How to install as dual boot on Windows 7 (Solved)

[beeky]

I don't understand the installation procedure for dual boot installation.
The manual says:

If you choose to install it alongside other operating systems, the installer will use
the free space available on other partitions to create a new one for Linux Mint

I don't see anything on the Installation Type screen that selects Windows dual boot.
Is it possible to install Linux mint on a Windows machine and still be able to boot either?
If so, where do I go or what do I select on the Installation Type screen to make this
type of installation happen?

I'm sure this is a stupid, beginner question but I'm afraid to proceed any further until
I understand what is happening.
Thanks,
beeky

[Kalyk]

Hi Beeky,
First: it is NOT a stupid question, installing and doing things with your partitions is the most easy way to loose your data and old environment.
Next: did you make a backup onto an external drive? Always something could go wrong, though I only encountered problems when I made a mistake myself, never the installation.
If there is an option to install Linux Mint next to your Windows it should give you that option.
If it doesn't then stop the installation and go back to the live environment.
There you open the MENU and type GPARTED.
This will show you how the disk is partitioned.
Take care: know what you are doing when you make changes!!
If you want to post your partitionscheme in this forum you can type in a terminal

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sudo fdisk -l /dev/sda

We can give advise from that information.

[Mark Phelps]

Allowing the Mint installer to resize the Win7 OS partition is risking filesystem corruption on the Windows side. And, if that happens, Win7 will no longer boot -- making it very difficult to repair.

BEFORE you charge into the dual-boot prep, do yourself a favour and use the Win7 Backup feature to create and burn a Win7 Repair CD. With that, you will have the means to repair Win7 boot capability, should it become damaged during the dual-boot setup.

Then, use ONLY the Win7 Disk Management tool to shrink the Win7 OS partition. Reboot into Win7 a couple of times after that to allow the filesystem to make any adjustments. Do not create a new partition with that tool; instead, use the Something Else option in the Mint installer to create the partition.

[beeky]

Thanks Mark and Kalyk for the response. I realize now that I did not know what to ask about. As you both figured out partitioning is the issue. I still don't know what to do but I'm beginning to understand. I think I need to partition the hard drive from the Mint installation screen. I'm unsure beyond that. Below is the partitioning info from both systems. Does this give you enough to figure out what I have to do next?

Thanks for any help and/or guidance,
beeky


Summary of the Windows disk manager display
--------------------------------------------

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HP_RECOVERY (D: NTFS Primary) 16.74GB
OS(C: NTFS Primary) 719.32 GB (676.62 free)
SYSTEM (NTFS Primary) 100 MB (70 MB free)
195.35 GB Unallocated

After Linux Mint Petra boots from the DVD.
-------------------------------------------
mint@mint ~ $ sudo fdisk -l /dev/sda

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Disk /dev/sda: 1000.2 GB, 1000204886016 bytes
255 heads, 63 sectors/track, 121601 cylinders, total 1953525168 sectors
Units = sectors of 1 * 512 = 512 bytes
Sector size (logical/physical): 512 bytes / 512 bytes
I/O size (minimum/optimal): 512 bytes / 512 bytes
Disk identifier: 0xea24d380

   Device Boot      Start         End      Blocks   Id  System
/dev/sda1   *        2048      206847      102400    7  HPFS/NTFS/exFAT
/dev/sda2          206848  1508739071   754266112    7  HPFS/NTFS/exFAT
/dev/sda3      1918420992  1953521663    17550336    7  HPFS/NTFS/exFAT

[gold_finger]

beeky,

The info you posted shows that the Windows partitions are taking up the whole drive, which (I suspect) is why the installer did not show you a choice to install "Along side Windows".

What you need to do is shrink down that large Windows partition first to make room on the hard drive for the Mint installation. As Mark Phelps stated, it's best to use the Windows disk management program to do that.

* Backup anything important and make recovery disks for Windows if you don't have any already.
* Use Windows disk manager to first defragment the large partition.
* Use Windows disk manager to then shrink the large partition. (If you have room, shrink it by 50-100GB for Mint.)
* Once shrunk, leave the resulting unused space as it is. DO NOT create any new partitions.
* Reboot into Windows after shrinking partition to let it make any adjustments to the new size that it might need to do.

