Another win7 and linux mint dual boot thread

[algar32]

Hello all. I have been reading around on the forums for a bit of time and finally joined
I just have a quick questions about win7 dual booting 64 bit cinnamon on my laptop.

What boot loader should I use? One from windows or Grub (or whatever is best) from mint?

How much should I partition for windows and how much should I leave for mint? I have about a 500 or 600gb hdd so I doubt I will fill even 250gbs with school stuff. Should I just split it right down the middle?

Do many people of windows and mint share the same my documents, pictures, etc. folders? Is it easy to set this up?

Thanks.

[Orbmiser]

Like you I triple boot. Win7,Winxp & Mint.

I leave the win loader untouched that way I will always have a clean loader to boot to Win7
as can't do to be down for any reason for my clients.

Another option to consider is whether you want a seprate /home partition or not?
I have separate /home that way if I need to do a clean install don't have to worry about messing up /home.

/ root partition whatever you are comfortable giving it 10gb or larger tho don't see a need for larger than 20gb?
/home depends if you will be storing a lot of personal files.

As for me all my Images,music,movies,etc are stored on external ntfs usb drives which linux can access fine.
So find 15gb sufficient for installed programs and such. But would feel more comfortable at 2x that so 30gb is nice round number if you won't be storing a lot of huge personals on it.

As to setting up then choose something else at where to install at.
I have / root on sda5 and /home on sda6 and 4gb swap file at sda6.

For chain loading grub then you want to look at the bottom where it shows where to install bootloader.
In my case I changed it from the default sda1 to point to root / on sda5.

After Install then you will have to boot up to windows 7 and use a program like easyBCD which is free to add an entry for linux to the Win7 loader. Which is easy to do. And also can change the timeouts and default boot which mine is set for Mint as default with a 3 sec. delay so can change to win7 when needed.
.

[Essexraptor]

If your new, like me, I would go with the straight option of "install alongside" during the install sequence. You can then choose how to "split" the HDD. 50/50 is ok. You can always use GParted to alter the partition size later when your confidence and experience increases. If your more confident use a custom partition set-up as mentioned above.

Use the standard grub loader if a newbie. You can always repair your mbr using the Win7 install disc if everything goes completely pair shaped. Or via a Live CD session

wayne128 explains how to do this here

http://forums.linuxmint.com/viewtopic.php?f=46&t=123162

You can access your docs on your Win 7 install from Mint. If your going to need something, short term, in Win7... just copy and plop it into a win folder. Long term you could always use GParted at some piont to create a small (20 -30GB) ntfs partition usable by both to dump stuff ?

Just some newbie thoughts... although you may get some more elegant and informed answers

[algar32]

Thanks for the replies everyone.

I think I am going to try doing it this way first:

http://www.linuxbsdos.com/2011/06/11/du ... windows-7/

I think that is the slightly more complicated method, but it keeps your /home separate.

Thanks.