How-To: Dual-Boot Ubuntu 6.06 (Dapper) Linux Desktop Along Side Windows XP

Alex – great guide! The screenshots do a good job of making the task look not only easier, but appealing too! Ubuntu looks very slick and may be worth me finally cracking open the case this weekend to install my extra HD. I’d personally love to see the multimedia guide.

I was checking out the Digg comments on this post and somebody asked:

is there any way to do it without an extra hard drive?
the reason i like ubuntu is because its free and easy to set up, neither of those describe buying and installing a new hard drive

And another asked:

Wow, do we really need an article with 20 screenshots to dual boot linux?
1. Install windows but create a partition that leaves unparitioned space for linux.
2. Install Dapper..
3. …
4. Profit?

Here’s my response:

Different strokes for different folks.

Using two drives is the smarter approach if you have a spare drive IMHO. That way you can reinstall either OS easily in case anything gets corrupted or if one of your drives fails you won’t loose everything. Plus, doing it this way is less of a hassle for the technically challenged (remember this how-to is geared toward the general Windows user) because Ubuntu’s installation script automatically configures GRUB for you when it detects Windows.

fatcat -
Re: “Is there any way to do it without an extra hard drive?”
Of course… LinuxDevCenter has an excellent how-to:
http://www.linuxdevcenter.com/pub/a…oot-laptop.html

As you will see you’ll have to be more technically adept with the command line [and have a deep understanding of hard drive partitioning and file system limitations/compatibility] to get things working properly :)

TechWeb sides with me on this one as well with their “Six Things You Didn’t Know About Linux: A Beginners’ Guide“:

When you’re ready to do your install, the most important piece of advice I can provide — and one that you’re unlikely to read upfront in most tutorials — is DON’T install Linux on the same hard drive on which your copy of
Windows XP resides. Why? Because Windows is notoriously fussy about living alongside another OS. It might decide not to work. Plus, you risk erasing Windows entirely if your Linux CD engages in a session of drive formatting gone wild.

Better to dig up a second hard drive, and unplug the drive containing Windows for the duration of your Linux experiment (and, conversely, unplug the Linux drive when you’re ready to return to Windows). Of course, if you’re firing up Linux on an old machine that comes to you without an OS, this warning doesn’t apply.

Hi Alex,
Your How -To: Dual Boot Ubunto … is straight forward and thorough enough for a newbee like myself to follow. I’ve a question. Can one keep one’s harddrive that already has Windows XP as the master and make the second drive ubunto 6.06?

Good question. You can, but it’s a bit of a pain in the ass for a newbie. I wouldn’t suggest it if you want to have a good first experience. However, if you prefer to do it this way, LinuxDevCenter has the step-by-step instructions for you: Installing GRUB and Making Ubuntu Bootable Using the Windows Bootloader. The only issue that you need to keep in mind when configuring your drives and partitions when referencing their one drive instructions with Windows pre-installed is that the true master drive will always be hda and the second slave drive will always be hdb since it sounds like you want to use two drives.

* If you want to stick with one drive for both operating systems, have a look at this video:

Tip: If all you want is to have Windows boot up by default, you can still follow our instructions and then edit the grub boot loader configuration file via the Terminal using sudo gedit /boot/grub/menu.lst and then cut and paste the section of code under the comment stating “Other operating systems:” and move it above the Ubuntu boot section. It’s as easy as that. Then Windows will be listed first, and if you don’t make a selection when grub loads, Windows will start right up.

Alex,
Made a discovery. I was able to install ubuntu on my SLAVE drive with Windows XP remaining on my MASTER drive by following your excellent instructions above. When the install dialog “Select a disk” appeared I simply chose the hdb: IDE1 slave to install Ubuntu onto. Ubuntu was smart enough to detect Windows installed on the MASTER drive and configured GRUBB for me. This is way cool!
regards,
Paul

Sweet. So Ubuntu configured the Windows Bootloader on the Master so you can have the choice of booting into either OS?

Yes. Pretty awesome.

My next step will be to change the default options that GRUB brings up in the bootloader. I’d like WindowsXP to start up as my first option so that my wife can use my computer.

For that I’ll try the instructions in http://wiki.ubuntu.com/GrubHowTo/ChangeDefault OS?action=print
In the instructions it says to “Copy each line into the terminal”. I guess the terminal is like a command line in ubuntu. You can see what a newbie I am.

