Problems dual booting Windows 7 + Zorin
 

Hello Folks,

Another newbie here. Please be kind!

After all this nasty M$ rubbish with preventing future updates and cpu blocking I decided I would like to finally dual boot. I don't want to fully drop Windows 7 (64bit) because there are some games I don't want to lose and linux isnt that gamer friendly even after all these years of development. I'm just not a typing/terminal type of person.

Anyway, I have 3 drives, an SSD, and two other 1tb drives. My motherboard (Asus Z170 Pro Gaming) is Uefi/Secure boot and Windows 7 totally refuses to boot if I enable it. I get that usual red box and warning if I do.

I have tried to make room (with W7) on my SSD drive and install Zorin after installing a windows backup. This doesnt show any boot menu, just goes straight into Windows 7. I have also tried to install Zorin onto one of my 1tb drives because users have said it's best to give linux a separate drive. Something I didn't really want to do because 1tb is too overkill for it. I only want to use linux for browsing and email and other types of similar uses. I just want Windows 7 for gaming occasionally (and to use my Vive).

Both times I have tried to install Zorin with the burned ISO disc gives me no boot menu. From what I now understand you cannot dual boot windows 7 and linux on a Uefi mobo. Am I right in saying Windows 8/8.1 and Windows 10 doesn't give these issues? I am sure I tried to install another version of Linux last year with a trial of windows 10 and it did worked fine.

I get so confused with the linux installer when it comes to drive names. I am used to looking for normal drive names we give them in Windows but these names are too complex for me. They all look the same and no real indicator of what drives they represent. If it wasnt for the drive sizes shown, I wouldnt know which drive I am installing on. Drives me a little crazy.

Sorry to drone on but is this the reason why I can't get windows7 and Zoron to work together/show a boot menu because of the bios/uefi I have? I have been putting off going to linux for ages (first looked into it with red hat in the late 90's) but now M$ with its creepy antics has now forced me, but now I can't even install the damn thing. Running the disc live is ok but too slow really. Would rather have a proper installation. I have a pendrive but it's too small.

Any help would be great. Thanks so much!

The fact that your hardware is capable of using UEFI obviously doesn't mean you must use UEFI so if your windows 7 won't work when you set it to UEFI, then any Linux you try to install should also be UEFI.

If you install Zorin on the 1TB drive, that doesn't mean you need to use the entire drive. Just create unallocated space of 20-25GB on that or any drive on which to install Zorin. Best to run your disk defragmenter from windows on the drive first then use the Disk Management tool on windows to shrink a partition to make room for Zorin. After doing that, best to run chkdsk from windows as you changed partitions.

Not corrrect, find another source of information. Windows 7 by default used MBR, windows 8 and 10 by default use UEFI. Most any current Linux will allow installing either method.

If you cannot boot the burned iso disk of Zorin there are several things you can check. Do an md5 checksum on the downloaded iso file to verify it's integrity before burning it to a DVD and possibly wasting a DVD. Use 'burning' software and select to burn as an 'image' rather than just copying it to the DVD. The latter method won't work. Set your BIOS to have the DVD drive as first boot priority.

People get confused by Linux naming conventions on Linux simply because they are used to the primitive windows method which is a carry over from the 1970's when floppy drives were used. Windows also mixes terminology sometimes referring to partitions as drives whereas in Linux the differentiation is made between drives (actual physical hard drives) and partitions which are parts of a hard drive.

So basically the first drive is sda, the second is sdb and so on. The numbers after these letter combinations refer to the partitions on that particular drive. You might try an online search for dual booting Zorin and windows 7 or you could take a look at the link below. It discusses dual booting windows and Ubuntu and Zorin is based on Ubuntu so the information should all be good. It also gives a lot of detailed information on Linux which could be useful.

http://www.dedoimedo.com/computers/u...all-guide.html

Thanks for your reply. I know the info I have read is wrong, but I didnt know that. I am a noob after all. Why would the grub not install ok if using the automated option? I only ever tried linux with windows 10 once and the menu DID appear. So I assume this might be to do with the Uefi. That's seems to be the only thing different to what I have tried. Yes, the ISO was fine and checksum was ok. Burned ok on disk. Tried the live version and tried to install. No errors at all. I think it even said afterwards that it completed correctly. So puzzled why it would say that if the grub didnt get installed ok. I tried a boot-fix disc and it didnt work. Would using another flavour of linux be different or would it make no difference? The install procedure looks the same from what I have seen online. Btw, I have tried googling issues with 'no menu' with windows and linux but most seems to be linux and windows 10.


Thanks,

If your Windows 7 partition and data are important to you, I hope you have made Recovery DVD's (or USB) and backed up the things you can't stand to lose. You don't have to be a newbie to turn a booting computer into a non-booting one. Dual booting is not as straightforward and easy as it used to be, thanks to UEFI, Secure Boot, Fast Boot, Hybrid Boot, et al.