(Kalyk referred to using GParted (in live Mint) to possibly make partitions ahead of time for the install. That is one route you can go, but if this is your first time with Linux and you're not experienced with making partitions, I'd recommend just letting Mint's installer do everything for you this time. Once you gain some experience you may want to revisit everything and make changes, but wouldn't worry about that for now.)


Now you're ready to install Mint.

* Boot live DVD/USB and start installation.
* You should now have option to install "Along side Windows"
* Pick that and Mint will automatically use that free space you created -- making and formatting the new Linux partitions it needs.

* Note: On some occations the installer does not reboot the computer properly when installation is complete and that sometimes results in an improper installation of the bootloader. (Doesn't happen all the time and don't know what causes that.) I've found that the best thing to do when installer completes is choose "Continue testing" instead of "Reboot". Then wait for about 15 seconds after the installer's window closes and shutdown the machine normally: Menu -> Logout -> Shutdown (or similar depending on which version of Mint you have).

* After shutdown, just power-on again and you should get the grub menu offering both Mint and Windows as choices.

Good luck and hope you like Mint!

[beeky]

gold_finger,
Thanks for the very thorough answer. Unfortunately, I must have either misunderstood the process or screwed something up.

I shrunk the Windows partition to get space for Mint. I couldn't figure out how to add an image to this message so here is a text version of what I see on the 'Installation type' screen during the Mint install after creating the free space.

/dev/sda1 ntfs size=104MB, used=25MB
/dev/sda2 ntfs size=772368MB, used=46605MB
free space size=209757MB
/dev/sda3 ntfs size=17971MB, used=15722MB
Device for boot loader installation:
/dev/sda ATA ST31000524AS (1.0 TB)

Nothing about 'alongside windows' but the free space is shown.

Where do I go from here if this is the expected result of shrinking or where do I go if this info indicates I screwed something up?
Sorry for the really clueless attitude but I just don't understand what needs to happen much less understand what to do to make it happen.
-=beeky

[Mark Phelps]

Please open a terminal in Mint and post the results of this command: "sudo fdisk -lu" (lowercase L, not a one).

[beeky]

Mark,
Thanks for trying to help.

The output of fdisk.
mint@mint ~ $ sudo fdisk -lu

Disk /dev/sda: 1000.2 GB, 1000204886016 bytes
255 heads, 63 sectors/track, 121601 cylinders, total 1953525168 sectors
Units = sectors of 1 * 512 = 512 bytes
Sector size (logical/physical): 512 bytes / 512 bytes
I/O size (minimum/optimal): 512 bytes / 512 bytes
Disk identifier: 0xea24d380

Device Boot Start End Blocks Id System
/dev/sda1 * 2048 206847 102400 7 HPFS/NTFS/exFAT
/dev/sda2 206848 1508739071 754266112 7 HPFS/NTFS/exFAT
/dev/sda3 1918420992 1953521663 17550336 7 HPFS/NTFS/exFAT

[gold_finger]

Unfortunately, I must have either misunderstood the process or screwed something up.

Does not look like you screwed something up -- partitions and free space look fine.

Not sure why you weren't offered choice to install "Along side Windows". Following is just a guess on my part for you to check out -- I don't know if this has anything to do with the problem or not.

If your computer is just a few years old, it may use UEFI/EFI firmware for booting instead of the old, familiar BIOS firmware. I don't have one using UEFI/EFI myself, so don't know what the install proceedure steps looks like if you end up booting in UEFI/EFI-mode, rather than BIOS/Legacy-mode. (You'll have that choice on UEFI-based computers.) My thought is that maybe your live Mint DVD booted in UEFI-mode and the steps for installing may be different under that scenario than what I described above.

Use info on this page to determine what mode your Mint DVD is booting in (it's Ubuntu info, but applies to Mint as well): https://help.ubuntu.com/community/UEFI# ... n_EFI_mode.