Your instructions were great by the way particularly being able to see each step visually.
Thanks.

I can think of one minor problem to the way you did your setup. If you decide to pull the Linux drive out or if your Linux drive fails, you’ll have to figure out how to change your Windows Boot Loader manually since it’s linking to GRUB on your Linux drive. That’s one of the reasons why I setup the how-to the way idea did. My goal was to leave Windows 100% intact without any config changes. So if my Linux drive fails (or just want to use it any more) all I have to do is switch the hard drive jumper back to MASTER on the Windows drive and Windows doesn’t even know the difference.

Anyways, good luck to you. I’m glad it worked out!

FYI, I’m now running Windows XP through VMware on top of Ubuntu. Works fabulous ;)

Okay, Mr. Grundner, I followed your advice, with some modifications. I’m having some problems, however, so I’m humbly requesting a little assistance, if possible. I don’t mean to be a bother, but I’m not sure where else to ask for help.

Basically, here’s the deal. I have a sightly different setup from the one you described. I have three harddrives, one with Windows already installed, and two with data. Here’s what I did.

Original drive config:
Quantum 60GB – NTFS Win Boot Drive, master on system board
Maxtor 120GB – NTFS data drive, slave on system board
WDC 250GB – NTFS Data drive, master by itself on PCI IDE card

Since I boot out of the 60GB drive, and I was only using about 20 gig on my Maxtor anyway, I backed up the data on the Maxtor to an external harddrive and decided that that would be my Linux drive. I cracked the case, changed the Maxtor to primary master and the quantum to primary slave. I then booted from an xUbuntu Live CD.

First, I used the included tools to check the CD for errors. It confirmed that the disc was fine, and had me restart. I rebooted, and loaded into the Live OS. I checked System > Disks as you suggested. It listed the 250GB WDC data drive on the IDE card as /hda, the 120GB Maxtor (primary master) as /hde, and the 60GB Quantum Win Boot drive as /hdf.

I double clicked install, went through the general options, and made sure to choose /hde as my target install drive. I chose completely erase. It went through the install, seemingly without incident, and popped my CD out. I took it, and rebooted.

At this point, I double checked my BIOS (which I admit I should have done before), and it confirmed that the Maxtor 120GB was, indeed, set as the primary master. I allowed the boot up to continue. It detected all my devices as normal, then beeped and gave me the message “Error loading OS”.

I had no idea what to do, so I booted up with the CD again, and again checked the CD for errors. Again it came up clean. I’m currently typing this from the xUbuntu Live environment.

I’m at a total loss as to what I’ve done wrong. Is there any chance you can help me? I’ll be back to check this thread or, if you prefer e-mail, it’s atmajr(at)gmail.com .

Thanks so much in advance for your help.

What you described:
Maxtor – Master (hde)
Quantum – Primary Slave (hdf) – WINDOWS DRIVE (PRE-INSTALLED)
WDC – Secondary Slave (hda)

Goal:
Install Ubuntu on the Maxtor drive and have the ability to boot into Windows from the (primary slave) Quantum drive.

Response:
The first thing I see is that your drive designations are all screwy for some reason. It should show up like this if you’ve moved the hard drive jumpers to the correct location and your cables are inserted to your board correctly:
Maxtor – Master (hda)
Quantum – Primary Slave (hdb) – WINDOWS DRIVE (PRE-INSTALLED)
WDC – Secondary Slave (hdc)

* notice it goes up a letter alphabetically (a, b, c)

I just noticed/realized that your secondary slave is showing up as hda from the information you provided. If that’s the case, the BIOS is trying to boot from the WDC drive, since hda is/should always be the master drive. Being the case, you will get the error you’re seeing since it’s not locating the boot loader on that drive.

I have a feeling that once you get the letter designations worked out you shouldn’t have any more problems. BTW, once you do get the drives in order, I would re-install Ubuntu so GRUB gets configured correctly. Good luck!

Hey, thanks so much for replying, and with such speed. I know you must be really busy, but I quite appreciate you taking time out to assist me with this. I’ll tell you, it’s got me about ready to pull my hair out by now.

So, I’ve shut down the computer a number of times to try different jumper settings, and I just can’t figure this out. I thought you might be able to shed some light on things if I were a little more explanatory.

