I am going to install Ubuntu 9.04. I still have Vista on my HP Compaq 6735s laptop which did not come with recovery DVD's but is stored on the HDD.

There is uncertainty about this because I did it on my old laptop and completley messed up the recovery partition so I could not boot into factory settings.

Primarily I need to know where I have to install GRUB and how so I do not totally mess things up. I have no idea how to backup and restore the MBR either.

Thanks for reading.

I actually just did the same thing to my new Lenovo laptop. I copied the contents of the factory partition to my network drive so I can recreate them, or make a boot CD should I choose to in the future. I haven't actually done it, so I can't speak to the specifics of how that would work.

I'd like to know how you get on, because I have been racking my brains about it! Im very cautious when installing a Linux OS because of past experiences.

It would seem that the H-P would have a utility to create Recovery/Restore and Application/Driver discs. Check on your computer for it or get in touch with H-P support and have them send you the discs.


EDIT: even my Acer Aspire One that doesn't even have a cd/dvd drive has the ability to create the restore discs,I use my Sony external cd/dvd writer to create them.

I don't have the application on my laptop to burn restore discs, I was surprised because as you mentioned my old Acer laptop also had a feature to burn the restore disc and you did not need the recovery partition to use it.

I will contact HP support by telephone because they did not answer my numerous e-mails I sent. I will keep you updated.

This problem can be easily avoided if you know in advance which partitions you have on your computer and what they are. In Linux you can find this out by running the 'fdisk l' command giving you partition information. The Recovery partitions are often FAT partition while the vista will be ntfs.

Grub bootloader has a number of files, one goes in the master boot record and the rest go in the root partition of your Linux system. If you don't want to install Grub on the mbr you will need an entry in the vista bootloader files pointing to the Linux partition. I've never used vista so I'm not familiar with it. There is a free download of a program called "EasyBCD" which you can find by googling which should do the job for you since you appear to be much more familiar with windows than Linux.

My HP computers had a program to create two recovery DVDs from the recovery partition.

I would recommend running Vista's defrag program on the NTFS partition. Then resize the Vista partition using Vista's partitioning tool. On my Hitachi laptop, after using gparted to resize my Vista partition, I had to repair the Vista partition. Running the defrag tool will move files near the end of the partition towards the middle. This may allow Vista to reduce the size of the partition even more.

When installing Ubuntu, configure the partitions manually. Usually when someone deletes a Windows partition by mistake, it is after choosing one of the automatic options (from reading past messages from Ubuntu users).

Carpenters have an axiom: Measure Twice, Cut Once. Remember that when running the partitioning phase of the installation. Double check before formatting.

Okay I will take all your advice on board. Thank you.

One problem. I managed to install Fedora 11 without any problem, I rebooted it after the installation, and it came up with something on the lines of, "Insert system disk then press enter". I did this but to no prosper, any Ideas?

I have learnt that HP laptops are linked to the recovery partition via the bios.

I will spread the thanks as well.

Could you use your installation CD and get to a terminal, as root run the fdisk -l command and post the output so we can see your partition structure. What happened to Ubuntu? Do you now have Fedora and vista? Did you install Grub bootloader to the mbr? What is the boot priority in the BIOS?

I concur with yancek. Not enough information is given. I suspect you may have moved the Windows Vista partition instead of resizing it. If you use the live cd of Ubuntu, the partition manager is graphical. You can create free space by dragging the right edge of the selected partition, but don't touch the left. The Windows boot loader needs to know where the first block of the partition is. If you moved the left side at all (the start point), you will never get it back to the exact same location. You need to abort the operation and start the partition manager again before commiting the changes. Good luck with Vista muhahahahaha (my evil laugh.) Just kidding! I ran dual boot with Vista for a while. Just take the plunge. Get out of the comfort zone and go completely *nix.

I had to recover the HDD as I could not boot into either of the OS's I will try Ubuntu as the easy. I installed Fedora but it would not boot and it was in the mbr with GRUB. I am going to use Ubuntu however because I have heard I will be out of my depth with any other.

I have not tried to reinstall anyhting. I am quite familiar with a partition manager that does things automatically for me so I do not have to think technical.

I hope to dive more into bash and start really getting the hang of Linux based software, so please excuse my noobness. I will install Ubuntu again and I will come back with an update.


Sorry for keeping you in the dark.

EDIT:

Okay so basically I forgot to do the fdisk -l command in while using live and installed it into the free space I made with Vista. My luck was obviously on my side because I could boot into the recovery partition as well as the Ubuntu and Vista. Here is the partition information:

It seems I made a fuss about nothing. I do make myself feel stupid sometimes. Once again thank you for your time.