Windows 7 Help! Windows 7 and Ubuntu multiboot problem.

[polarizeme]

Hey everyone!
So I clean installed W7 earlier this week. I then tried to install Ubuntu 8.10 to a totally free space (40gb) on the same drive; my c: drive.
the Ubuntu install itself went off without a hitch! however...
whenever I boot my computer, grub/ubuntu are totally ignored and W7 boots right up.
if I try to use SuperGRUB to get to the OS list, I can get to grub BUT I get an error when I try to boot Ubuntu.

the W7 boot loader seems to totally ignore/not wish to list Ubuntu at all...
anyone think it has anything to do with the 200mb recovery partition that W7 seems to make on the c: drive?

help? =/
any and all input would be extremely appreciated.

cheers!
- Tristan -

PS - *UBUNTU for the thread topic. see where being in a hurry gets you? =[ haha

Kyle: Fixed it for you.

 

[ComputerGeek]

I know generally you have to install the older OS first for it to be recognized and I do believe you have to install any non windows OS first as well before installing windows, atleast thats how it was with RedHat and Win98.
You can try a boot manager and see if you can mod it to work, but I'm not sure if that will work or not, never tried one before.

 

[polarizeme]

heya.
thanks for the input! =]

There are a bajillion tutorials out there for installing Ubuntu *after* Windows, so I guess I just assume that if it's done correctly it wouldn't be a big deal. the actual OS is installing fine, there just seems to be a massive problem with either the W7 or Ubuntu boot loader.

I've followed a couple of the highly regarded tutorials on such an installation (based on Vista, since it uses the same boot loader) and I've yet to come out anthing but empty handed. I've tried every single search and piece of advice I could possibly find save for just deleting w7, installing Ubuntu first and then installing w7.

however, that is my last resort. I've already spent hours re-installing all of my programs, importing backed-up settings, etc etc. I don't really want to have to re-do all of that based on nothing more than an assumption that the booting will go smoothly by installing Ubuntu first, you know?

anywho, thanks again for the reply. =D

cheers!
- Tristan -

 

[iroken22]

Which bootloader do you use to launch the operating systems?

 

[polarizeme]

I tried grub, supergrub and easybcd to get the windows bootloader to take control and actually list ubuntu. nothing worked.

however... I finally got grub to work and load Ubuntu... sort of.

my previous problem was with the windows 7 bootloader, but now it's not - it's with grub and ubuntu (as of about 20 minutes ago) so I'll just consider this case closed.

*however*

for anyone else reading this that is having a problem installing Ubuntu on a box already running Windows7, try the following:

Instead of following the advice of tutorials and shrinking the partition in Windows to make free space for the Ubuntu install, keep the partition size the same.
instead of using the "guided install on all free space" option when installing Ubuntu, use the (top?) option to choose your Ubuntu partion size with the slider.

for some reason, using Ubuntu to resize the partition and install itself seems to work WAY better than sizing it in windows and using the continuous free space already there.

cheers everyone!
and here's to Windows7 knocking the socks off of Vista... because so far it does. =]

- Tristan -

 

[Big Dan]

I followed a How to by the How To Geek to get mine to work. I'll look up the link if you would like

Basically what you do is when you run the install of Ubuntu and gets to the summary part, hit advanced. Install GRUB to the partition Ubuntu is going to be on.

From there you use EasyBCD to add any entry for Ubuntu.

Again if you need a step by step, I'll pull up the link for you.

Cheers,
Dan

 

[polarizeme]

hey dude.
I may have actually followed that same set of instructions but, in case I did not, would you mind posting that link?

Glad to see I'm not as in the minority as I thought on the w7/Ubuntu combo. =D

cheers, man!
- Tristan -

 

[Radenight]

I also suffered from the same problem when I installed Win 7 on my secondary PC. Although all I did was wipe it all and start fresh (I use this pc just for messing around with different OS's so no personal data on it at all). I then installed Ubuntu 8.04 LTS (I have 8.10 but I like 8.04 a little more and it has support for a longer period of time then 8.10 does so yeah.. lol) followed by Windows 7 Beta and everything went down with no problems at all... although on the first reboot after everything was installed I got a weird little white circle that started out in the middle of the screen and would slowly make it's way to the top left of the screen but that only happened the once.. it was weird but didn't hurt anything... I'm using an older LCD monitor on this PC so it was probably just something stupid to do with the monitor... but like I said it only happened on the one reboot so I left well enough alone.. maybe someday when I'm hard up for something to do I'll see if I can figure it out.... but probably not...hahaha

 

[Big Dan]

hey dude.
I may have actually followed that same set of instructions but, in case I did not, would you mind posting that link?

Glad to see I'm not as in the minority as I thought on the w7/Ubuntu combo. =D

cheers, man!
- Tristan -

No problem, I was mistaken the how to was from the EasyBCD wiki, Link Removed

It's really pretty easy to follow along.