Thread: “How to” Dual boot Ubuntu and Windows 7

As of right now I am running Windows 7 exclusively on an 80 GB ide drive. The other day however I decided to install Ubuntu on a second drives 160 GB ide drive. I was stupid however and let Ubuntu install the Grub boot loader. This lead to the windows installation on the first drive not work and the Ubuntu installation working but only if I told the bios to boot the second drive first instead of the first drive first.

I, after much exhaustion I was able to fix the boot loader on the first drive allowing my system to boot straight to windows 7, normally. I downloaded and installed easyBCD and tried adding NeoGrub to the boot menu however when I select all that happens is that I get taken to a grub command prompt.

Also still if I tell the bios to boot the second drive it will load the grub boot loader and boot into ubuntu. My question is how can I have my computer set up so that it will boot straight to windows 7 (on the first drive), normally if I don't tell it otherwise, but If I choose, using only the windows boot loader, I should be able to boot into ubuntu on the second drive, preferably without any grub involvement.

If it helps, my system also has a 36.7 GB Sata raptor drive, two 320gb Sata drives and a 1.5tb Sata.

Lastly before you say otherwise, I will not change my setup and not use any of my Sata drives to house my OSes. I will change this in the future when I get a 150 GB raptor and move my windows 7 installation on to it.

So if anyone has any advice, thank you.

The easy way is to install GRUB on /dev/sda your first drive.

This should allow you to boot win 7 or ubuntu.

Good luck.

Thanks for the response, but before I go doing this I just want to make sure that this would allow me to use only the windows boot loader? Also I'm a little rusty when you say install GRUB, I know it's probably an easy process but would I need a special partition for GRUB on my first drive and would doing this install the grub boot loader or just the files necessary to allow the windows boot loader to boot ubuntu? Lastly will this get rid of the boot loader on the second drive?

Boot from the ubuntu live CD; go to applications, accessories, terminal. You do not need anything on your 1st drive, you just have to make sure you preserve /boot on your 2nd drive because your grub config file resides there.

There is no need to remove the boot loader from your 2nd drive, it does no harm.

Good luck.