• After 15+ years, we've made a big change: Android Forums is now Early Bird Club. Learn more here.

Dual-boot Newb

jefboyardee

jefboyardee

Extreme Android User
Okay, I’ve tried buying a Win8 PC, hating it and returning it, considering a tower only with Win7, and now, to really cheap out...

I already have a Lubuntu CD that’s just sitting there, waiting for me to find a place to install it. I just installed EaseUS Partition Master Free Edition. My C drive has two partitions... C is 225GB with only 40GB used. D is the built-in XP recovery, 8GB and full.

I’ve come as close as I can to clicking the Resize Partition button on EaseUS, but chickened out until I get some lessons or opinions on this plan:

Resize the D drive to about 100GB, leaving C with 125GB. Then,
Install Lubuntu on the D drive.
C is still default and my XP should run unscathed.

So far so good...? Then, how does one make a PC a dual-boot and give me a choice between C and D, between Windows and Lubuntu?

One other thing... I just defragged the C drive and, although there’s obviously not much in there, what little there is strewn all over the drive and remained that way after the defrag. Will that interfere with resizing (expanding) the D drive?

Pardon for not knowing of what I speak, but I did say newb in the title...

edit: forgot to say that I suppose I’ll have to either reformat or erase everything that’s currently on the D drive, cuz it’ll boot too, or so I’m led to believe.
 
When you install Lubuntu, it should install a bootloader (most likely GRUB). If you're lucky, it may even automatically pick up your other OS
 
You got me googling and I found, somewhere, “Your root partition for Ubuntu must be ext3.” That true?
 
I found, somewhere, “Your root partition for Ubuntu must be ext3.” That true?
Click to expand...

Googled some more and found:

What file system to use.

If you plan on using the hard drive only for Ubuntu then the recommended filesystem to use is either ext3/ext4 depending on whether or not you need backwards compatibility with previous versions of Linux. If you will need to share files between Ubuntu and Windows machines fat 32 is the recommended file system to use, but NTFS will also work well also.

Now, having turned chicken, I will probably just erase the D drive and install my Lubuntu there. I'll only format it if I have to, but according to the above, it’s probably not necessary – D already is fat32, C is NTFS.

(Trying to find a way out of XP, an outdated, 13-year old necessity.)
 
When you install Ubuntu, it should propose a partition setup for you. If you have one disk (C) with Windows on and the other empty (D), it will probably suggest using the whole of D for its installation. At a guess (And I've not installed Ubuntu family in a while) this proposal would create a swap partition of say 2-4Gb and use the remainder of the disk as ext4 for the root partition (/). Some distributions also offer a separate partiton for (/home) where your own data goes.

The installation should also allow you to set up your own partitioning so you can change it if the proposal is wrong/doesn't suit.
 
If you want to dual boot, when you install Lububtu, pick custom partitioning. leave the windows partition (40GB) delete 8GB recovery partition (After making recovery DVD/CD set) and use the remaining space (233 GB (225 + D's 8GB)) as follows. root (/) 50GB, swap 2x installed memory, and the remainder for /home (where your files 0 documents, music etc. goes). NOTE root(/) and /home should be ext3 or ext4. Ubuntu will correctly find windows and add it to the boot menu.

If your Lubuntu disk is over a year old, download the latest .iso and burn it to disk so you're starting with the current version. PM me for help/advice on partitioning
 
The most important thing is to install Windows FIRST, then install Linux after it. Windows is kind of dumb and likes to hog the first part of the hard disk (MBR I think) for itself...so Linux always has to be installed afterward so that it can put LILO or GRUB or whatever there so that you can choose which OS to boot. I know Ubuntu and Fedora setup walks you through this (hell I think Slackware even does). Dual booting with linux and windows is an ancient problem. A lot of people have done it.
 
As most people have said, if you have a spare partition, D, then linux should install itself there. It will create a boot menu so you can choose on boot which OS you want to use.


jefboyardee said:
One other thing... I just defragged the C drive and, although there’s obviously not much in there, what little there is strewn all over the drive and remained that way after the defrag. Will that interfere with resizing (expanding) the D drive?
Click to expand...

Yes, this is going to cause you problems. You will not be able to resize the partition smaller than the furthest unmovable file. It is probably unmovable system files like pagefile.sys and hiberfil.sys that cannot be defragged because they are in use. I had a similar problem, but there is a solution. You need to temporarily disable use of these system files, defrag, and then resize your partitions. Then turn them back on.

