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

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James Bannan03 March 2009, 8:00 PM

Related how-tos:

Here's how to install Vista and Linux (with Vista installed first). Step-by-step instructions that assume no knowledge of Linux. (Now updated for Ubuntu 9.04).

Page 4 - Choose a bootloader

If you want to use the GRUB bootloader then you don't need to do anything further. Ubuntu installs GRUB into the MBR by default and will happily dualboot itself and Vista.

If however you prefer to keep Vista in charge of things, then you'll need to do a little bit of tweaking.

Firstly, boot into Ubuntu and go to Applications --> Accessories --> Terminal. Then, type in sudo gedit /boot/grub/menu.lst.

This text file contains all the information GRUB uses to configure various boot options. Scroll down and the entries between "## ## End Default Options ##" and "### END DEBIAN AUTOMATIC KERNELS LIST" are the Linux boot options. Slightly further down is the option for the Vista/Longhorn bootloader.

We'll need these entries for use later on, so dump them out to a location accessible by the Vista partition.

Alternatively, Ubuntu can access the Vista partition directly - go to Places --> Computer, and double-click into the option marked "xx GB Media". This is the NTFS Vista partition. Ubuntu will prompt for authentication (your Ubuntu password) and then you can either copy the entire menu.lst file into it, or create a new text file on the fly, open it with gedit and copy in the boot entries.

Then restart the machine and boot into Vista

Now we need the latest version of EasyBCD by Neosmart Technologies - download it here. Install the application and launch it.

First, go to "Manage Bootloader" and select "Reinstall the Vista Bootloader", then "Write MBR". This puts the Vista bootloader back into the MBR, but the machine will only boot into Vista.

To enable access to the Linux partition, the best option is to install NeoGrub. Go to "Add/Remove Entries", go the NeoGrub tab and select "Install NeoGrub". This adds the "NeoGrub Bootloader" option to the Vista bootloader.

Once that's done, choose Configure - this launches the NeoGrub menu.lst file, location at C:\NST\menu.lst. Use Notepad or Wordpad to open the file, and then paste in the boot entries. Save and exit, then reboot the machine.

The system will come up with two boot options. Select "NeoGrub Bootloader" and then the Linux boot options will load. Choose the relevant option and the system boot into Ubuntu.

Page 1 Intro

Page 2 Get started - prepare the Vista partition

Page 3 Install Ubuntu

Page 4 Choose a bootloader

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lepesh kumar:

Hai

After dual booting vista with new version ubantu 7.04version.ubantu gets stucks and even it doesn't move.atonce can u help me

29 February 2008, 8:32 PM (5 years ago)report abuse Send to a friend

big-ben:

I have downloaded it from the Planet Mirror and coppied it to disc, but when i insert the disc into my computer it asks me to start but it says loading for about 4-5 seceonds and then that goes and nothing happens after that, just stays blank, Im running Windows Vista Home Premium, i dont know if thats the problem but if you know what i need to do then please do tell me

29 February 2008, 8:32 PM (5 years ago)report abuse Send to a friend

Erk51893:

I have a little problem. I went through all the steps and got all the way up to the final installation screen, and was about to install Ubuntu when I realized something was wrong. It did not say in the migration assistant box that Vista/Longhorn was there. I fear that if I continue the installation, I will have many of the problems mentioned above with vista no longer working or not being recognized and becoming unusable. Please help or give solutions to my problem plz.

29 February 2008, 8:32 PM (5 years ago)report abuse Send to a friend

George:

Can someone confirm if we install Ubuntu without the migration assistant mentioning Vista/Longhorn. I'm using Vista and trying to use Ubuntu 7.10

29 February 2008, 8:49 PM (5 years ago)report abuse Send to a friend

Martin MEST:

i took the risk , and the grub now shows me the option to boot vista eventough it didnt recognized any other operating systems during theinstalation process.

Sorry for my grammar =P

im from Argentina

29 February 2008, 8:49 PM (5 years ago)report abuse Send to a friend

Laura:

hello! i have my laptop disc partitioned in three: 1_the recovery disc; 2_windows vista; 3_linux (ubuntu).
i want to delete the linux partition and use the whole disc for vista. but vista doesn't recognize linux partition, i mean, "in computer managment", the only option available for linux partition is "delete volume" (shrink doesn't appear). my question is, if i delete the linux partition, and extend the vista partition volume, everything will work ok?
because when i turn on my computer, i have to press escape and then i have to choose my OS, if i don't do that, linux starts by default.
anyone help me, I'm ready to delete it all!

29 February 2008, 8:32 PM (5 years ago)report abuse Send to a friend

ProfessorY (New user):

As far as I know you have two options. The first is doing exactly as you suggest, use the Disk Management tool to remove the Linux formatted partition, and reformat the unallocated space as NTFS or FAT32 so it is recognized by Windows. You may need to format that partition, then remove the partition between your existing Vista filesystem and the newly formatted space.