On boot up, you might hit the appropriate key to get your BIOS/UEFI boot menu before Windows starts. Its possible you will find Zorin there.

Another option you might consider is to install VirtualBox in Windows and then install Linux as a virtual machine. It runs faster than on a DVD/USB and would be a good introduction for you to get familiar with Linux. You can even install many different distros to try out until you discover your favorite. Or you can turn it around and install Linux to bare metal, and then put Windows in a virtual machine for your occasional gaming.

Hi Stanvan,
Yeh I am clued up about backup. I used to use dvd's, but now I use an external 2TB drive, Separate internal drives ( D: and E: ) and use dropbox as well. Not sure what boot menu you mean. All I have known is F8 for selecting cd-rom drives etc and DEL for going into the BIOS. I shouldnt of thought you had to hit a key for a menu to show as many people wouldnt be looking for that. I would rather put Linux as a proper install than within windows. I only plan to use it for games. If it wasn't for the games themselves or the fact SteamOS is 'not quite there yet' is the reason I havent dropped it altogether.

If your windows 7 is using MBR rather than UEFI, then you would need to install the Grub boot code to the MBR and it should detect the windows and add it to the boot menu. If you created unallocated space on one of the drives, you should be able to install Zorin there. If you have three hard drives, you will need to use a manual install method, probably referred to as 'Something Else' in Zorin otherwise there is no way for the installer to know which drive you want it on. You might try booting the zorin install DVD and going to the site below and downloading the boot repair software and running it to provide some information so that someone can explain what to do. You could also download the iso on windows and burn it to a CD. Either way, when you run boot repair just select the option to Create BootInfo summary and post a link to the output you get when it finishes.

https://help.ubuntu.com/community/Boot-Repair

The F8 boot menu is from BIOS/UEFI, and it is looking for anything bootable. I have had to use that boot menu before to access a Linux install, but that isn't the way it should work, of course. My experience with this was a long while back, on a Windows 7 laptop that was "Windows 8 ready"... so it had an early version UEFI, and it might be a similar situation to what you have. But it was only a shot in the dark to suggest it to you as its no harm to try. Some folks have good luck with UEFI, but I'm not one of them.

Ive had a lot of frustration and anxiety over this now. I was following this guide (http://www.dedoimedo.com/computers/d...-7-ubuntu.html) and was going fairly well until after the partitions are made. When it got to the part where you are supposed to 'assign relevant mount points' I just lost it. It was quite descriptive until that point. After that, the person doing this guide got lazy and just put images there with no info about what mount points are and how to assign them. I am a beginner for gods sake, if you dont show me what something means and what to do then the guide isnt a guide anymore. I couldnt work out how to do it. Then I needed to come here and ask for help. I thought 'Ok, Ive made the partitions and windows is already installed so I will go into win7, ask for some help and then come back'. No way, after that the drive was non bootable. I had no idea what this partitioner had done. Have just spent the last few hours getting set up again. It had made partitions that were invisible to windows 7 and so I have had so much grief trying to reformat the drive, reclaim the space and start again.

Windows was telling me it couldn't use the SSD even after formatting. You could even see that there was space missing on the drive that was obviously taken up by linux partitions and no way to remove them and claim space back. I ended up having to use a Samsung utility to reset the drive back to factory state. I am on the verge of just ditching this now. One other issue I had I just forgot. When I first tried to setup linux I got the message about my motherboard supporting uefi and if I continue it could effect the other OS on the drive (win7) but the motherboard was set to 'another OS' so why was this program warning me this when it wasnt even in the uefi mode? I never had this message other times I tried to install it. Nothing had really changed at least motherboard settings wise. I have read a few times on the web about installing linux in legacy mode but never see that as an option. Clearly my mobo being in legacy mode should of put the program in that right mode yet I still got that warning. I just wish all this was more straight forward. Every time something goes wrong I have to spend ages getting back to have another go. I have more patience than I know what to do with.

Final question: is there a way to install linux onto a 32gb usb3 stick (which I have) and use that instead BUT still get the bootmenu to choose OS? I am not sure if you only get the boot-menu if you install it to the pc only. At least that way I am not messing with windows 7.

Many thanks for your everything and your patience with me...

I'm sorry to hear you've had such trouble! Unfortunately, these are the worst case scenarios that folks are always cautioned about, with the warning to make backups before making system changes affecting bootup. The link you followed is actually very thorough, but it is still easy for new Linux users to miss steps or not understand clearly (partly due to different terminology between Linux and Windows).

So, I guess the short answer for you now is... yes, you can put most versions of Linux on a USB stick and boot/run from that without installing to your hard drive. You still (usually) start with an .iso file but you need a special program to burn the .iso file to the USB. There are several free programs for Windows to burn the USB stick, such as Rufus, PenDriveLinux, and LinuxLive USB Creator. There are probably more.

