Installing Windows 7 and Linux Mint on HP g62

[kamaimelon]

Hi there

I'm really proud to be there!
I'm going to install Linux Mint on my HP G62 laptop but, unfortunately, I have to keep the Windows 7 installation.
I backupped everything and now i'm going to format.

I should first install Windows 7 and then Linux Mint to let it work, but I have only the cd recovery one that will use the entire portion of the hd (500gb total).
So is there someone that can tell me what's the best thing to do (a part avoiding the Windows 7 installation, of course ).

Thank you very much!

[Aging Technogeek]

You can try running the Mint DVD first, just to the live desktop, don't install yet. When the Mint desktop is up, go to Menu=>Administration=>Gparted and partition your hard drive as you want it to be. Format the Windows partition to ntfs, and close the live desktop session.

There is every chance that when you run the Windows recovery DVD to install Windows, it will see the ntfs partition and ask if you want to install Windows there instead of to the entire disk. This works every time with new install DVDs, I have never tried it with a recovery DVD, but I can see no reason why it will nor work.

Once Windows is installed to its partition, you can install Mint to the rest of the drive and have your dual boot.

[kamaimelon]

Thank you for the quick answer
Unfortunately it was not possible doing it that way because of the way it were made the laptop recovery dvds. Infact I have no way to select partitions or more, it reset my laptopt like in fabric condition... :/

So now I have Linux Mint only, probably I'll use virtualbox or something like that to work with windows for now

I found a problem with fan sensors: fan are really speed every time, then i found that I have no way to control them, but I'm going to post it in the appropriate place,
Thank you
Cheers!

[linuxuser159]

Hi there

I'm really proud to be there!
I'm going to install Linux Mint on my HP G62 laptop but, unfortunately, I have to keep the Windows 7 installation.
I backupped everything and now i'm going to format.

I should first install Windows 7 and then Linux Mint to let it work, but I have only the cd recovery one that will use the entire portion of the hd (500gb total).
So is there someone that can tell me what's the best thing to do (a part avoiding the Windows 7 installation, of course ).

Thank you very much!

first you use win 7 dvd which will install win 7 on the whole disk. then you insert linux mint dvd and during installation, you can go to advanced options for selecting partition. there, you can resize win 7 partition. then, create ext4 and swap partitions in the unallocated space after resizing. then select the newly created parition to install linux mint. grub should recognize the win 7 partition and set up a dual boot menu.

[kamaimelon]

you can go to advanced options for selecting partition. there, you can resize win 7 partition.

Hi, thank you very much for the step by step answer
But unfortunately I have not the windows 7 Dvd but the laptop recovery one, that makes the hd configuration as brand new. So it makes something like 4 kind of partitions and then, if I have some free space it is unfortunately considered unusable by gparted into the Linux Mint installation wizard :/

[linuxuser159]

you can go to advanced options for selecting partition. there, you can resize win 7 partition.

Hi, thank you very much for the step by step answer
But unfortunately I have not the windows 7 Dvd but the laptop recovery one, that makes the hd configuration as brand new. So it makes something like 4 kind of partitions and then, if I have some free space it is unfortunately considered unusable by gparted into the Linux Mint installation wizard :/

what are the 4 partitions used for? the ones created by the recovery DVD

============
edit

i just found out online that the 4 partitions are:
1) win 7
2) recovery
3) hp tools
4) system (199 MB)

the hp tools partition is needed to flush your BIOS safely, if you ever need to in the future. the system parition is for booting windows i think.

so, best chance is to format the recovery partition as ext4 and install linux on it. however, you will not have a recovery partition for windows in case windows is corrupted. you will have to use the recovery DVD which will erase linus and bring back everything to factory settings.

the other problem is the system parition which is used to boot windows. i don't know how grub is going to deal with that.

the best method is to use a normal win 7 installation DVD which will not create this system parition and will not create a recovery partition.

actually the best thing is not to use win 7 at all. i am really happy to have deserted windows permanently. linux has plenty of apps to substitute for windows. add to that, you dont have to worry about viruses and spyware. you can also still use wine to install windows software. i say forget about windows. of course that is if linux works and is compatible with your hardware.

[kamaimelon]

Thank you very much for the very detailed and complete answer!

The windows 7 seems the best way, but i want to retry with your ultimate purpose. There is a lot of software that i have to use in Windows... but I'll try to emulate it into wine (proprietary fu**** software with no Linux conversion...).

If nothing work I'll virtualize into VirtualBox but I really need to solve my fan problem, my computer is taking the way of the cookin.

[linuxuser159]

Thank you very much for the very detailed and complete answer!

The windows 7 seems the best way, but i want to retry with your ultimate purpose. There is a lot of software that i have to use in Windows... but I'll try to emulate it into wine (proprietary fu**** software with no Linux conversion...).

If nothing work I'll virtualize into VirtualBox but I really need to solve my fan problem, my computer is taking the way of the cookin.

the only way you will take linux seriously is that if you use it full time for everything you do. so, try to use linux alternatives and wine.

if you just want to play with linux from time to time, then virtualize linux. it seems that your are highly dependent on windows software.

[kamaimelon]

Oh yes, unfortunately I have to use some Windows software that seems not so compatible with wine. But I prefer to virtualize; so I'll continue using gnu/linux happily
But I have to solve my helicopter-fan problem... I've found that it's related to the fglrx drivers. I wrote it to the original post