Welcome Guest. Sign in or Signup

6 Answers

Manual partitioning on win7 existing duel boot

Asked by: 1888 views Disk Partition

I have Two computers a win7 duel boot ubuntu 11.04 natty installation working fine right now.I want to know if I can install linux mint on the same hard disk as well.
If my understanding of manual partitioning is correct, could I shrink the ubuntu primary partition,create an extended partition,and in this partition then create say two logical partitions and then install mint to them.
I have a old desktop that I reformatted a while back, I (wiped windows) and installed ubuntu I then added Mint , I installed mint alongside ubuntu and it worked out fine.
I am going to donate this machine to a class for underprivileged students, and before this old computer goes, I would like to put mint on my current win7 machine.and move some data.
Is what I am suggesting possible (i.e. triple boot on win7 using the four primary partitions with one extended.to accommodate (Mint.)
I have got as far as partitioning on win7 machine with Mint Julia and ubuntu is seen on the disk and i can select side by side installation but as there is no mention of windows operating system I am scared to proceed in case it uses the windows partitions.
Anyone who can help ,please.
joe

0saves
Save
To have future articles like this delivered automatically to your Feed Reader or Inbox, please subscribe to this blog via RSS or email. For detailed reviews and tutorials, visit LinuxBSDos.com.

6 Answers



  1. finid on May 15, 2011

    Yes, back up your data and transfer them to the new home folder. You can also transfer the same data to the home folder on Mint. It’s just data, so there is no compatibility problems. Mint is based on Ubuntu anyway.

    +1 Votes Thumb up 1 Votes Thumb down 0 Votes



  2. joecar on May 14, 2011

    Having read the manual disk partitioning guide (thanks for that) if I read your advice correctly. I will have to delete sda3, sda5 ,sda6. This will wipe my existing Ubuntu installation After I have reinstalled Ubuntu, leaving some disk space for the mint installation to be added after the Ubuntu reinstall. I presume If prior to doing this, if I back up my current Ubuntu home folder to a suitable external disk I can reinstall all my data back to the new Ubuntu home folder. Is this correct?.
    Also would it be advisable to take the backed up data to to the new mint home folder or am i likely to have compatibility problems with some of data.?.
    Joe

    0 Votes Thumb up 0 Votes Thumb down 0 Votes



  3. joecar on May 11, 2011

    Having read the manual disk partitioning guide (thanks for that) if I read your advice correctly. I will have to delete sda3, sda5 ,sda6. This will wipe my existing Ubuntu installation After I have reinstalled Ubuntu, leaving some disk space for the mint installation to be added after the Ubuntu reinstall. I presume If prior to doing this, if I back up my current Ubuntu home folder to a suitable external disk I can reinstall all my data back to the new Ubuntu home folder. Is this correct?.
    Also would it be advisable to take the backed up data to to the new mint home folder or am i likely to have compatibility problems with some of data.?.
    Joe

    0 Votes Thumb up 0 Votes Thumb down 0 Votes



  4. finid on May 11, 2011

    So the first 2 partitions are Windows. Partition 3 is extended, and under it are 2 logical partitions. As it stands now, you have one primary partition left. Here’s how you can repartition the disk and install both Linux distros:

    Best way forward is to start from scratch on the Linux side, but before that, boot into Win7 just to make sure that all is well on that front. Then boot into Ubuntu. At the disk methods step, select “Something else”. Delete the Linux partitions (sda3, sda5, sda6).

    Select the resulting free space, and create a /boot partition. Then 3 more for /, /home and Swap. If you do not want a separate one for /home, then just create for / and Swap. So you should have sda5-8, or just sda5-7.

    Leave enough space to install the second Linux distro. Complete the installation and reboot. By default, GRUB is installed in the MBR, so you should see GRUB’s menu and be able to boot into Ubuntu or Win7.

    Begin the installation of Mint, and go thru the same process as before. This time, you only need to create 3 partitions – /boot, /, and /home or just /boot and /. As with the Ubuntu installer, it will also install GRUB in the MBR of the disk.

    Complete installation and reboot. You should now have 3 options in GRUB’s menu and be able to boot into any one you choose.

    See http://www.linuxbsdos.com/2011/05/04/manual-disk-partitioning-guide-for-ubuntu-11-04/ for screenshots on Ubuntu 11.04 partitioning.

    0 Votes Thumb up 1 Votes Thumb down 1 Votes



  5. joecar on May 11, 2011

    Thanks for coming back to me the listing of my disk

    Disk /dev/sda: 320.1 GB, 320072933376 bytes
    255 heads, 63 sectors/track, 38913 cylinders
    Units = cylinders of 16065 * 512 = 8225280 bytes
    Sector size (logical/physical): 512 bytes / 512 bytes
    I/O size (minimum/optimal): 512 bytes / 512 bytes
    Disk identifier: 0x241c6624

    Device Boot Start End Blocks Id System
    /dev/sda1 * 1 262 2098176 27 Unknown
    /dev/sda2 263 21936 174086785 7 HPFS/NTFS
    /dev/sda3 21936 38914 136377345 5 Extended
    /dev/sda5 21936 38219 130796544 83 Linux
    /dev/sda6 38219 38914 5579776 82 Linux swap / Solaris
    joe@joe-laptop:~$

    windows was installed on the computer when i bought it, and I added ubuntu
    So I assume win7 is in sda1,sda2 and ubuntu is sda5.,sda6

    0 Votes Thumb up 0 Votes Thumb down 0 Votes



  6. finid on May 10, 2011

    Triple -booting will work. If you tell us the current partition layout, it will be a lot easier to recommend how to proceed. By the way, I am writing this from a computer with 1 320 GB HDD with Win7 installed first, Ubuntu 11.04 second, and Kubuntu 11.04 installed last.

    If you let Mint’s installer auto-partition the disk, it will likely shrink the main Ubuntu partition, if there is enough space to free up, and install itself. But tell us the layout. How many partitions on the Windows side, etc.

    0 Votes Thumb up 0 Votes Thumb down 0 Votes