If you see the black screen version of startup when booting, then it's using UEFI-mode. Your computer should have a special key to hit after first powering on the system that will give you access to a Boot Menu for the session. (The key can differ from system to system, so watch bottom of your screen on startup for messages that may tell you which key to hit; or lookup user manual for your exact computer model in a search engine. There will be a key for getting into Settings/Startup Menu and another for Boot Menu -- you want the Boot Menu one.) Once in the Boot Menu, there should be an option for booting DVD in UEFI-mode and another option for not using that mode. Choose the non-UEFI option for booting.

If that is not the problem, then report back and we'll use GParted, as Kalyk suggested earlier, to make the partitions you need ahead of time and go from there.

P.s. For future reference, use the "Upload attachment" tab below where you type on the forum interface for attaching pictures/screenshots. (Best to use simple names w/o special characters for the screenshot pics -- forum doesn't like the default naming used by Mint's screenshot application for some reason. Another option is to just upload the images to a site like the following and paste the resulting web link for it here to the forum: http://imagebin.ca/.)

[usbtux]

FULL Install Linux Mint beside Windows 7 without altering the MBR. For safe dualboot and easy removal.
Safe dualbooting Windows 7 Part 1 http://youtu.be/1KM0TPFZg2Y
Safe dualbooting Windows 7 Part 2 http://youtu.be/V23DzYI3iTI


Safe dual-booting Windows 7 - installing Mint on 2nd hard drive Part 1 http://youtu.be/hgv_POYbbf0
Safe dual-booting Windows 7 - installing Mint on 2nd hard drive Part 2 http://youtu.be/gWb62_CqMRU

[beeky]

usbtux,
Thanks for trying to help but my machine responds differently than yours. When I create the / partition the remaining free space is marked unusable.
-=beeky

[gold_finger]

There is a limit of 4 "primary" partitions for MBR drives (which yours is). Windows is already using 3; so when you created the "/" root partition, that made 4 -- the limit!

To get around that limitation, delete the linux root partition you made and start over.

This time when clicking free space to create partition, make 1 large "extended" (not "primary") partition. That will enable you to then select the space inside of the extended partition and create "logical" partitions for "/" (root) and "swap". You can create all partitions you need as logical partitions within the borders of that extended partition.

Haven't seen usbtux's videos, but sure they will fill in details of what to do once above has been done.

[beeky]

I finally completed the install and I'm now a happy Mint user!

Thanks to all who offered to help: gold_finger, Mark Phelps, Kalyk and usbtux.

It was gold_fingers speculation about EFI boot mode that pointed me in the right direction, that was the root cause of my issue.

I'm going to describe what I did for other unfortunates who may find themselves in my position.

Machine: HP Omni 220 PC, circa early 2012. Windows 7 of the same vintage from HP.

Step 1: boot to Windows and use the Windows disk manager to shrink one or more partitions to get the necessary free space. I freed up 200GB.

Step 2: boot from the live cd. In a terminal enter the following to understand how your system is booting:

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[ -d /sys/firmware/efi ] && echo "EFI boot on HDD" || echo "Legacy boot on HDD" 

For me the output of step 2 was "EFI boot...."

Step 3: click on 'Menu', select shut down then restart. When restart starts hit the ESC key then pick the boot loader selection from the menu that is displayed.

Step 4: I selected the innermost option in the non EFI boot choices.

Step 5: After Mint started, I selected 'install Linux Mint' from the desktop.

After this it was smooth sailing. The install window that allows you to choose the type of installation now had the option ' along side existing OS' or something to that effect.
The install took about 20 minutes. After it had finished I was able to boot to Windows and Mint from the startup menu.

Again, thanks to all who offered help.
-=beeky

[gold_finger]

Glad it worked out and you got the installer to offer to install "Along side Windows" finally.

The discussion of 4-partition limit and how to get around it applies when manually creating partitions yourself. If you're curious, open GParted in your new install and you'll see that the installer automatically did pretty much what was described above -- create two logical partitions within an extended partition.

GParted is normally under the "Administration" (or "System") section of the menu. If not one of the default installed programs, you can add it to your system from the Software Center or with following terminal command:

Code: Select all

sudo apt-get install gparted

Just start the program to see a pictoral view of the drive partitions and you'll see what I mean. Don't make any changes, just look at it -- then close program.

Enjoy Mint.

P.s. Please edit Subject heading on your first post and add "Solved" to title.