Solved Windows and Ubuntu

[nervy]

As I wrote in my last post, I want to reinstall Windows 7 on another drive. However, I have Ubuntu with GRUB2 on a 3rd drive that was installed after windows. It will be overwritten by the windows bootloader when reinstalled. Can windows handle the dual-boot, do I need to fix GRUB, or can a 3rd party app work for this? If all 3 options will work, which is easiest or most reliable?

 

[gregrocker]

Is this a separate HD? Just boot it in BIOS to avoid problems with Win7, unplugging all other HD's during any OS reinstall.

If it's the same HD, look over these steps for http://www.sevenforums.com/tutorials/257048-dual-boot-windows-7-linux.html

 

[sdowney717]

This tool if you need it can fix grub boot issues.
https://help.ubuntu.com/community/Boot-Repair

Boot-Repair is a simple tool to repair frequent boot issues you may encounter in Ubuntu like when you can't boot Ubuntu after installing Windows or another Linux distribution, or when you can't boot Windows after installing Ubuntu, or when GRUB is not displayed anymore, some upgrade breaks GRUB, etc.

I used this after copying over an entire ubuntu install onto another drive to run on a separate system
Created new partitions, system, home, swap
copied files
edited the fstab file uuid's
ran the tool and it all booted afterwards.

I did all that from an external hard drive.