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I am trying to install 12.04 alongside my existing install of Windows 7 on my Lenovo IdeaPad laptop. I decided to go for the 64-bit version since I have 6 GB of RAM.

I've followed this guide to make sure everything worked properly and to use the Windows 7 bootloader. However, even after following the guide all the way through, I am not able to start Ubuntu in any way. When I choose Ubuntu from the startup menu, I get to a command line version of grub (if using EasyBCD default settings) or an error (if manually setting EasyBCD).

I tried reinstalling Ubuntu in any possible way: I shrank the Windows partition with the Win7 utility; I tried letting the Ubuntu installer create the partition or creating them manually as the guide specifies. Nothing works and in no way I am able to start Ubuntu.

At this point, I still have 170 GB of space that I squeezed out of my hard drive and I can start over once again, but I think the guide I was trying to follow has something wrong, or I am missing something. Can anybody point to a solution?

Jorge Castro
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giovannibotta
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2 Answers2

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I finally found a solution to this problem. As I said, the problem seems to be that the installer can't correctly recognize the startup partition and install grub correctly since there are 4 separate partitions used by Windows and by the one key recovery system installed by Lenovo (correct me if I'm wrong, I'm just assuming). Since Lenovo doesn't provide the Windows disc, but only recovery discs to reset to factory default, the only way to make the dual boot work is to "fix" the installation of grub (this is quite annoying since you will always be stuck with bloatware). Luckily, there is a way to do this, explained in this tutorial. I believe there are other people out there having this same problem with Lenovo laptops. I hope this helps.

giovannibotta
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You shouldn't have to configure anything by yourself. I run ubuntu 12.04 64but alongside with windows 7 and I just clicked "install alongside windows" and used the slider to deterime how much space I was going to give to each OS. It should configure grub and everything but itself. Have you tried letting it do it by itself instead of manually doing it?

Shivang Saxena
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  • Hi, thanks for the answer. I tried that, grub doesn't seem to get installed properly because when I reboot Windows starts automatically. My laptop has two separate partitions for restore (that's Lenovo's way of messing things up), so I wonder if that might cause a problem. I know ubuntu is installed but I just can't start it up! – giovannibotta Aug 06 '12 at 15:05
  • Hello, I just wanted to give an update in case anyone was looking at this. My Lenovo laptop has 4 partitions. I believe this clashes with the Ubuntu installer somehow. I wiped W7 all together and installed Linux. – giovannibotta Aug 16 '12 at 11:19