The second option is to use your boot CD, (Vista OS disc) to reformat the unallocated space, and remove the partition between your existing installation and the newly formatted space. You can do this without installing Vista again, or running a repair installation.

Good Luck,

Y.

05 March 2009, 11:02 AM (4 years ago)report abuse Send to a friend

tytto:

hi guys,

i read this article and sounds good, it's clear and simple.
anyway my situation i s al little bit different:
my new laptop (Asus xl50rl)
has Vista preinstalled and I'd like to
make a dual boot with Ubuntu.
The problem is that Vista has 3 default partitions, the first
without name I think for then recovery, the second
C: for Vista OS and the third D:\ Data.

My great dilemma is what do I have to do, now?
can I shrink C: or D: partition and then install Ubuntu?
Anyone had this problem? what have you done?

i'll be very happy for any kind of suggestion..

by

tytto

29 February 2008, 8:32 PM (5 years ago)report abuse Send to a friend

Mike:

I haven't had this problem, but it seems that your worried about what the partition would do to your machine, well you can partition either one, it doesn't matter, all that matters is which one has more free space.
I would use the C: drive, because that's generally the OS, and so has more free space, just shrink with the shrink tool and away you go.
bye
Mike

29 February 2008, 8:49 PM (5 years ago)report abuse Send to a friend

Ganesha:

I have followed the instructions mentioned in the above discussions to install RHL. However, my HP LapTop does say that there are some drivers missing !!.
I am not sure on what drivers are required for the successful installation.
If someone is aware of a solution for this, please let me know.
Thanks
Ganesha

29 February 2008, 8:32 PM (5 years ago)report abuse Send to a friend

Samuel:

My main system partition won't shrink down enough to install Ubuntu. Can I shrink my secondary data drive, and use that instead?

Thanks in advance.

29 February 2008, 8:32 PM (5 years ago)report abuse Send to a friend

Samuel:

Sorry to comment again so soon, I've just run into another hitch.

I'm having the same, unanswered problem as a lot of people; I'm installing Ubuntu 7.10 (Gutsy Gibbon) but it's not recognizing Windows Vista in the migration assistant section in the last step of the installation. Could you please confirm that installing Ubuntu with this piece of Information missing will not do any harm to the Vista partition. I have a family, and they'd be pissed.

Thanks in advance.

29 February 2008, 8:32 PM (5 years ago)report abuse Send to a friend

vistalinux01:

Boot Menu Problem
OK the problem is I originally had vista home installed on one HDD, then I installed vista ultimate on another HDD. I was running dual boot with basic and ultimate for a while but ended up removing ultimate (formatted the HDD). I decided to install ubuntu and everything seems fine until it gets to the boot options, it still comes up as Vista or Vista, ubuntu isn't on the list. How do I add it to the list because I know it has been installed.

29 February 2008, 8:32 PM (5 years ago)report abuse Send to a friend

Nanoxy (New user):

I'm sorry I cannot answer because I have the same problem

14 April 2008, 7:40 AM (5 years ago)report abuse Send to a friend

Eidur:

Lots of people trying this on laptops (me included) share this very same issue: at last step migration manager doest not recogniza *any* vista/longhorn installation. So now everyone who cannot afford the time to lose all their data on Vista and then try to recover it is stuck there.
This post is great and very useful but... Will this common problem ever be discussed here?

29 February 2008, 8:33 PM (5 years ago)report abuse Send to a friend

New user 003:

Ubuntu did not see my Vista install either, and I continued anyway to see what would happen.

I've now got a brick that does nothing. :-)

Can still boot from the CD though, so will have to try figure out how to get it to recognize Vista exists via Ubuntu interface which I have never used before.

Or just reinstall Vista and throw Linux away.

29 February 2008, 8:49 PM (5 years ago)report abuse Send to a friend

adefrstyut:

i have a problem! when i reboot my computer it shows me that it has error on GRUB! how to fix this?

29 February 2008, 8:49 PM (5 years ago)report abuse Send to a friend

Grendel:

I just had that, if you run GNOME (the ubuntu partition program), then go down to the vista partition and set it to boot, then you get vista back at least, its in the manage flags section.

29 February 2008, 8:49 PM (5 years ago)report abuse Send to a friend

Josephr:

I am dual-booting vista and ubuntu and I think I set things up as described above. But I have an odd problem with grub.

After I shut down or hibernate Vista, when I turn on the machine the next time, it hangs at "Grub stage 1.5" and I have to turn the power off. After the restart, the machine then boots normally and I can choose to go either into linux or windows.

By contrast, shutting down linux and restarting causes no problem whatsoever.

So I am wondering where I might have gone wrong . I've looked around some in various forums but haven't seen this exact problem being discussed.

