend, come along to SoSlug (see links later) and we'll be absolutely delighted to help you.





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Submited by : Libros Gratis

redheat (New user):

James, thank you so much for this tutorial, this is exactly what we, people who love to multiboot, needed. The part about opening the menu.lst from within linux, was brillian it is exactly that method, that helped to have 5 operating systems running side by side, right now I have windows xp professional, windows vista business (of course windows vista's bootloader takes charge of bootloading the moment it gets installed), and from there I used your method, rather than just using the one suggested on neosmart where you input the title, root kernel and into neogrub config and then hope it would start because that sometimes did cause a lot of troubles, and sometimes operating systems wouldn't even start) for example opensuse wouldn't start no matter how accurate I tried to be accurate when it came to the data to enter into the config) sorry for talking too long, but this really will come very handy for the trouble of multibooting, and believe me multibooting is not something for ultrageeks anymore, many people are trying different OS combos to see what best suits their hardware requirements, I will never forget that guy who had a hundred, yes 100, OS side by side, anyhow back to my own config, I have right after windows vista and xp on the same harddrive, I have Opensuse 11.0, Ubuntu 8.04 I'm not switching to 8.10 yet, because of one simple problem they've replaced the part that says root=hd with root=UUID, and since then even if I tried to copy and paste it didn't work, I hlpe that you'd be able to update your tutorial to count for that), the logic behind UUID is that many users complained that sometimes after they've installed their operating system on a certain portion of hte harddrive, and then rebooted they would get errors that the location of their operating system has changed and hence the grub won't load, and for that reason they're using UUID, which doesn't depend on the device's name, for example hd(0,9), that is the first harddisk, 9th partition, but in the case of UUID, which is known as a Universal Unique Identifier, each object will have an assigned identifier related to each object, hardware or even software, and that way no one will have that changing hardware naming problem, and lastly after this lengthy article, not just a comment, I have the most beautiful linux distribution of them all, at least in my opinion, Mandriva2009 spring edition, unbelievably beautiful, I mean the desktop look unbelievable. and they were all added using your ocpy and paste idea, really marvellous so thank you and please please update it to account for Ubuntu 8.10 or Intrepid Ibix to see what can we do about that UUID thing.

so thank you so much for your help

best regards
redheat

P.S. (THIS COMMENT WAS INTENDED FOR THE DUAL BOOTING OF VISTA AND LINUX WITH VISTA INSTALLED FIRST) so sorry for any confusion.

The Big Baboo (User):

Paragraphs my friend :) Use Paragraphs :)

njlxchan (New user):

Hi! Your information is very useful, anyway, do you know what's the problem if I insert my Vista installation CD into my Ubuntu but it cant open? It can run in the ubuntu. Thanks anyway.

The Penguin (Cornerstone member):

Quoting njlxchan:
do you know what's the problem if I insert my Vista installation CD into my Ubuntu but it cant open? It can run in the ubuntu.


You need to restart the computer with the vista dvd in the dvd drive and boot off the disk and then you will be able to install vista from the disk.

Warning this will remove the boot loader linux uses.

Nuno (New user):

Great up till I got to the diskpart. Being a total noob may be the problem here, but after I do all the diskpart stuff I am still getting a "Windows cannot be installed to this hard disk space. The selected disk has the maximum number of partitions of this type. Apparently I have a few more partitions on there than the how-to. Any Ideas?