Whichever you choose, again, read the instructions carefully. Since you have multiple hard drives, you don't want to confuse which drive letter is your USB and install Linux accidentally to a hard drive. Zorin, and other Debian/Ubuntu based distros, and maybe some others, allow something called persistence on your USB stick when you put Linux on it. Persistence will reserve space on the USB so that it will keep settings between boots... like your WiFi network login password. It will also let you install some apps, but the persistence space is limited to 4GB.

Anyway, Google is your friend and should guide you pretty easily to making the USB. If you want more info here, you might want to make a new thread.

Cheers!

A mount point is simply a directory (or in windows speak, a folder) and the standard point to create them in the /mnt directory:

Example: sudo mkdir /mnt/mypartition (name it whatever you want)

Then you mount it with the mount command. Example: sudo mount /dev/sda1 /mnt/mypartition. You would have to change the sda1 part as we have no idea what partition you are referring to since you haven't posted that information. Incidentally, if you google mount point or how to mount I am sure you will find thousands of sites explaining it, some more detailed than others.

A default windows system will not be able to read or write to any Linux filesystem That's a business decision made by microsoft. Not much anyone in Linux can do about it. You may be able to buy or download some third party software on windows which may or may not work to read or write to Linux. If you go into Disk Management, you might be able to see the partition but you will not be able to do anything with it.

You can install Linux to a flash drive, you need to know what drive it is and I'm not sure if you want to use MBR or UEFI. With an MBR install, if you select the proper device you would need to install the Grub boot code to the MBR of that device. If you want to use UEFI, that complicates things but I believe you can create an EFI partition on the flash drive and install Grub to the flash and the EFI partition.

If you ran the boot repair suggested earlier and posted some details, we might have something to work with.

Thanks folks for your help and for being nice about it. I wanted to also ask you about one other stage of the installation process that I forgot to mention. At the bottom of the GParted window it asks you about where 'Device for boot loaders installation' should go. I am not sure if I choose the actual drive name or where it says 'bla bla bla.... Windows 7'. Can't remember the full wording, but it had two options listing the drive I have formatted/partitioned but not sure which to use. As I have already discovered, If I mess up one solitary step/option, it ruins the whole process and then another 2-3 hours to mess about try again. I wish I knew someone locally that could help. I have been on the fence for many years about installing this. I was hoping it would of been easier to install than this. I was more worried about if I could actually get on with using the OS itself. Didn't realise this would be worse lol.

Is there a really good disk for-matter/restorer (ISO) that I can burn on a disk to totally remove ALL traces of partitions from either system that can allow windows to reinstall again easily and quickly. I have found several times that windows will manage to format what space it can 'see' but if there's something there in a different format, it won't see it and therefore that space is left un-claimed.

Many huge thanks indeed. Really means it....

The installation of the bootloader for Linux has a standard default which is /dev/sda and that is what you will probably see initially in the partitioning window. That is correct IF you have only one drive and also IF the OS you are installing is the only one and IF you are booting some version of windows becausee booting anything non-windows from windows is very convoluted.

So the above being said, it 'appears' that you are using an MBR system and that would be the correct choice. This statement is based on your earlier statement below:

In post 3 above, you posted the line below.

Are you kidding? Computers are fast and very obedient but I've not come across one that is telepathic. You're statement from post #1:

How would the installer possibly know which of those three drives you wanted to install on? That is why the automated won't work and why you need to manually select the drive and manually select the partition and manually select where to install the bootloader. The auto install method works very well when you have a simple one drive setup. It has defaults and the user doesn't really have many choices by design with the automated option.

Your question from the last post about where to install the bootloader can't be answerrd. Reason why is we don't have enough information. First off, are you trying to install Zorin to the SSD or one of the 1TB drives? Do you actually have an MBR system? If you do, you can leave the windows bootloader in the MBR on the drive on which it is installed and install the Grub bootloader to the MBR of the drive to which it is installed. If you then set the drive on which Zorin is installed to first boot priority and update-grub, you should be able to boot both. In order for us to get answers to these questions, you would need to post detailed information on your system which you can get by booting the Mint DVD and getting the boot repair software, see post # 6 above for the link.

In your last post you indicate you have two options for the "device for bootloader installation". If you have three drives and multiple partitions, I would expect you would have more than two options.

On MBR systems with one drive, the automated or "Install Alongside" option almost always works. You have a non-standard system with multiple drives which is why it is not easy.

You need to post a link to the boot repair output so we have some actual information otherwise we will all just be guessing.

Well, back in the day, you might have had trouble configuring multiple hard drives for master/slave relationships, setting the right jumpers, primary or logical partitions, or knowing what IRQ was needed for Com3. Learning never stops, and the saying, "a burned hand teaches best," often applies to computers too. Ouch! Yancek is giving you great advice... get the boot repair output and post it here in CODE tags.

Gparted is a perfect tool, and you're already becoming familiar with it.

Please delete this thread! thanks. Would do it myself but couldnt figure out how...

What happened? Did you find a solution? Please enlighten us!