To reference our previous conversation, several times you had referred to my WDC drive as “Secondary Slave”. I don’t believe this to be entirely accurate, and I speculate that this could perhaps be part of the problem.

Here’s what I’m pretty sure my setup is:

Maxtor120 – Primary Master (xUbuntu is on here … i think)
Quantum60 – Primary Slave (Windows is on here)
Lite-On DVD – Secondary Master (dvd-writer)
Hitachi DVD – Secondary Slave (dvd-reader)
WDC250 – Tertiary Master? (various data is in here)

See, because all four of my IDE slots were already taken by other devices, when I purchased my WDC drive, I also picked up a PCI IDE add-on card, so that I would be able to use the drive. The WDC doesn’t connect to the system board in any way, it only connects to the PCI IDE card. So far, no matter what I do, it seems like Linux always, always looks at this drive first. On the other hand, I’d beenb running the computer for quite some time with the Quantum as the master, and Windows would have no problem booting, and recognizing the others as auxilliary drives.

If I put everything on cable select, I end up with:

WDC250 – /dev/hda
Maxtor120 – /dev/hde
Quantum60 – /dev/hdf

Failing that, the only other result I’ve been able to achieve by altering jumpers is if I set the WDC to slave (even though there’s nothing for it to be slaved to), in which case I receive the following.

WDC250 – /dev/hdb
Maxtor120 – /dev/hde
Quantum60 – /dev/hdf

Also, when I look at the disks in Linux, there are two additional hard disks listed – one called “tmpfs” and one called “unionfs”. They have no partitions, and don’t appear to be physical drives. It seems, however, from the screenshot you list above that this is somewhat normal.

It seems very odd that my computer would be looking to boot off of a drive that is not even connected to the system board. I can’t figure out quite how that could have happened.

Anyway, since this now appears to be a hardware problem and not a linux thing, I know it’s not really your area, but I would appreciate any advice you could give me. My friends and I are all somewhat techy, but we’ve mostly used only DOS-based systems. My gracious thanks in advance again for your help and your time.

Two routes to take:
1. Get rid of the third drive (I can tell you how to mount the WDC drive later) for now and work on getting the Ubuntu (make master) and Windows (leave as slave) drive working (you might even want to start out with a single drive to be 100% confident Ubuntu will work on your PC). Also why did you decide to go with the xUbuntu version running Xfce4 as the desktop environment? I suggest starting with the most supported and original GNOME based Ubuntu.

2. Consider posting your hardware config problem on http://www.ubuntuforums.org. There’s way more hardware savvy Linux users over there that can help. Also consider taking your box to a Linux installfest at your local Linux user group (aka LUG).

Thanks again for your reply.

Okay, so I pulled the WDC out, and i’m sitting here looking at it on my desk. This leaves the configuration:

Primary Master – Maxtor120
Primary Slave – Quantum60 (Win Install)
Secondary Master – Lite-On DVD
Secondary Slave – Hitachi DVD

I tried booting like this (remember, xUbuntu should still be hanging out on the Maxtor), and again received the “Error loading OS” message. When booting up into the Live environment again, I checked the disks menu.

The WDC is gone (as it should be), but it still shows the Maxtor as /dev/hde and the Quantum as /dev/hdf . I officially have no idea what’s going on.

In reply to your query about xUbuntu – I chose Ubuntu originally, because the Ubuntu group had the motto of being an OS that “just works”, and I didn’t really want to mess with a lot of bash shell scripting or compiling my own kernel. I figured this would be the easy way to get into linux (ha). When I got to the ubuntu homepage and started doing research, I learned about kubuntu, edubuntu, and xubuntu. I decided to look through the pages and choose the one that best suited my needs. The whole reason I was looking towards a Linux dual-boot setup was to find an OS which isn’t so heavy on my aging system. Because everything I read said that xUbuntu ran fastest on older system, and took the fewest resources, I decided to go with that. Maybe I’ll give regular Ubuntu a shot … but to do that I’ll have to see if I can convince this PC to boot back into Windows.

As for these Installfests you mention … is there any easy way of finding out if there’s one coming up near me? I tried googling strings like “linux installfest cleveland”, but got a lot of pages from 2001 and prior.

Thanks again, and sorry to be a bother. Maybe linux just isn’t for me, and I should stick to DOS based filesystems. I’m not ready to give up quite yet, though.

