Windows 7: Can't Get a Dual-Boot Windows 7/Ubuntu Installation Going

I have two hard drives on my computer, one for my OS and apps (C, and one for my data (D. I recently reformatted my C: drive, re-installing Windows 7. I want to set up a dual-boot system with Ubuntu 10.04.

The problem I am having is that the Ubuntu installer recognizes my D: drive but not the C:. The C: drive is currently partitioned as follows:

100 MB NTFS Primary System Reserved
449.59 GB NTFS Primary
146.48 GB Unallocated

I have searched all over the net for answers, but none of the solutions I have found work.

Any thoughts?

You say, you have two HD Drive, therefore you have a Disk0 & a Disk1.

When installing Linux
1) Remove Disk0 with Windows 7.
2) Install Linux to Disk1
3) Replace Disk0.
4) Use the one time boot menu to boot the OS's.

Hello rebelagentm, welcome to Seven Forums!

Thank you, guys!

I should have been more specific. I want to install both OSs to the same hard drive, just separate partitions. I created a disc for Ubuntu 11.04 it was able to recognize both drives where the 10.04 disc couldn't.

So, I now have both operating systems installed, but I am still having an issue. I used Windows' built-in BCDEdit to add an entry for Ubuntu to my bootloader. When I start the computer up, I get the boot menu with both options, but when I choose Ubuntu, the screen just sits there with a blinking cursor and never loads the OS.

Any thoughts?

It would have been a 'wiser' option to install to separate Hard Disk Drives, as you're now seeing.

I understand that would have been the easier or "wiser" option, but I wanted to keep that second drive solely as a data drive.

I know a lot of people have set their systems up this way. My curiosity just has me wondering why mine is not working.

Have a look through this tutorial linked below to see if you missed any steps.

How to Dual Boot Windows 7 and Ubuntu

Generally speaking, you want to install Ubuntu first and install grub2 to the MBR of the drive you are installing on. Then you install windows. When you are done with the windows install, boot into Ubuntu and run sudo update-grub. This will search for other operating systems and add them to the grub boot menu. Every time you add another OS, just go back into Ubuntu and update grub again. There is allot of information on this in the Ubuntu Installation and Upgrades forum.

This works pretty well overall, but I have had a few glitches installing other flavors of Linux. There are workarounds for this as well if you run into an issue.

LMHmedchem

Thanks for the suggestions! The problem I have heard with the method you described is that GRUB often becomes corrupted and therefore Ubuntu becomes un-bootable whenever Windows updates are installed.

So, for that reason, I installed GRUB to /boot as opposed to my MBR partition.

Do you know anything about that?

If you are using grub2, there should be one and only one installation of grub2 on the mbr of the drive. There will be all kinds of problems with other configurations. In many situations, there is an existing legacy grub install (or several) on the drive. It is necessary to un-install all other versions of grub and have just the one grub2 install. I have never heard of Windows 7 updates causing issues. I don't know why Windows 7 would mess with either the MBR or grub, since this is a tool that the motherboard bios uses to decide which OS to boot up.

One other caviat. When you install windows, I don't remember if you get a prompt asking if you want to install grub, etc. If you do get such a prompt, you want to skip the install of grub.

Have you asked this at the Ubuntu forums? They would know if there were issues with grub getting borked by windows update. I have read hundreds of posts over there and never seen that mentioned. Worst case, you could boot with supergrub and re-install grub in Ubuntu. That would be a pain if you had to do it for every update.

LMHmedchem