Windows 8 Windows 8.1 Enterprise Installation on a Separate Partition.

[Lemms]

Hi All,

I've just signed up to this Forum as I have downloaded and created a Windows 8.1 Enterprise DVD. My current OS is W7 Ultimate and I have Ubuntu installed on a separate partition, I wish to install W8 onto the Ubuntu partition. If I boot the DVD from W7 I have no options to choose a partition for the install. Booting from start up also gives me no option other than to replace W7.

Is there any way I can install this copy of Windows 8.1 onto the partition that does not hold my current Windows 7 install? Obviously I want to evaluate Windows 8.1 before buying it to replace W7 and I wish to have the option to boot from either, as I currently do between W7 and Ubuntu.

 

[Trouble]

Hello Lemms and welcome to the forum.
Why don't you consider playing it ultra-safe and install something like
https://my.vmware.com/web/vmware/free#desktop_end_user_computing/vmware_player/6_0
OR
https://www.virtualbox.org/wiki/Downloads
And run your eval of Windows 8 Enterprise from within a Virtual Machine.
That way you can run them (Windows 7 and Windows 8) sort of side by side.....
Without the hassle of dual booting which can be a bit of a pain. Especially in your case where I suspect you are probably using Grub to dual boot and so you'd have to repair the Windows 7 boot files after getting rid of grub and then you'd have to clean up some partition(s) space used by your Linux install converting it to unallocated space to accept the Windows 8 Install and when the 90 day Eval was over you'd have to go back again and fix the Windows 7 boot files.
I suppose you can handle most of that with something like Easy BCD but it just seems to me like a Virtual Machine might be a more suitable answer given your current situation.

 

[ussnorway]

No you can't install windows (any kind) onto a Ubuntu drive. Windows 8.1.1 and Ubuntu are incompatible in their file structure.

You could purchase a new (or blank out an old) hdd then install windows on that… temp disconnect the other hdd's during this install so that the current 7-U file structure isn't changed.

The advantage is that the system will run at full power without getting funnelled into a virtual interface so you see how well your motherboard, cpu and ram performs.

The disadvantage is the cost of the extra hdd and of course there is a risk that you might corrupt the current system files if you forget or incorrectly set them.

Another option is to install 8 as the main system then place 7 and Ubuntu on as virtual machines with hyper-v (free with the full version) or vmware.

To be clear, I agree with Trouble in that a virtual setup is generally better for 1st testing.