29 February 2008, 8:33 PM (5 years ago)report abuse Send to a friend

Frozen Corn:

How about with Kubuntu? Seems it won't recognize the gedit command line.

29 February 2008, 8:49 PM (5 years ago)report abuse Send to a friend

apisznasdin:

gedit is text editor for Gnome, try to replace gedit with kate

29 February 2008, 8:49 PM (5 years ago)report abuse Send to a friend

RobertC1985:

HELP!!!!!!! I messed up shrinking my volume! how can i fix this without having to redo windows?

29 February 2008, 8:33 PM (5 years ago)report abuse Send to a friend

shawn:

How to install vista + linux +XP in one hard drive? Any ideas?

29 February 2008, 8:49 PM (5 years ago)report abuse Send to a friend

Hans L.:

Hello,

for everyone having problems with the installer not finding or recognizing Vista, in comment 67 Alejadro gives the solution:
before start installing ubuntu, make sure that ubuntu-live can recognize and 'see' the vista partitions (mount -a).

Then it works perfect.

29 February 2008, 8:33 PM (5 years ago)report abuse Send to a friend

cl0ckwork:

hey im trying to install ubuntu gutsy (7.10) on my vista laptop. i can get through the install guide but once i am at the last screen (step 7 of 7) and under the migration assistant section, it does not tell me that i have a windows vista/longhorn loader, the area is just blank. does this mean that ubuntu is unaware of vista on my machine? how would i go about fixing this?

29 February 2008, 8:33 PM (5 years ago)report abuse Send to a friend

Grendel:

I too got this last night, and when I got to the finish and start up without the CD I had a big shock as my machine came up with cannot find operating system, I rebooted on the ubuntu disc and had a good look round, after about an hour of hunting I spotted the partition that contained ubuntu was flagged as boot (using GNOME), but obviously wasnt, so I set the vista partition to boot, and thank goodness the machine booted up into vista again (phew!!)
I too am not sure how to proceed from here, especially as ubuntu doesnt seem to see my wireless connection so I cant use it for the internet yet.This is my first foray into Linux, I have operated a couple of old Unix servers many moons ago, so have some idea, just not linux specific.

29 February 2008, 8:49 PM (5 years ago)report abuse Send to a friend

Libby:

That was very easy. Thank you!

BTW, you have a typo where it says, Choose "Manual - use the largest continuous free space". Manual should be Guided.

29 February 2008, 8:33 PM (5 years ago)report abuse Send to a friend

Sabrina:

this tutorial was really helpful!

I'd just like to say that I followed all the steps exactly how it was described here,
except that on the "Ready to Install" screen, there was nothing written under "Migrate Assistant", where it should say "Windows Vista/Longhorn (loader)".

I installed it anyway, and it worked perfectly! after reboot, grub should the windows vista option as described.

thanks!

29 February 2008, 8:33 PM (5 years ago)report abuse Send to a friend

ArtDeco:

This seems to have worked for me on a brand new dell 530 with Vista preinstalled. I had already partitioned the disk with gparted rather than shrinking Vista through windows, but it installed smoothly in the largest free space.
Keeping my fingers crossed. Thanks.

29 February 2008, 8:33 PM (5 years ago)report abuse Send to a friend

bigg d:

im useing vista and Migrate Assistant there is nothing showing up there and it says if u in stoll u lose all data

29 February 2008, 8:50 PM (5 years ago)report abuse Send to a friend

vishinator:

worked flawlessly with me. First on my blank unpartitioned HD i installed WinXPx64 wich comes with a recovery partition and then Vista ultimate x64 to dual boot. then i decided to try linux ubuntu 7.10 x64 for AMD and i booted off the Live-Cd and shrunk my main partitoin wiht xp pro x64 by 20gb and used the free space for linux. after i installes by grub bootloader shows..
1.Linux (generic)
2.Linux (recovery)
3.Memtest
Other OS's
4.Vista/longhorn (bootloader)
5.Winxp (but its actually recovery partition)
and i boot into Xp via vista bootloader

29 February 2008, 8:50 PM (5 years ago)report abuse Send to a friend

Anonymous-7473672:

I installed the newer version,
The Vista OS didn't show up in the installation but still worked like a charm!

29 February 2008, 8:50 PM (5 years ago)report abuse Send to a friend

Charles:

Hi. I am trying to dual boot linux on my Vista laptop. I downloaded 7.04, and put it on my laptop. It goes past the selection screen, then does the loading script, then there is a beep, and it goes blank like its going to load then everything stops and it just sits there. Am I doing anything wrong?

29 February 2008, 8:33 PM (5 years ago)report abuse Send to a friend

Dale:

I tried installing ubunto as instructed but it did not see my vista install.

Has anyone installed Vista 64 bit and then installed Fedora 8 and then manually configured grub to dual boot?

