For dual booting Ubuntu 10.04 with Windows 7, which partition process to use?
 

I am wondering is it safer to resize the partitions using the windows 7 device manager or use the Ubuntu GPart program to do it?

The easiest and safest way to partition your disk is GParted program from Ubuntu. You don't have to wonder about your files. But i prefer to take backup when i have to do such jobs!!

Well, I have read a lot of conflicting views debating which is better as some say windows device manager is safer but takes longer and that the GParted program may corrupt the windows 7 partitioning due to the immovable parts on the disk.

So what have people used to install Ubuntu with Windows 7 and what has been their experience from it?

Any option is likely to work well. I've resized windows partitions with both gparted and distro installation setup programs, and never had any problems.
(BTW: Not sure what you mean by 'immovable parts on the disk'. Everything is movable if the partition isn't in use)

Always make sure the partition is unmounted when you resize it, and you should be fine. But creating a backup is still a good idea.

As it is a new laptop, there are no important files to backup so hopefully will be a clean install.

I am just wondering did anyone have any issues during the install of Ubuntu with Windows 7 for future reference?

I have not used Windows 7 myself. However, Windows-Ubuntu dual boot guru Herman has some excellent tutorials on this. Check out his site:
http://members.iinet.net/~herman546/index.html
The specific tutorial on resizing partitions with Windows 7 is covered here:
http://members.iinet.net.au/~herman546/p23.html
I personally like using the Parted Magic live CD for partitioning and for resizing existing partitions:
http://partedmagic.com/
With Parted Magic you can even browse the web with Firefox and listen to your favorite music CDs while you are waiting for the partitioning tasks to finish!

Well used the disk manager on windows to partition the hard drive with success however I ran into the dreaded 'Errno 5 Input/Output' halfway during installation.

Seems many other people had the same issue and state that it is either an issue in the code contained within the live cd.

They suggest either use the alternate cd (not sure what this is), burn the ISO image at a slow speed on a Verbatim brand CD-R.

So which of these is the better solution or are there more?

Use a better distro - for your reference, anything is better than Ubuntu :p ( just kidding )

Ubuntu offers two installation CDs: the 'normal' one, which is usable by anyone who can use a mouse and knows what a button is, and the 'alternate' one, which is for advanced users and offers a lot more options, but is a little more tricky to use for novices.

You can get that here.

Alternatively, try another distro, such as Linux Mint, which is based on Ubuntu and will give you all the advantages (and some of the disadvantages) of the real thing :)

Was that the whole error? According to this thread:
http://www.linuxquestions.org/questi...-error-639355/
and this:
https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+bug/245794
the whole error message is:
etc.

(NOTE: The person on that Launchpad page traced his problem to a faulty cdrom drive. Someone else on that page traced the problem to faulty RAM modules.)

When you boot the Ubuntu live CD first choose the option "Check Disc for Defects" and let that run. If it reports any errors, then the CD is bad and you need to burn a new one.
IF you are burning the CD from Windows, use Iso Recorder or Infra Recorder, and be sure to burn the CD at the slowest possible speed:
https://help.ubuntu.com/community/BurningIsoHowto
It is also good to check the md5sum of the iso image you downloaded:
https://help.ubuntu.com/community/HowToMD5SUM
If the live CD passes the disc check and is good, then use GParted from the live CD to format the space you allocated with Windows disk manager to ext3 or ext4 file system. Then try to install Ubuntu to that space.

I doubt it is due to a faulty CD-ROM drive as it is a brand new laptop but will not rule it out if all else fails.

Well use ISO recorder to burn the image again at a lower speed and then use an external CD-ROM drive to install the image.

I will post my attempt soon to update you on the situation.

Also is it worth installing other distros of Linux instead of Ubuntu such as Mint?

If you do nothing else, after you burn the CD and boot it up, please run the option:
"Check CD for Defects". If this reports errors then the CD is bad and should not be used to install Ubuntu. This holds true for any linux distro burned to a CD.
You may also try downloading Ubuntu from another mirror just to rule out a bad iso image as the source of the problem. Or check the md5sum of the iso you downloaded as per the link I provided in my last post.
I don't see how using a different distro will help you partition your hard drive any better than the GParted that comes with Ubuntu, or the Parted Magic live CD.
Also, you would still need to check the Mint CD for defects before installing Mint with the CD you burned.

Mint distro has a lot of codecs to unlock mp3 and dvd. This is the only basically difference because it has others like menus and graphics

Ok, I have successfully installed Ubuntu 10.04 with Windows 7.

Make sure you back up your important files and have the recovery discs or Windows 7 cd ready!

Step 9
Hint download startupmanager to handle the /boot/grub/grub.cfg and /etc/default/grub settings as once you update Ubuntu this will make it easier to make changes to those sensitive files.

~$ sudo apt-get install startupmanager

http://www.ubuntugeek.com/startup-ma...d-usplash.html

Step 1
I defragmented the Windows 7 hard disk and then partitioned it with the Windows disk manager by shrinking the main NTFS volume.
Guide at this link https://help.ubuntu.com/community/Ho...dowsPartitions

Step 2
Downloaded Ubuntu 10.04 from http://www.ubuntu.com/desktop/get-ubuntu/download
the x86 version or 32bit

Step 3
Downloaded Infrarecorder at http://infrarecorder.org/?page_id=5
Burn the ISO image at the lowest speed of 4x and used a Memorex 700MB CD-R on an external CD-ROM Drive

Step 4
Checked the MD5Sum by downloading http://www.nullriver.com/products/winmd5sum to check the ubuntu hash matches the mirror version.
The guide for windows is here https://help.ubuntu.com/community/HowToMD5SUM

Step 5
Once verified installation begins by placing the burnt ISO CD image into the external CD-ROM drive and booted into it using F9 key
Follow the on screen instructions once the Live CD boots up, make sure to select the largest continuous space for the Ubuntu partition
this guide gives more detail http://members.iinet.net.au/~herman546/p23.html

Step 6
Following the install you may get an I/O error as the external device has ejected the Live CD following the reboot, so just type 'shutdown -r now' which restarts the bootloader

Step 7
Boot into Windows 7 and download EasyBCD to configure the bootloaders for Windows and Ubuntu at http://neosmart.net/dl.php?id=1
This guide shows how to configure it http://neosmart.net/wiki/display/EBCD/Ubuntu

Step 8
Once the bootloader has been set up, if you log into Windows 7 and all your desktops icons are missing, infrarecorder has somehow removed them but the can be restored by right clicking the desktop and select show desktop icons.

Step 9
Hint download startupmanager to handle the /boot/grub/grub.cfg and /etc/default/grub settings as once you update Ubuntu this will make it easier to make changes to those sensitive files.

~$ sudo apt-get install startupmanager

http://www.ubuntugeek.com/startup-ma...d-usplash.html

Dual boot complete!!

Glad you got everything up and running ok!
You could have just used grub2 to manage the MBR and dual boot Windows and Ubuntu.
Just out of curiosity, did you install grub2 at all? Did you install it to the Ubuntu partition? Or did you just skip installing grub2?

I have both Grub 2 and Windows MBR, on the NTFS volume. I used Easy BCD to configure both installers at startup instead of just using Grub 2. The boot loader looks much tidier.

I have Windows 7 and Ubuntu 10.04 as my dual boot options. The last guide in Step 7 in the first image shows the clean bootloading options, Grub 2 and MBR beside each other.