No problem. It’s all just growing pains. xUbuntu is an excellent choice for old, slow running systems, but I’ve got to tell you… I have the standard GNOME Ubuntu version working near flawlessly on my old HP Omnibook XE2-DB laptop (it didn’t like Ubuntu’s boot splash): 333Mhz Pentium 2 with only 128MB of RAM, 2MB of video card memory, and a 6GB hard drive (previously running Windows 98). I would say that’s a pretty old system :)
Luckily one of the guys at SVLUG was a wiz with laptop setups.

Found this LUG group near you:
Cleveland Linux User Group

My last piece of advice on configuring your hardware:
Your motherboard should have two IDE connectors: Primary IDE and Secondary IDE. Your Hard Drives should be connected to the Primary IDE connector and your Disc Drives should be connected to the Secondary IDE connector. If this doesn’t resolve you drive designations, take your box to the LUG group for more troubleshooting help.

WiseSalesman:
I wonder, did you also remove the PCI card when you removed the WDC drive? If not, try taking it out. The presence of the card, even without a drive attached, could still be counted as hda and hdb.

Alexander: Thanks for this article. I’m going to try this tomorrow with a new drive in a Win 2000 system. What I’m wondering is, when you boot into windows, will the windows drive letters still work right, now that it’s on the slave? In your scenario, I supposed windows doesn’t see the Linux drive, or does it? I’m planning to include a large FAT32 partition on my Linux drive, and I’m wondering what letter will be assigned to it. Will it get a C, since it’s on the master drive, and will that mess up windows shortcuts and everything that refers to the c: drive?

Actually, I did eventually end up doing just what you suggest, octathlon … heh … wish someone had mentioned it earlier. It allowed me to install Linux, and the Grub bootloader. I was able to successfully boot into both WinXp and Linux. I figured I’d reinstall the card, boot into Linux, and fight with it there, but, lo and behold, resintalling the card causes Ubuntu to be unbootable. And, unfortunately, I don’t seem to be the only one with this problem. Looks like it’s mostly unfixable. Although there are some possible work-arounds, I think they’re all too complex for me. Not that I probably couldn’t do it, with enough time and effort, but I’ve already spent hours of frustration getting to this point, and I don’t think it’s worth it anymore. And, if I have to choose between Linux and having all my devices, guess what I’m picking? Hell, this hardware conflict issue isn’t even the only problem I’ve had – just the most vexing.

It’s a shame. I thought all the talk about Linux being unstable and having to wrestle with it to make it work was just hype put out by idiot end-users who barely know how to copy a file. Alas, two years of training in the CS field, two programming languages under my belt, a firm foundation in DOS, and a few years of experience as an independent software trouble-shooter, and I STILL can’t make this work on my setup. Ubuntu will have to try harder if the distro wants to win fans away from Microsoft. I’d pay $100 to have my computer just work without all this nonsense any day, and so, I’d wager, would almost anyone else who can afford a PC.

I’m going to post in the linked thread on ubuntuforums and see if anyone can help me, but my hopes are not high.

OH, and octathlon – you don’t need a FAT32 partition if you install IFS for Windows. It lets you view and mount ext2 and ext3 drives in a windows environment with full read/write support. I’ve been using it, and it’s working great.

WiseSalesman said: Actually, I did eventually end up doing just what you suggest, octathlon … heh … wish someone had mentioned it earlier. It allowed me to install Linux, and the Grub bootloader. I was able to successfully boot into both WinXp and Linux. I figured I’d reinstall the card, boot into Linux, and fight with it there, but, lo and behold, resintalling the card causes Ubuntu to be unbootable

[...]

And, if I have to choose between Linux and having all my devices, guess what I’m picking? Hell, this hardware conflict issue isn’t even the only problem I’ve had – just the most vexing.

I’ll make response to your frustrations quick and to the point, WiseSalesman. Obviously, as you just found out, the PCI card was the cause of all your problems. Unfortunately, not all PC hardware will play nice with Linux – it’s a matter of trial and error, or taking the time to research that your designed for Windows hardware will work. Remember, most of the hardware drivers in use on Linux have been reversed engineered because many of the component are closed-source and proprietary nature. It’s just a simple fact and a daily part of everyone’s life in the Linux world.

