Dual Install Windows 7 after Linux Mint. Bootable USB problems or GPT/MBR problem
 

I apologise if this is not the best place for my question but I couldn't see a dual install category and wasn't sure where to post.

I have Linux Mint 17.3 Rosa installed on my Acer Aspire E1-572G I have been trying to dual install Windows 7 onto my hard drive and have been banging my head of the keyboard for the last couple of days. I have been following a tutorial and have gotten stuck. I'll explain my problem as best I can:

I have backed up my drive using Clonezilla to take an image backup. Then I repartitioned my hard drive with Gparted. I used tuxboot to make the USBs to boot to Gparted and Clonezilla. Each time my USB was formatted to FAT32 and I was able to see my USB and boot from it in the boot menu (F12) when booting in UEFI mode.

When I use tuxboot to make a Windows 7 bootable USB I run into problems. If the USB is formatted as FAT32, when I boot in UEFI, the USB is not visible in the F12 boot menu. If I boot in Legacy mode, this same USB is visible in F12 menu, but if selected it tells me the USB is not bootable.

I tried formatting a USB as NTFS and using tuxboot to make a bootable Windows 7 USB. Again in UEFI mode, the USB is not visible. However, in Legacy mode it is visible and will boot from F12. The windows set up seems to run normally until I select the partition to install windows. It tells me 'Windows cannot be installed to this disk. The selected disk is of the GPT partition style'.

My first thought was that I need to convert my disk to MBR type, but in reading more about it I'm not sure this is my only/best option. I understand GPT is better than MBR and I don't want to loose my Linux mint data. I also can't figure out why I can't see my USBs in UEFI mode and wether this is a better route to fixing the problem.

Some posts I read advise turning on UEFI and Legacy support but My Bios doesn't have an option for both. Only UEFI or Legacy- no other options.My Bios screen is Insyde H2O Setup Utility Rev.3.7

I really am stuck on this one so any help, comments or advice is greatly appreciated.

My recommendation is that you scrap the dual boot entirely and not try to dual boot at all. Instead, I recommend that you again make your Linux Mint 17.3 on your laptop sound (restore your disk partitions to the way they were). Then, get VMWare Workstation Player 12.5 for Linux (it's a shell script install file and is free for non commercial use) and install that under your Linux Mint 17.3. Then, install your Windows 7 under VMWare Workstation Player. Then, you can have both Linux Mint 17.3 and Windows 7 running at the same time, with Linux Mint 17.3 in control, and freely exchange data between them at will, which is all but impossible with dual boot. I personally have put Windows in a virtual machine under Linux for over 10 years and it works great.

Oracle Virtualbox is also quite good for making an running VMs.

I don't know tuxboot, but sounds like it doesn't know about formatting the USB for UEFI.

I always dual-boot, but in this case you may have to listen to xode. Mint will insist on gpt when it discovers UEFI, and as you found, Win7 will reject it as an install target. "legacy" mode is still running EFI firmware, just emulating the old BIOS setup.

Thanks for the advice so far.

I tried using virtualbox to install windows and run within Mint but I wasn't able to configure the file sharing and it made both operating systems run slowly. I thought by dual installing I could boot into one operating system and devote all my computer's resources into it for the session.

Is it a bad idea to change the disk to MBR? Will that even fix my problem. I know its possible to install linux on a partition after windows 7. Will that still run into the difficulty of GPT or MBR? If windows is put on first will it make the disc MBR- linux is then I assume happy to install onto an MBR disk.

Is the link below the 'tuxboot' you are referring to? I don't see anything on that page telling you it will create a bootable windows of any release. It looks like a modification of unetbootin for a few simple things like clonezilla.

http://tuxboot.org/about/

You need to first determine whether your Mint install is UEFI or not. If it is, you need to install windows 7 UEFI because mixing an MBR install with an EFI is going to lead to problems. The info below applies to Mint although it is an Ubuntu documentation site since Mint is based on Ubuntu.

https://help.ubuntu.com/community/UEFI

My understanding is that with windows and a GPT partitioned drive, you need UEFI. The first thing you need to resolve is whether Mint is installed EFI or MBR. The second is to find software to create a bootable windows as tuxboot won't do it. Their page says it is a modification of unetbootin which doesn't create a bootable windows usb and was never meant to.

Do you have another computer you can use to try booting the windows usb? If you have a computer with windows on it, you might try the software at the link below to create a windows bootable usb. Never used it myself so I don't know how well it works.

http://www.isotousb.com/

You could very well have better results with VMWare Workstation Player. I have no problem even playing video DVDs in my windows virtual machine.

If you have access to a windows computer try rufus to create a bootable windows usb.

Thanks for all your suggestions. I gave VMWare Workstation Player, as Xode suggested and it is a lot better than Virtualbox. I used windows 7 on Virtual machine to give Rufus a shot but it still won't boot in UEFI. For now though I think I'll stick with VMWare.

Xode, you said you play DVDs through this. My virtual Machine with Windows 7 has really crackly sound. Did you have this problem?

Not at all. I am using the vlc player in windows.

Actually, I just powered it on and ran skype. The sound is spot on now for some reason. Let's hope it stays that way!!! Thanks again for you help xode!

steveadoo,

The usual procedure with a Windows/Linux dual-boot is to have Windows installed first, not second.

I recollect that when I last installed W7 64 bit, I formatted the drive as NTFS and partitioned it as GPT.

These two guides may help you:

http://www.dedoimedo.com/computers/d...7-xubuntu.html

http://www.dedoimedo.com/computers/d...-8-ubuntu.html

This third link refers to UEFI, GPT etc:
http://superuser.com/questions/67624...-gpt-partition

In that case you need to use UEFI.

On many Acer laptops/notebooks you need to set a temporary Supervisor password in order to disable Secure Boot. Remove it after use.

Click on Notebooks here:
http://acer--uk.custhelp.com/app/ans...le-secure-boot

Yes, that is the only way dual booting ms-windows has ever worked for me.

This would be another reason why steveadoo wouldn't want to dual boot, since it would mean that he would have to wipe his Linux Mint 17.3 from his computer. It's good that he got his Windows 7 working with VMWare Workstation Player. Now, my recommendation to him is, once he gets his Windows 7 VM setup to exactly where he wants it, that he makes a backup of that VM, which is just a set of files, from within his Lint Mint 17.3. Then, if anything goes wrong with the Windows 7 VM, he can just wipe it out, copy from saved backup and the problem is gone.

I read a few posts that said it was a lot easier to dual install that way around, but as Xode rightly points out then I'd lose all my Linux settings that took me some time to get right haha!

Unless it's possible to back up and restore linux settings to a fresh install then it will probably be some time before I do that.

I'll get onto backing up the VM ware machine as it seems to be working pretty well so far for what I want it for.