Member Avatar for ft3ssgeek

Hi all, I am going to be installing ubuntu on the second of two drives in my hp pavilion dv8040 (the first drive is xp pro)...I've used linux a bit, but only actually installed it once before (And that was 7 years ago - and it wasn't a dual boot situation)...I'm worried that it might affect my windows installation and I don't want to screw that up...Normally I'd have no problem just pressing ahead but in this particular situation, I just really do not want to screw up my windows drive...What will it do when it goes to set up the dual-boot?
Any tips/advice you can give me would be greatly appreciated...Thanx!

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Short practical summary and a few follow-ups based on the thread (installation on the second drive, Feisty, Broadcom wireless, GRUB in play).

GRUB placement and BIOS behavior

  • GRUB can be installed to any disk's MBR or to a Linux partition; which device becomes the boot device depends on the BIOS boot order. This is why emphasized GRUB's (hd0,0) style mapping — GRUB's disk/partition numbering is tied to the BIOS-visible boot order, while the kernel uses /dev/hdX or /dev/sdX names. Installing GRUB to the second-disk MBR and setting the BIOS to boot that disk first gives a safe, reversible dual-boot (leave BIOS unchanged to keep Windows as the default). Installing GRUB to the first disk makes GRUB the primary bootloader and is the more common setup, but it overwrites the existing MBR.

Precautions and quick recovery recipes

  • Create Windows recovery media if the machine uses an OEM restore partition (many HPs do). If no XP install CD exists, avoid overwriting the Windows MBR or first make recovery discs.
  • Back up the current MBR and note device names before changing anything. Example commands (replace devices with the actual ones discovered by fdisk -l):
# backup MBR (example - replace /dev/sda with the correct disk)
sudo dd if=/dev/sda of=~/mbr-sda.bin bs=512 count=1

# install GRUB to a specific disk (example)
sudo grub-install /dev/sdb
  • If the Windows bootloader needs to be restored, the XP Recovery Console (boot from the XP CD) and these commands will repair it:
fixmbr
fixboot

Wireless note and closing

  • Broadcom wireless cards frequently needed ndiswrapper or vendor drivers in 2007-era Feisty; ’s ndiswrapper approach matches common fixes and ’s notes about driver changes in newer releases are relevant. Final checklist: confirm disk device names, back up the MBR, create recovery media, and keep the XP CD handy before changing bootloader locations.

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Member Avatar for ft3ssgeek

Ok, so after some searching, I found this link...
https://help.ubuntu.com/community/How_to_dual-boot_Ubuntu_and_XP_after_installing_them_separately_on_two_HDs?highlight=%28dual-boot%29
however, I've read stuff about ?grub? being installed in the MBR and I'm afraid how that will affect my windows drive...I guess I just need someone to tell me that this link is right before I go ahead with this...anyone have any experience with this?

Member Avatar for jbennet

Grub is the bootloader. It lives in the first few sectors of the disk and it is what the pc looks for when it boots up. It will give you the option to boot either XP or Ubuntu

If it goes wrong all is not lost as it can be fixed (but you will need your XP cd)

Warning: If you have a recovery partition instead of a windows cd then DO NOT install linux !

Member Avatar for ft3ssgeek

Which disk will grub live on? the first disk with xp, or the second one with linux?

Member Avatar for jbennet

you get to choose. Usually it goes on the first disk.


e.g

PC BOOTS UP
BIOS CHECKS HDD1
BIOS READS MBR
BIOS SEES GRUB IN MNR
GRUB SHOWS OS CHOICES
(YOU CLICK ON XP)
GRUB LOADS THE XP BOOTLOADER
THE XP BOOTLOADER STARTS XP

Member Avatar for ft3ssgeek

So it shouldn't hurt xp if grub is in the mbr for the disk that xp is on?

Member Avatar for John A

>So it shouldn't hurt xp if grub is in the mbr for the disk that xp is on?
No.

