Hello!
Let me tell you my situation:

Right now I have WinXP and Ubuntu 6.10 installed with a grub dual boot. Both residing on the same hard disk.

I am planning to install vista home or home premium replacing XP but keeping my ubuntu.

The problem is: How do I keep my dual boot working (vista and ubuntu) without the need to reinstall ubuntu and being able to access both OS.

If possible, I will really appreciate if you can mention the needed steps to acomplish my goal.

Thanks in advance,
G. Lorenzo.-

You will not need to reinstall ubuntu in any case!!!

option one:

use the windows bootloader ....

use dd to copy the bootsector of your linux sytem partion and pîpe it into a file:

1 dd if=/dev/hda2 of=/some/path/uboot.sec -bs 512
2 copy the /some/path/uboot.sec file to windows.
3 create entry in c:\boot.ini to poit to that file ;;;
ex ubuntu=c:\uboot.sec

Option two

repair grub/lilo or whatever ....

1 boot from a livecd and run grub/lilo ... grub.conf / lilo.conf still contain valid info ... as the partitions have not been changed ... only the contents of the evil windoesNothing partition has changed ...


btw, who wants vista when you have ubuntu and beryl ????

Hello!
Last week I had Win XP and Ubuntu installed on the same hard disk and working OK. This week I installed Win Vista Home Premium instead of XP. After that, I boot with Ubuntu Live CD and ran Grub to restore my dual boot. After that, my nightmare began!

When starting the computer, Grub showed up the options but when choosing Vista, black screen and nothing happened. So, reinstalling Grub doesn't work with Win Vista.

Then, I re-installed Vista. Now, my computer starts with Win Vista but I can't get into Ubuntu. Is there a working way to be able to choose between Vista and Ubuntu when starting my computer without having to reinstall both OS?

There are many posts about things related to this subject but they are very confusing (at least for me) and by following one of them is how I lost the possibility to dual boot again.

So, in conclusion, I have Vista and Ubuntu already installed on my HD. Now, I can only start Vista and want to be able to start any of them.

Thanks in advance for your help,
G. Lorenzo.-

I am neither user of Vista nor expert of linux, but considering your latest situation having Vista installed later than Ubuntu, it seems that you have to reinstall Ubuntu. That is expected to auto-detect Vista too. I don't know any better option than that.

The problem, as far as I know, is not the installing order but Vista uses a different way to start up using MBR. Very confusing but there has to be a solution (or not?:-)

Sorry I can't really help you with your issue but your assumption that it's probably the way Vista does things would be what I'd figure. Last I heard Vista doesn't even include the boot.ini file anymore. Normally I'd preach to let the Windows bootloader take over versus using Grub/Lilo but without the boot.ini file I am not sure how one could do that anyways. The only thing I can recommend is do some searching around to see if you can find anything. Ubuntu forums would be a good start.

Try this. Probably will find good informations.

Road_map
You must have found that link in one of my posts, or you found it the same way I did "google". It usually shuts people up.
One thing I've noticed after a few of these multi-boot with vista cases, especially those with more than one drive, is that the person is afraid to over write Vista's MBR entries and tries to use grub without installing directly to the MBR, or tries installing grub in the MBR of another disc. It appears that when Vista sees there were changes made to the system, it goes back to it's boot loader to see if the changes were taken into account, if there is nothing suggesting it has, Vista refuses to boot in an effort to force you to put the install disc in and correct things. But if Vista's boot loader is nowhere in the picture, Vista boots. The site Road map posted a link too also shows how to re-install Vista's boot loader in the Dual boot XP and Vista tutorial. On the page posted in this thread the individual shows you how to add Linux to Vista's boot loader if you don't want to part with it. But from what I've noticed in other cases, you can't have both.
This is just speculation.

one thing is for sure - your ubuntu install can be salvaged.
you need a bootloader on some other device though.
i would assume vista wont brag about an MBR existing on another drive... so if you have a bios boot selection menu (like i have one) then im pretty sure they can coexist.
...
just a curiosity question... whats the use for vista anyway?

If your on-line gaming buddies play Windows ported games, what choice do you have?
And as for the other part. In traditional Windows fashion, Vista sees all, and knows all that is connected to the system. Unless you specify in the boot loader to hide things from Vista, but it has to be the same boot loader used by all, as I stated before, if Vista's boot loader is in the picture and the changes were not entered, Vista won't boot.

that wasnt the question... isn't XP better anyway? why have Vista?

I just want to help. If here, on LQ there is "my link" or "my find", ok, no problem, from now i'll don't tell anything. I lost my time.

That was not meant to be taken in an offensive way, it was just a way of saying you beat me to it.

I've merged two similar threads.