BTW, when you added the PCI card after the install, your hard drives and CD/DVD drives got new letter designations. Being the case, it threw off the GRUB boot loader’s pre-configured settings (in order to fix this you would have to manually edit the boot file (from the command line: sudo nano /boot/grub/menu.lst) and make the appropriate adjustments). Anyways, adding the PCI card after the fact would have changed your PC’s configuration in Windows as well.

Tip: Using the Live CD would have been helpful in seeing what the new letter designation changed to after adding the PCI card (SYSTEM > ADMINISTRATION > DEVICE MANAGER).

octathlon said: Alexander: Thanks for this article. I’m going to try this tomorrow with a new drive in a Win 2000 system. What I’m wondering is, when you boot into windows, will the windows drive letters still work right, now that it’s on the slave? In your scenario, I supposed windows doesn’t see the Linux drive, or does it? I’m planning to include a large FAT32 partition on my Linux drive, and I’m wondering what letter will be assigned to it. Will it get a C, since it’s on the master drive, and will that mess up windows shortcuts and everything that refers to the c: drive?

I’d actually recommend putting it on the same drive Windows will be installed on. Reason being, the second partition (FAT32) will become the D: drive and the first partition (NTFS – Windows Install) will be the C: drive. At that point it’s easy enough to get Ubuntu to auto-mount the FAT32 partition (if it doesn’t automatically do it for you) and easily share (with read/write privileges) the files without any added software.

Note: When you follow the how-to as I’ve laid it out, Windows WILL NOT see the Linux drive. Of course, there’s other ways of doing things, but you’re on your own on that ;)

WiseSalesman, I understand your frustration! Just a couple of things:

Assuming these are all IDE drives, couldn’t you simply attach the Maxtor (boot) drive to the PCI card as the master, swapping it with the WDC drive? Seems like everything should work fine that way.

If that doesn’t work for some reason, you might want to try a few other live CD distros known for their superior hardware detection, like PCLinuxOS, SimplyMEPIS, etc. (check distrowatch.com), and see what drive names they assign.

IFS sounds great, but is it only for the local drive? According to Alexander, Windows wouldn’t even see the Linux drive. But after installing IFS, would it suddenly see it? Also, would I also be able to see/read/write to ext3 on a linux computer on the network with it? (have another Windows computer I would need to access it with too). I think I’d still feel safer with FAT32, but I’ll check into it. Thanks.

Alexander, I agree FAT32 would work better on the Windows drive in this scenario, but I didn’t want to touch that drive or repartition it (to be safe), and it doesn’t have enough space anyway. The new drive is 200GB, plenty of room to back up data for all 3 computers.
:)

The only way that I can see things working out the way you want is if you leave the Windows drive as the MASTER and the Linux drive as the SLAVE. However, that means that you’ll be comfortable with Ubuntu tweaking the Windows Boot Loader (aka Master Boot Record or MBR). Note: If you make any partition modifications where the boot drive designation is different on the Linux drive or you decide to make the Windows drive a slave in the future, be prepared to manually edit the Windows Boot Loader to accommodate those changes. This is why I designed the how-to to leave Windows entirely alone, but yet still have both operating systems living happily side-by-side. And you never know… later on you might decide to use VMware to run Windows on top of Linux (configured with a virtual shared drive) and get rid of the dual-boot option all together. BTW, VMware Workstation 5.5 for Linux rocks!

Here’s a personal demo I put up on YouTube:
Features advanced XGL/Compiz 3-D desktop graphics on Ubuntu Dapper and Windows XP Pro running on a seperate desktop workspace via VMware. The XGL/Compiz how-to can be found here.

Thanks for that link! Actually, I like that idea, since I was thinking of installing both Ubuntu and Fedora Core. It seems that if I have each one install its own GRUB to its own partition, make a .bin for each one per the article, and add a line for each one in the Windows boot.ini, it will be easy to choose between them on startup, while leaving the Window MBR intact. Does that sound about right to you?

Also, thanks for the XGL demo :)

octathlon said: Thanks for that link! Actually, I like that idea, since I was thinking of installing both Ubuntu and Fedora Core. It seems that if I have each one install its own GRUB to its own partition, make a .bin for each one per the article, and add a line for each one in the Windows boot.ini, it will be easy to choose between them on startup, while leaving the Window MBR intact. Does that sound about right to you?

