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Here is this, I use ubuntu and love ubuntu. So when I bought a DELL PC with pre-installed windows 8, in which I couldn't install ubuntu in every possible way I tried, I deleted the genuine windows and installed a windows 7, turned off secure boot and turned on legacy drive. Now, after sometime I am installing windows 8 again(precisely windows 8.1) with installation media provided in microsoft website.

Now here is the partitions I have for my 500GB hard drive.

  1. 172 GB primary NTFS partition(Only C drive) for windows 7
  2. 290 GB primary EXT4 partition for ubuntu-14.04
  3. 4 GB primary for speeding up.

My windows can't see the ubuntu partition BTW.

Now, when I install windows 8.1, I am sure it will mess up the fine grub bootloader of ubuntu, and I don't even know what else will it do. I have important files in my ubuntu and I don't want to loose them. So, someone please guide me how should I install this windows 8.1 after downloading? I am using windows media creation tool to download the media's in a flash drive.

And I am running dell-inspiron 14r - 5421

Gryu
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Tamim Addari
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1 Answers1

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Provided that you are sure that no UEFI stuff is going on, just install Windows 8.1 as you normally would on partition 1, then recover grub as described here:

How can I repair grub? (How to get Ubuntu back after installing Windows?)

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ergysdo
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  • I was wondering , will I have to turn on UEFI for the activation of windows 8.1 product , then this could cause a problem? – Tamim Addari Dec 08 '14 at 14:28
  • I don't know about that, I suppose you could try it, it should not touch the data within your Ubuntu partition (proceed with caution though). I would recommend to try and activate using the product key from within Windows first. – ergysdo Dec 08 '14 at 15:29