Editing Windows 7 Bootloader to Share with Linux
 

"Life has been made easier with all Microsoft systems, all versions of Dos and Windows, because each of them has to be installed in an active primary partition and so hence will always has a boot loader in the root partition."

So if I already have Windows 7 installed (in a 100gig partition of a 1t hdd) how do I modify the windows booting process so that I can go on to create many additional partitions that will be used for linux distros?
Thanks

Ok so you have a 1tb hard drive and the only system you have on it now is windows 7 but you want to add several linux systems as well correct?

As long as you have windows installed first don't bother trying to play with its bootloader just go ahead and install a linux system (most will allow dual booting) and recognise that windows is there. Then you can boot windows and linux with linux's Grub bootloader and edit it for each new linux you install.

I would however first recommend a few other options before installing.
1) download virtualbox and the linux iso's you want to install and try them before you install them.
2) get unetbootin (works in windows) and create a live usb version of the linux you want to install and reboot from usb and run a live system.
3) look into linux further as there are some like Puppy linux that can co-exist with windows on the same drive as a file only.
4) make sure you back up any important info or use ghost or similar to restore in case anything wrong happens.
5) when you have tried the above and are ready to install use a live system such as Puppy to partition your drive in advance (makes installing easier and simpler)

That's it but once you get the hang of linux you'll ditch windows like used toilet paper.....some distros to look at for newbies.....

Linux Mint
Pclinuxos
Sabayon
Puppy
Mandriva
Mepis
Opensuse
the buntus

Good luck and welcome to linux.

The Windows boot manager can't boot Linux, but it can chainload another boot loader such as Grub4dos, which can.

http://diddy.boot-land.net/grub4dos/...ll_windows.htm

OR
keep the Windows 7 bootloader on the MBR .
Then install the first linxs OS with it's /boot partition on the SAME disk ( sda) but in the first LINUX partition
sda2 ????
use gparted to make the windows7 bootloader NON BOOTABLE and make the LINUX /boot partition BOOTABLE

Edit Grub to chainload windows 7 ... and off you go .A working dual boot that will allow Microsoft to secretly put files on the extra space at the end of IT'S bootloader and NOT HAVE IT FUBAR grub .
the MS OS can and will do that and so will some third party MS programs .

You can use the Windows 7 boot manager if you get the EasyBCD tool which will allow multi-booting with other windows or Linux, and it is free, and is found here; http://neosmart.net/dl.php?id=1

You may want to view partitioning and booting separately.

You can have a max of three primary partitions plus one extended partition, with many logical partitions inside the extended partition.

Linux doesn't care whether its partitions are primary or logical.

There are many different ways to set up multi-boot:

The older DOS/Windows MBR code (and I think the new as well, but I'm not sure) is a simple routine that chain loads the boot code from the boot sector of the active primary partition. If you keep that MBR code (which is not the common choice) then your boot up sequence must always go through the boot sector of the active primary partition. That could be the Windows partition or (very unusual but possible setup) it could be a reason to make a Linux partition active-primary.

If the Windows loader is loaded from the active primary partition, I think it has an option to chain load to a boot sector copy in a file. I've seen that documented many places for XP. I'm not sure of details for 7. You install the first sector of GRUB or GRUB2 in the partition boot sector instead of in the MBR. You use DD in Linux (maybe in a liveCD) to copy that boot sector to a file in the Windows partition. You edit the Windows loader menu to offer a choice to chain load using that file.

The more common approach is to install Linux after installing Windows. Put Linux in either a primary or logical partition (it doesn't matter). Install Grub or Grub2 with its first sector in the MBR, overwriting the code that chain loads the active primary partition with code that loads the rest of Grub from the specified partition (that does not need to be primary). Then in the Grub menu, you put a choice for Windows that chain loads the active primary partition (or chain loads any specified primary partition and makes it temporarily active).

One copy of Grub or Grub2 can directly load many different installs of Linux, but sometimes you may need or prefer to have a menu choice to chain load to a partition boot sector (does not need to be primary) to load a different version of Grub or Grub2 (or other boot manager) to load other distributions.

sorry for the delay in replying
I was away.
Many thanks to all
expat:
hopefully a dual boot install will work ootb. Although there are still a few posts on various forums that have problems.
Given that it works is there a site that gives details about adding additional linux distros?

james2b:
EasyBCD begins by saying that it works with W7 but the documentation does not refer to W7.

piratesmack:
Thanks but
the process seems rather complex

(ran out of space)
johnW:
Thanks
I will try to follow your instructions
Thank you all for your advice