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

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James Bannan05 June 2008, 6:18 PM

So you want to install Linux and Vista on the same drive? This UPDATED dual booting tutorial shows you how to do it even if Vista SP1 scorches your bootloader.

Page 1 - Intro

Updated 5 June 2008 to use Ubuntu 8.04 rather than 7.04

Scenario: You have Linux already installed but want to dual boot it with Vista on the same hard drive.

Summary of tutorial: We'll dual-boot Ubuntu 8.04 with Vista. With Ubuntu already installed and owning the entire drive, we'll use the Ubuntu Live CD to shrink the Linux partition to create space for the Vista install.

Vista's MBR will overwrite GRUB during installation, so we'll go through two scenarios. First - reinstall GRUB to the Linux partition and use EasyBCD to modify the Vista bootloader so that it will boot Ubuntu. Second, reinstall GRUB to the MBR and configure it boot both Ubuntu and Vista

This tutorial has been tested on a VMWare Workstation 6 machine and an ASUS P5AD2-based Intel system with 2GB RAM and an 80GB Seagate SATA drive.

Continue to page 2: Back up the GRUB boot menu
Page 1 Intro
Page 2 Back up the GRUB boot menu
Page 3 Make space for Vista
Page 4 Install Vista
Page 5 Dualboot Option 1 - Vista bootloader
Page 6 Dualboot Option 2 - GRUB bootloader



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Leigh:

Awesome guide, thankyou very much

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Martin Barr-David:

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

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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.



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bartfast:

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

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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).

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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