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I'm installing ubuntu and it seems I cannot get it to recognize windows 7. My laptop is a dv6tqe-7000 purchased approximately December of 2012. I have ubuntu's iso file burned onto a DVD which boots in place of my hard drive when I have it inserted. When ubuntu boots from it, it shows a black, not purple screen. Based on other threads I think it might be because windows 7 boots in bios/legacy mode while ubuntu boots in uefi mode. However, I'm not sure how I can fix this problem. I've gone into my computer's BIOS and there isn't any option that changes priority between UEFI and BIOS. The version of ubuntu I download is not super important, so it there's any other versions of ubuntu that would work, that is something I can consider.

An image I took of my bios menu that shows boot options is here: http://imgur.com/aBaZ0Xi The black and gray items I cannot select, I can only change items in blue.

Other threads that I've read on this seem to have very complex solutions that invole manually partitioning the hard drive. I'm not sure I'm comfortable doing that as a pretty novice linux user. Also, I can't seem to find a program called disk manager in windows..?

Alternatively, I also happen to have a 1TB external hard drive with just pretty much a windows backup on it. Is it possible for me to partition that drive instead and install ubuntu on the external hard drive? If it is possible, how would I accomplish that?

Picture with disk management on it: https://i.stack.imgur.com/uXRxJ.jpg

Update: It turns out that my computer seems to have two separate pre-OS boot menus. One is F9 and lets you choose what to boot from (w/ options of efi file, DVD-ROM, or hard drive) and the other (F10) has the actual options to configure it. From the F9 menu, I booted the DVD with Ubuntu and it entered into a purple screen then booted into ubuntu with the installation menu. Great thing is, it managed to recognize windows 7! I don't know if this means it is in BIOs/legacy, but at least it works, kinda. However, navigating to the menu resulted in these options:

This computer currently has Windows 7 on it. What would you like to do?

-Install Ubuntu inside Windows 7

-Replace Windows 7 with Ubuntu

-(encrypt and LVM options are grayed out)

-Something Else

Why would there not be a menu option to install Ubuntu alongside windows 7?

user3504299
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  • You show legacy boot options. Some other setting then may be preventing you from using those? You need to install in BIOS/Legacy mode or else Ubuntu in UEFI will use gpt partitioning and erase drive. Same with external. And you will not be able to dual boot from grub only from UEFI/BIOS menu.http://askubuntu.com/questions/312782/how-to-install-ubuntu-on-separate-hard-drive-in-a-dual-boot AND install grub to sdb: http://askubuntu.com/questions/274371/install-on-second-hard-drive-with-startup-boot-optiond a http://askubuntu.com/questions/343268/how-to-use-manual-partitioning-during-installation – oldfred Dec 29 '14 at 23:02
  • In my HP BIOS Setup, I have an item saying "Boot Mode", where I can switch between both modes. Strangely, it isn't on your setup screen. Maybe look at "Legacy support" and see if you can disable UEFI there. @oldfred HP BIOS setup is very strange concerning UEFI/Legacy stuff. Both UEFI and Legacy boot options are always shown, but only one is used. – s3lph Dec 29 '14 at 23:04
  • @the_Seppi In the "Legacy support" menu, there is only two options, "enabled" and "disabled". Choosing disabled prevents Windows 7 from booting unfortunately. – user3504299 Dec 29 '14 at 23:18
  • Then Windows must be in UEFI mode not Legacy mode. Post this, if drive is MBR then Windows is BIOS, if gpt then UEFI: sudo parted -l – oldfred Dec 30 '14 at 00:35
  • @oldfred Could you clarify? I'm not entirely sure what your response meant. Based on the fact that when I disabled legacy/bios mode, Windows 7 didn't run, so I think I'm in legacy mode, unless I interpreted that incorrectly. Also, where do I post the line you mentioned? – user3504299 Dec 30 '14 at 01:00
  • Add partition list to first post above. If Windows does nto work in Legacy mode, it must be installed in UEFI. But only by knowing partition structure or other details of install can we tell for sure. – oldfred Dec 30 '14 at 04:55
  • I've updated the first post, I found what seems to be a partition structure and posted a picture above, and also had some updates on my situation. Thanks for helping! – user3504299 Jan 01 '15 at 16:59
  • @oldfred wasn't UEFI introduced in Windows 8, not 7? – geoffmcc Jan 01 '15 at 17:16
  • UEFI become standard with Windows 8 including the secure boot feature. A few vendors did install Windows 7 in UEFI mode just before Windows 8 came out. Windows 7 will install and boot in UEFI mode, if Windows installer is modified slightly for that. – oldfred Jan 03 '15 at 17:05

1 Answers1

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I got an option to install alongside windows 7 when I was using 7. This is what i did.

In control panel I went to administrative tools. From there I selected computer management and then disk management (or something similar)

When that loads it will show all partitions. Decide how big you want Ubuntu partition up be, and shrink your main partition.

Once it is shrunk, it will show as unallocated space. Leave it as it is.

Now reboot and start install of ubuntu. You should now get a "install alongside windows 7" option.

Select that, install and Ubuntu will automatically install to the unallocated partition that was created in Windows.

geoffmcc
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  • I used disk management to create ~50GB of unallocated space from my ~600GB partition. However, when I tried to install Ubuntu, the options were still the same, there was no option for "install alongside Windows 7." – user3504299 Jan 01 '15 at 18:15
  • I believe the problem was that I already had 4 partitions on my hard drive. I deleted the "system" partition and after that ubuntu was available to be installed alongside windows 7. Thanks for the help! – user3504299 Jan 03 '15 at 00:43
  • and your windows 7 still works after you deleted the system (i assume the 100mb default) partition – geoffmcc Jan 03 '15 at 18:38
  • yep, still worked fine. – user3504299 Jan 03 '15 at 22:37