I can boot fc8 no problem. It is when I try to boot from windows that doesn't work.

I have looked and find a lot of links back to here but haven't found anyone who has done what I am asking about.

29 February 2008, 8:33 PM (5 years ago)report abuse Send to a friend

JLP:

Ok, my computer is really screwed (Kinda though, but still).I did everything as instructed here but my default OS(wich ''was'' vista)dosen't appear on the boot menu.Also, all of my files have been corrupted, even the ones that i actually download from firefox on ubuntu. I tried the recovery discs but nothing happens, even my backup discs aren't recognized. Wi-fi dosen't work, optical drive acts abnormally(opens and closes). This didn't happened when i installed ubuntu with this same disc on my other pc nor this happened on my friends computer with the same freakin cd.At first my computer was running fast, protected and virus-free but now it runs slow and acts abnormally.Not only that, my friends' computers have also been acting the same way as mine (i think their computers where also infected becasuse i was transfering data). Since this happened on my computer i've heard few people talking about this theme.
S.O.S!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

29 February 2008, 8:33 PM (5 years ago)report abuse Send to a friend

Travis:

I was wondering since i already have a second partition on my drive reserved for hp recovery and my main disk is 76% empty will it try to overwrite these instead of my empty 3rd partition

29 February 2008, 8:33 PM (5 years ago)report abuse Send to a friend

azbobs:

I have the same situation having HP laptop with a second partition on my drive reserved for hp recovery. I was wondering if you had any feedback and wondered from reading the other replys if it will rewrite to the MBR and lose the F1 recovery. Think I will read some more before trying this.

Cheers,
azbobs

29 February 2008, 8:50 PM (5 years ago)report abuse Send to a friend

Matt:

I followed these instructions and installed Ubuntu and vista on my laptop. About a month
after doing this the Ubuntu boot loader got deleted and Ubuntu's boot screen would freeze. Then a few day after that the same thing happened to the vista boot loader so neither OS would work i had to reinstall Vista on my laptop but i haven installed Ubuntu again. Any suggestions that could prevent the boot loaders from conflicting and deleting them selfs.

29 February 2008, 8:33 PM (5 years ago)report abuse Send to a friend

Nanoxy (New user):

I like to say that I did install Ubuntu after Vista Home Premium and the installation went smoothly. It is as easy as installing an application, now because my harddrive has a recovery partition that came when I purchased my computer, its also showing the recovery partition wich is very handy in case I have any problem booting vista in the future, I now have the choice to restore vista as it were when I first bought it. Thank You!!!

06 April 2008, 2:03 AM (5 years ago)report abuse Send to a friend

Xerxes (New user):

okay, guys, i am in desperate need of some help:
when i select Vista from the GRUB menu, it brings me straight to the Vista recovery screen. ive tried restoring my laptop to a previous date, but that didnt help at all. i uninstalled and reinstalled Linux, and not even that worked. i even deleted the whole Linux partition, but that brought me to the GRUB screen STILL and i got error message 17. is a full system restore the only way? i really dont want to go so far, but...
PLEASE HELP

08 April 2008, 8:32 AM (5 years ago)report abuse Send to a friend

Xerxes (New user):

08 April 2008, 8:38 AM (5 years ago)report abuse Send to a friend

Xerxes (New user):

08 April 2008, 9:21 AM (5 years ago)report abuse Send to a friend

Xerxes (New user):

08 April 2008, 9:23 AM (5 years ago)report abuse Send to a friend

Xerxes (New user):

08 April 2008, 9:24 AM (5 years ago)report abuse Send to a friend

Xerxes (New user):

08 April 2008, 10:02 AM (5 years ago)report abuse Send to a friend

Dibbler (New user):

sucks that this site doesn't list dates on these posts. As far as I know you posted this a year ago... I did the same thing this weekend and tried all the fixes listed on various websites and ended up destroying the harddrive. These days trying to find a way to create a boot disc is like pulling my own teeth. Bunch of sites suggested using fdisk /mbr and fixmbr and other stuff and my computer ended up just giving me a "no operating system found" error. I had to install linux by formatting the whole drive to linex ext3 and then I couldn't get the display to work correctly (ATI card with constant flicker) so I tried to install windows but my recovery disk wouldn't work since it couldn't find a ntfs harddrive. I ended up finding a real copy of Vista from another computer and installed that. The installed copy was Vista Premium and the one that came with this computer was Vista Basic so after installing Premium I had to then install the recovery disc and install Windows again so that I'd have the correct copy.

Anyway, after all this crap I found a program called SuperGrub which would have solved everything. It took some looking and clicking through page after page of telling me to "click here to download" which would just take me to another site telling me to click again and again. It's a free program so not sure why the pain to get. Try www.supergrub.org

14 April 2008, 11:05 PM (5 years ago)report abuse Send to a friend