Member Avatar for james chaco

I have windows vista home basic installed on my system. Now i need to format and reinstall vista. The problem is that along with vista i have Ubuntu linux installed inside windows (on other partition).
So i am afraid that on reinstalling vista ,there would be a problem
with the boot loader of Ubuntu.

Please guide me how to keep Ubuntu and reinstall vista.

  • 3 Contributors
  • 3 Replies
  • 200 Views
  • 1 Month Discussion Span
  • Latest Post Latest Post by khakilang

Dani AI

Generated

Brief plan for : reinstalling Vista normally overwrites the Windows boot area (MBR/EFI) and will hide GRUB, but the Ubuntu system on its own partition can be preserved if its partitions are not formatted. If Ubuntu was installed with Wubi (inside Windows as a file), reformatting Windows will remove that Ubuntu installation — treat those two cases differently. The usual, low-risk workflow is: back up data and partition info, reinstall Vista to the Windows partition only, then restore GRUB from an Ubuntu Live USB (either automatically with Boot-Repair or by chroot + grub-install). (help.ubuntu.com)

Pre-install checks and backups (do these before running the Vista installer):

  • Record the current partition layout and UUIDs:
    sudo fdisk -l and sudo blkid.
  • Back up /home to an external disk: 
    sudo rsync -aAX /home/ /media/usbdrive/home-backup/
  • Backup the partition table and the current MBR (careful with device names): 
    sudo sfdisk -d /dev/sda > sda-partitions.sfdisk
sudo dd if=/dev/sda of=~/mbr-backup.img bs=512 count=1

    These steps make it safer to recover if partitions are accidentally changed. (help.ubuntu.com)

During the Vista reinstall choose the manual/custom partition option and select only the Windows partition (NTFS). Do not delete or format ext3/ext4 or swap partitions. If unsure which partition is which, stop and verify from the Live USB; deleting the wrong partition is the usual cause of data loss. (help.ubuntu.com)

If Vista overwrites the bootloader, restore boot in one of two ways. Easier: boot an Ubuntu Live USB and run Boot-Repair -> "Recommended repair" (automates detection and reinstalls GRUB). Advanced/manual: chroot into the installed Ubuntu and run grub-install and update-grub, for example (replace sdaX with the Ubuntu root partition, sda with the drive):

sudo mount /dev/sdaX /mnt
sudo mount --bind /dev /mnt/dev
sudo mount --bind /proc /mnt/proc
sudo mount --bind /sys /mnt/sys
sudo chroot /mnt
grub-install /dev/sda
update-grub
exit
sudo umount /mnt/dev /mnt/proc /mnt/sys /mnt

Boot-Repair and the Ubuntu GRUB docs give step-by-step guidance; Super Grub2 Disk is a useful emergency boot tool if needed. This follows ’s suggestion to re-enable GRUB and complements ’s VirtualBox idea (virtualizing Windows avoids this whole workflow but is a different approach). (launchpad.net)

Recommended Answers

All 3 Replies

Member Avatar for sillyboy

while installing vista, i believe there is going to be little you can do. After you have installed vista, you want to try and re-enable GRUB to handle boots. There are forums around this topic and apparently a SuperGRUB CD which might be something easier to use.

Member Avatar for james chaco

while installing vista, i believe there is going to be little you can do. After you have installed vista, you want to try and re-enable GRUB to handle boots. There are forums around this topic and apparently a SuperGRUB CD which might be something easier to use.

thank u........i got some ways to re-enable grub from the forums

Member Avatar for khakilang

I am a newbie but I just happen to stumble on Sun virtual box software which suppose to be able to install Window OS in Linux. Haven't try it. Maybe you can give it a try.

Be a part of the DaniWeb community

We're a friendly, industry-focused community of developers, IT pros, digital marketers, and technology enthusiasts meeting, networking, learning, and sharing knowledge.