Also, thanks for the XGL demo :)

I can’t really say since I haven’t tried that. Like I said earlier… you’re on your own here :D

I’m assuming this isn’t your first time playing with Linux, octathlon. If it is, stick with the basics before attempting to do all the advanced configurations. This advice holds true for anyone new to Linux. That’s why (again) I setup the how-to in the manner that it is — to help average Windows users get a chance to play with Linux without altering their current Windows install. Good Luck! And, please report back if you get the MBR to work in the way you stated.

Update: I installed Ubuntu, but it never gave me the option of where or if to install the bootloader–it automatically overwrote my Windows disk’s MBR — grrrr. Now I have to figure out how to restore that, before I can try the other technique. After playing with Dapper yesterday and today, there seem to be a lot of bugs–apps are freezing up, the time display keeps crashing, etc. I didn’t have such troubles with Breezy.

I also installed Fedora on another partition, but that one won’t boot at all. After searching forums, I found that it has a bootloader bug when installed on the slave drive. LOL, My grand scheme is not working out too well.

Sorry for laughing. Sometimes (or should I say most of the times) things don’t work out in the way we have planned. I swear I’m one of those guys who tries to think through every detail, but no matter what… something unexpected always pops up. To fix your MBR issue follow the instructions in the link I provided earlier for clues (I believe it requires the System Rescue CD). If you followed the first few comments (specifically comment #9), I pointed out to Paulji that Ubuntu automatically alters the Windows Boot Loader — not a good thing (especially for a novice) for the reasons I expressed earlier.

My advice: Start over and follow my initial 2 disc install instructions — you’ll thank me later when everything goes smoothly. You can always later install Fedora in a separate partition and edit GRUB in Ubuntu to link you to Fedora as a boot up option; or just try each distribution out one at a time; or use vmware/qemu/parallels for virtural installs (the recommended way for trying out new distributions).

As for the bugs you’re experiencing, that’s a bit of a mystery. I wonder if it’s a hardware related issue. Try doing a fresh install since you didn’t experience those issues with Breezy. I’ve got Dapper running on a high-end desktop and an ancient laptop without a hitch.

UPDATE: I’ve added a “Things you should know” section to the original post.

>>If you followed the first few comments (specifically comment #9), I pointed out to Paulji that Ubuntu automatically alters the Windows Boot Loader — not a good thing (especially for a novice) for the reasons I expressed earlier.

I must have missed that. The article in your link says you can tell it where to install, and back when I installed Breezy I had the choice, too, so boy was I surprised. On the Fedora install, your only choices are to install it to hda, or not install it at all (and it won’t install anyway if you are installing on hdb).

You would think with as much work as they put into it, these installers would give you at least the basic options! I don’t care about the cute graphics, but I do want control over the install. :) I’ll fix the Windows MBR and try your way next, but since Windows automatically recognised and mounted the FAT32 with my way, who knows what it will do if it “knows” it’s not the master? LOL

Just a quick heads up. There are two versions of the install disc:
1. The Live CD
2. The Alternate Install CD

Alternate install CD

The alternate install CD allows you to perform certain specialist installations of Ubuntu. It provides for the following situations:

• creating pre-configured OEM systems;
• setting up automated deployments;
• upgrading from older installations without network access;
• LVM and/or RAID partitioning;
• installing GRUB to a location other than the Master Boot Record;
• installs on systems with less than about 192MB of RAM.

I think this is the one you want ;)

Hi Alexander,

I read your post on how to set up a computer to dual boot to Linux and XP. Thank you for the effort you went to with the images and such.

I already have a computer that is running Ubuntu Dapper Drake and I would like to add XP on another hard drive. Your instructions explain how to do it starting with XP. I would rather not have to reinstall Linux and I would like to know what you think about creating a dual boot setup with Linux already installed.

I was thinking maybe I could temporarily unplug the Linux HDD and change the jumpers on the second HDD and then install XP on it. Once that’s done, adjust the jumpers and edit the files you mention in your posting.

I’m not asking you for step by step instructions on this, I’m interested in your opinions on a few things.

Do you think this would work?
Would it be a difficult thing to do?
Can you think of any problems I might run into?
Would I be able to end up with a setup that works like you presented in your posting?

