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I have an Acer Aspire 4739 and want to install Ubuntu but I was wondering what happens to the recovery partition if I ever wanted to go back to windows? I don't have a boot disk that laptop only have the recovery partition I think. So how would I install Ubuntu without losing the partition?

Scott Pritchard
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2 Answers2

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I have an HP with Windows also installed on the same hard drive, HP also uses backup partitions. From my experience the Ubuntu installer seems to recognize the recovery partition as a windows file system and does not overwrite it. You will have access to the recovery partition at boot. I can't give you a screen shot but the bootloader (grub) will have:

Windows (Version) loader on dev/SdaX (Where X is any number)

and

Windows (version) loader on dev/sdaY (Where Y is any number other then X)

and when you choose the loader on sdaY it should boot into the recovery partition which would include your boot repair/windows recovery/repair tools. Since the recovery partitions are alternate partitions it will not overwrite them.

My suggestion is that when you are installing choose the "install alongside" button so that it will roughly split your HD in half and put windows on half and Ubuntu on half. And during installation the bootloader (GRUB) will locate and determine which partitions are bootable and will give you the option of which to boot upon startup.

In the picture below I took a picture of my bootloader, the last 2 entries are Windows, the second to last is the actual operating system whereas the very last issue is my recovery tool/partition. Do note that one is located on /dev/sda1 and the second is located on /dev/sda2.

My GRUB

Hope that helps you out, if not please reply back.

Weylin Schreck
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Well, Since 2 days , I am struggling with this issue and finally got fixed now.

There are two options. Each have its pros and cons. You have to pick up what suits you the best

Option 1: In case your hard disk size is small, then you can delete your recovery partition.But then your windows wont work and you need to do some crazy stuff to get it back! And Its little bit dangerous too! But its not impossible and if you are ready follow this - First you have to fix windows from windows DVD and then fix grub from Ubuntu CD - Follow the below link for more details

Option 2: If you want to avoid all those, try to make a separate partition from C drive . In this case you will face less problems/no problems

More info, you can find here - Unable to boot into windows after installing ubuntu 12.04 (see the comments part as well)

And I just shared my experience here - Check if it can help you - http://rajeshksv.blogspot.in/2012/10/how-to-fix-dual-booting-issues-windows.html

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