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so I've spent the past couple days freaking out about this and looking for answers, and I decided to resort to asking on forums. probably should have before I wasted 2 entire days.

so I am trying to DUAL-INSTALL Ubuntu 13.10 with my x64 Windows 7 home premium computer. I have 6 gb of ram, 1TB hard drive, and a 3.3GHZ dual core processer (just in case it matters).

I've managed to figure some things out. I've burned the ubuntu files onto a DVD, and I have been able to successfully run it off the disk. I also shrunk my Windows partition by 120Gb and partitioned that for Ubuntu (all using the windows Disk Manager).

Problems:

  1. When I turn my computer on with the DVD in the tray, the computer cant find windows. it flashes a screen real quick that says something about not being able to find an operating system, and then goes to "grub" and asks what i want to do with Ubuntu. this scares me, because I don't know if that means that I will not be able to boot windows if I install Ubuntu.

  2. The Ubuntu 13.10 installer does not detect my Windows operating system. I only have the options to Erase everything on my drive, or "something else." I choose that, which brings me to 3

  3. I don't understand the partition table. I have no idea which drive im selecting to install stuff on, much less which one to select. I tried to tell by the amount of memory partitioned off, but none of the numbers seem to be accurate. Plus, all the names are dev/sda(#). I know Ubuntu knows the name of my partition, because on the sidebars it shows the names of the different drives, including the partition I made; so why don't they use the names? I have no idea what I'm going to be erasing. I've read that I should know which is which by the file system type, but they are all NTFS, including the one I made. my only other option was FAT, none for EXT2 or any of that like people said to do.

My main concerns are that of accidentally erasing windows or not being able to access windows. any feasible solution is helpful, weather it helps me with the install or to make Ubuntu see windows.

I realize this question has been asked much, but i have found no feasible answers so far. I am relatively new to this, and have never installed an operating system before, so I do not know most of the jargon. please keep it relatively simple, please. I am not a programmer.

Thanks.

Edit: So, thanks to several of the comments and my increasing comprehension of Linux and installing operating systems from reading lots of articles, I finally managed to install Linux.

What I had to do is, first, delete the partition I had made on windows. Once I deleted it, I put in the boot disk in and ran it. I then proceeded to run GParted by using the buil in search. I found on there the free space from the deleted partition, so I knew where my windows is was NOT. I then made 3 partitions. 1gb for booting, in case I needed that to make it be able to actually dual boot,6gb for swap, cause I have 6gb of ram, and 110gb for the OS storage. Then I went to the installer, and this time I was able to tell what was what from the amounts of storage it told me. I selected the appropriate ones, set boot and os to ext4 and swap to the swap type, set it to format what it needed to and set the is mount point to /. I proceeded with the installation and it worked.

Now I have a new problem, when it boots, it defaults to windows and I can't open Ubuntu. But I'll make another topic for that.

Tim
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Aymax
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  • Post this from terminal in live installer. sudo parted -l The concern is that almost all Windows 7 systems use all 4 primary partitions and if you use Windows to create a new partition it converts to dynamic which does not work with Linux and is not easy to undo. – oldfred Nov 11 '13 at 19:41
  • what does that command do? and does that mean that i cannot install it until it ubuntu can find windows? – Aymax Nov 11 '13 at 19:49
  • I used that command, and it looks like #3 and 4(whatever those mean) both fit the 1 partition i made with windows. they are both exactly the same though, save 1 is logical ad the other is extended? – Aymax Nov 11 '13 at 20:26
  • so should i just delete the partition in the windows disk manager and then make a new one with ubuntu? – Aymax Nov 11 '13 at 21:02
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    Can you boot back in Windows ? If so just delete partition you created for Ubuntu and leave un-partitioned space. Then put Ubuntu disk into drive and boot, for installation you should be able to see unused space available for you. And during that installation create 2 partition ... 1 for system and 1 swap drive. – JackLock Nov 11 '13 at 22:02
  • See my old answer to the question about installing Ubuntu in a NTFS partition created in Windows – user68186 Nov 11 '13 at 22:13
  • If you found the solution please write it as answer with detailed explanations of what happened, where was the problem, etc. Just in case someone find the same problem as you. – Braiam Nov 12 '13 at 02:32

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The first thing I'd do would be to do a Repair Install of Windows.

You'll want to boot on your Windows installation CD. At some point, you will have the choice to repair your installation.

This guide seems to explain the steps quite well: http://www.bleepingcomputer.com/tutorials/start-the-windows-7-recovery-environment/

If it doesn't work, maybe you could give us some sort of screenshot of your partition table to see if it looks messed up.

EDIT: If you don't have your Windows installation disk, try this solution: http://windows.microsoft.com/en-us/windows7/create-a-system-repair-disc

Carl Lemaire
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  • I dont have a win7 boot disk, it came win7 came with my computer. would doing that make my computer find windows when i have the disk in then? the biggest thing with my part table is that i dont know which drive is which on there, or how to be sure im partitioning correctly. – Aymax Nov 11 '13 at 19:55
  • I've edited my original answer. – Carl Lemaire Nov 11 '13 at 20:14
  • It wont let me post pictures. I need 10 reputation or something like that. – Aymax Nov 11 '13 at 20:17
  • I was able to do the repair thing since my computer has it built in; I just needed to press escape when my computer started up and choose system recovery. Even with the startup repair though, it still doesn't work right. Thanks anyway. – Aymax Nov 12 '13 at 00:47