Thanks,

Tom

Recommended Steps: (Note: this should work with ANY Linux distro that uses GRUB)

1. Disconnect your Linux drive
2. Attach you new drive and install Windows
3. Once Windows is installed, re-connect the Linux drive and make it the Master and the Windows drive the Slave via the drive jumpers
4. Now, when your PC starts up, your Linux OS should (unless your jumpers are not configured correctly) startup by default and you just need to do the following:

Open GRUB

sudo gedit /boot/grub/menu.lst

Add the following lines to the bottom of the page (tip: you can change the title to anything you want)

title Windows XP
map (hd0) (hd1)
map (hd1) (hd0)
rootnoverify (hd1,0)
chainloader +1
makeactive

A very interesting thread, which I wish I had discovered before attempting to install Ubuntu 6.06 on my Windows XP machine. With all the XP installation files on my 19.5 GB C disk (master) and just a few GB of miscellaneous files on my 129.5 GB D disk (slave), I thought it would be no match to follow Jason Faulkner’s instructions and install Ubuntu on the latter. Unfortunately, the live disc which I used did not permit me to properly configure the Ubuntu partition manually, and when I choose the option of letting the programme do it, it completely wiped all my Windows files – probably, as I now understand, because it choose to install to the C disk which is configured as the master. So much for Ubuntu recognising Windows ! Now, after nearly a couple of weeks I’ve grown accustomed to Ubuntu, which I’ve updated to version 6.10, and while I by no means have mastered the OS, I’d really hate to lose it or to have to go through the double (6.06 and 6.10) installation and reconfiguration process again. So I was very interested in Mr Grundner’s reply #30 above. Would there be any chance of getting him to provide a more detailed tutorial on installing Windows on a Ubuntu system ? In this connexion, I’ve noticed a very strange discrepancy between his Ubuntu 6.06 and my Ubuntu 6.10. The 6th photo (3rd screenshot) with which he provides us is one of his ‘Disk Manager’, which we are told, is accessed via System>Administration>Disks. In my case, however, no subcategory corresponding to ‘Disks’ is to be found under System>Administration ! The language used in my set-up is Swedish, but the subcategory, ‘Enhetshanterare‘ (‘Unit manager’) which comes closest looks entirely different from that shown in Mr Grundner’s screenshot. Is this the result of a modification in 6.10 , or am I missing something here that I really should have ?…

Hi,
I have installed the ubutu destop 8 version in my personal computer. Previously, I have already installed window xp in the system. For few days both operating system were listing during booting. But some days I got some error in ubuntu so, I again re-installed the ubuntu. Now window options is not showing during booting time.Can someone guide me how to show the windowsXP options during booting time without re-installing window Xp again? Thanks in advance!

For those that have messed up the MBR (Master Boot Record) for Windows. Here’s how to fix…(if I miss something, someone please correct):
1) Install Windows XP disk in CDROM (make sure Boot From CD is first choice in BIOS)
2) Reboot computer
3) When prompt comes up “Boot from CDROM”…press any key (I usually hit ENTER…no special reason why)
4) Windows stuff will load and you will be given 3 choices…1 is install Windows, 2 is Repair, 3 is…well, I forget lol
5) choose Repair and a DOS looking screen pops up
6) at the Prompt, type “HELP”…some help commands pop up
7) Choose FIXMBR
8) For safe measure…I also choose FIXBOOT
9) Remove the disk…Windows will now either load or reboot…forget which…

Should be fixed now.

BTW…I like the idea about making the XP drive a slave so GRUB doesn’t overwrite your Windows Boot Loader…very nice tip

Anand…it sounds like you were having the same problems I did…I kept XP as my master and loaded Ubuntu on a second drive…Ubuntu messed up my MBR and I had to go through the steps I mention above). I’m gonna try the other way now…making XP a slave and Ubuntu the master.

For your problem though…XP is probably still there…just do a repair on the MBR…you will then have to go back and reinstall either 1) Ubuntu or 2) the GRUB (AKA…bootloader). I would suggest you try Grudner’s method though…it just makes sense……hope this helps…………

can somebody tell me how to do a dual boot with windows vista and xp. i have both install on two different hard drives already. can somebody walk me throught the process of being able to boot both.

Keith use easyBCD

and do you think it is ok to duaal boot on a laptop because There is only 1 hard drive … should I partion it into two?