This explains the process: LyraTechnicalSystems.com*-*Technology exploration and annotation

It isn't exactly the process I used because I have windows 7, not XP, but it looks about right. :)
 
Did that and it moved a lot this time, but there’s still crap from one end ‘tuther. Wondering if I should do those tricks again, then a safe boot, make sure nothing is running before I defrag.
 
then a safe boot, make sure nothing is running before I defrag.
Click to expand...

That didn’t do it either. Still stuff like this show as un-defraggable:

LibreOffice
Microsoft.NET
Java
ie8updates
Kodak EasyShare
VideoLAN
Apple... WebKit.dll
Google Desktop

...to name a few. Question: are hidden files unmovable?
 
jefboyardee said:
That didn’t do it either. Still stuff like this show as un-defraggable:

LibreOffice
Microsoft.NET
Java
ie8updates
Kodak EasyShare
VideoLAN
Apple... WebKit.dll
Google Desktop

...to name a few. Question: are hidden files unmovable?
Click to expand...

Maybe just uninstall them. Defrag. Resize. Re-install.

PITA but would be worth it if you could reclaim all that unused space.

EDIT: Actually, what software are you using to defrag with? The default Microsoft Defrag? If so, that does tend to leave stuff lying around with spaces in between them, I've found. Try using a third party defrag software if you haven't already. They do a much better job - they can optimize your system drive, placing the most frequently used files at the beginning of the drive for faster access. It takes longer than the Microsoft Defrag but you aren't left with gaps of wasted space.

This is the one I use: http://www.mydefrag.com/
 
Thanks, gonna try that link. Meanwhile, I discovered PageDefrag, which is from a stepchild of Microsoft. It’s schtick is to run at boot, before anything else gets started. It does that but still didn’t solve my problem, so I’m about to try yours...
 
Okay, I did the whole nine yards:

Disable swapfile and hibernation
CCClean, reboot w/ chkkdsk/f
Safe boot, then Mydefrag.

That sucker went wild. It spent almost two hours, moving almost every file to one end. But then, after I loaded everything back up and ran the stock XP defrag, it showed just about everything at one end but said I still needed to defrag. So, like an defrag addict, I said okay... and it too is taking forever.
 
And now, the impossible has happened. After I bought a new PC, installed it, hated it, returned it, reinstalled my XP, reconfigured it, zipped the D drive recovery files to the C drive to make room for the dial-boot experiment... I lost my Lubuntu disk!

So I need someone to either tell where I put it or, since I’m gonna hafta buy a new one, tell me which flavor of Ubuntu is better.
 
And now, the impossible has happened. After I bought a new PC, installed it, hated it, returned it, reinstalled my XP, reconfigured it, zipped the D drive recovery files to the C drive to make room for the dual-boot experiment... I lost my Lubuntu disk!

So I need someone to either tell where I put it or, since I’m gonna hafta buy a new one, tell me which flavor of Ubuntu is better.

(edit) I found it... right where it belonged, but upside-down, impersonating a blank disk.
 
How easy would it be for you to back up your files and start fresh? It seems like defragging is being difficult so what about a clean install, installing Windows first then Lubuntu?
 
The only backup route I have is to XP Service Pack Zero, just the D drive stuff that has God-knows-what. That and an HP recovery disk with presumably the same sort of thing. I suppose I could get a real XP disk pretty cheap these days, but that would feel like throwing good money after bad. And of course, I should just get Win7 to start afresh...
 
I'm guessing that now you've done that optimized defrag you should be able to shrink your C partition to make space for linux?

EDIT: I wouldn't bother defragging just because default XP Defrag tells you to. mydefrag is much better, and the default utility doesn't seem to do that much except take up precious time.
 
Mydefragged. Copied the D recovery files to a C zip. Erased all of D.
Reboot and stick the Lubuntu 12.10 disk in.
Pops right up and asks me if I speak English, etc.
From the subsequent choices, I click Install... blank screen.
Reboot and try Launch OS from CD w/o install... blank screen.
Reboot and run its Check Disk... one error, doesn’t say what.
Reboot and try Install again, blank screen.
Kill an hour to make sure I’m not impatient, come back... still a blank screen.

Visit the site where I got the disk, current version is 13.04, no surpise.
No support page, another no surprise.

Made my XP run better than ever for nuthin... no surpise.
 
now you've done that optimized defrag you should be able to shrink your C partition to make space for linux?
Click to expand...

Decided that 8GB should be enough just get things going, so postponed re-partitioning. And given my above whining, it
 
You could try downloading another linux distro, burn it onto disk, and see if it works. I downloaded Mint and it worked. It's based on Ubuntu and is very popular.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top Bottom