Installing Linux on Laptop with Windows System Recovery Disks
 

Hi all,

I´ve recently bought a Toshiba L750 and it has not come with windows installation disks. Before I use the installation USB with Ubuntu I have burnt 3 system recovery DVDs to install Windows in an assigned partition after installing Ubuntu, i.e. the standard way it´s always been done.

My concern is that the windows reovery disks will not let me choose partitions so it will wipe out Linux from the system once I try to reinstall it.

Any suggestions, please?

K

install windows, then partition and install Linux

Thank you Cutlist,

Do you mean that while installing Windows with the recovery disks i will be given the option to partition my hard disk? or, will i have to partition from windows once it is installed?

cheers!

K

You want to install Windows first because the Windows boot loader forcefully takes over the Master Boot Loader without asking and therefore will replace GRUB or LILO (both of which kindly ask if you'd like either one to be in the MBR).

After you get Windows up and running (or if you already do I guess), go to Start, and then Right Click "Computer." There will be a "Manage" option that requires administrator privileges.

On the left-hand side you should see a bunch of collapsible options, and one of them is titled "Disk Management." If you don't see it, it's located under "Storage." Now you'll see 2 partitions, 1 is a 100 MB partition made by Windows for booting. The other is the rest of Windows.

Right click the huge part and click "Shrink Volume." Shrink a portion enough to install your distro on and then install your new Linux distro and you're set to go.

Be aware that you may be correct that the Windows recovery may well delete the entire disk. I had this happen with a Toshi laptop some years back - destroyed 3 Linux installs I also had on the machine.
Live and learn.
Came with a bunch of Toshiba specific utilities you had to use - ugh. Was the last Toshi I ever bought ...

A very safe way may be to run a virtual machine instead. A newish system will run both OS's at the same time quite well.

As stated typically recovery disks or partitions will put the computer back to its "out of the box" original configuration. No questions asked... So to answer your original question AFAIK there is nothing you can do to prevent your Ubuntu installation from being erased.

You can run linux as a dual boot or VM but if you want to restore windows again for any reason be sure to create a backup so you do not have to start from scratch.

Thank you everyone for your answers and suggestions,

Specially to Konphine and Michaelk. The "Shrink Volume" worked smoothly and I was using Linux in less than 90 minutes.

Michaelk, I will make sure I make a backup in that case.

cheers!