Member Avatar for jbennet

and if it does hurt it, you just need to stick in your xp cd and type a simple command which will delete grub and reinstall the stock xp bootloader.

also DO NOT install grub if your PC relies on a recovery paritition instead of OS media as it will most likely destroy it.

Member Avatar for John A

Ok, so after some searching, I found this link...
https://help.ubuntu.com/community/How_to_dual-boot_Ubuntu_and_XP_after_installing_them_separately_on_two_HDs?highlight=%28dual-boot%29

The tutorial has one or two minor inaccuracies, such as this one:

If your Windows is on a second SATA you have to use sd1 instead of hd1, I think.

Wrong. They're both referred to as hdx, and the numbers are in the hard drives' boot order.

Member Avatar for ft3ssgeek

Ok, thanks guys! I went ahead and installed it...everything went pretty well and grub works just fine - no problems that I've found yet with my xp install...
Ubuntu had a problem with my wireless card, but I've read in forums that it's a common problem, so I'll just have to mess with it and see if I can come up with anything...
Once again, thanks or all your help!
Solved!

Member Avatar for jbennet

uh, no there not.

my server has SCSI disks and they are called SDx

Member Avatar for jbennet

and in relation to wireless yeah, i have a realtek card and it worked fine with 6.10 but not 7.04. I think its because they changed the networkmanager

Member Avatar for ft3ssgeek

My wireless card is a broadcom and my wired is a realtek...it didn't have a problem with the realtek, but my wireless is acting screwy...

Member Avatar for jbennet

i meant to say that i had a Realtek wireless card. Are you running ubuntu 6.06 LTS or 7.04 Fiesty ?

Member Avatar for John A

>my server has SCSI disks and they are called SDx
I forgot about SCSI. But IDE and SATA both use hdx.

Oh, and I'm glad that the Ubuntu install went OK. Installing wireless drivers aren't too difficult unless you have to compile them from source as a kernel module.

Member Avatar for ft3ssgeek

I'm running feisty...have yet to get started on the wireless problem...I'll let you know what I come up with...

Member Avatar for Infarction

>my server has SCSI disks and they are called SDx
I forgot about SCSI. But IDE and SATA both use hdx.

My SATA showed up as sda back when I had Linux on it...

Member Avatar for jbennet

thats what i said.

IDE and SATA are hd(x). Scsi is sd(x)

Ive noticed that some flash keys come up as sd(x)

Member Avatar for John A

>My SATA showed up as sda back when I had Linux on it...
Are you referring to Linux devices, or GRUB's naming conventions? For example, I found this:
http://www.gentoo.org/doc/en/handbook/handbook-x86.xml?part=1&chap=10

The most critical part of understanding GRUB is getting comfortable with how GRUB refers to hard drives and partitions. Your Linux partition /dev/hda1 (for IDE drives) or /dev/sda1 (for SATA/SCSI drives) will most likely be called (hd0,0) under GRUB. Notice the parentheses around the hd0,0 - they are required.

Hard drives count from zero rather than "a" and partitions start at zero rather than one. Be aware too that with the hd devices, only hard drives are counted, not atapi-ide devices such as cdrom players and burners. Also, the same construct is used with SCSI drives. (Normally they get higher numbers than IDE drives except when the BIOS is configured to boot from SCSI devices.) When you ask the BIOS to boot from a different hard disk (for instance your primary slave), that harddisk is seen as hd0.

Assuming you have a hard drive on /dev/hda, a cdrom player on /dev/hdb, a burner on /dev/hdc, a second hard drive on /dev/hdd and no SCSI hard drive, /dev/hdd7 gets translated to (hd1,6). It might sound tricky and tricky it is indeed, but as we will see, GRUB offers a tab completion mechanism that comes handy for those of you having a lot of hard drives and partitions and who are a little lost in the GRUB numbering scheme.

Member Avatar for ft3ssgeek

ok, guys, I found a great howto:

It worked perfectly and I am now writing this from my new linux installation over wireless...hope this helps someone...

Member Avatar for jbennet

yeah ndiswrapper was wha I was going to reccomend next.

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