dualboot vista 64 and linux?

[looper]

hi all. i have been an SUSE user in the past and i dualbooted with XP. when i was dualbooting at that time, i installed a fresh copy of XP along with the linux distro everytime. now i have a gateway fx-7026 with Vista 64 and i want to dual boot. the computer has 2-300 GB hardrives so i would like to allocate one for linux. i don't want to mess up my current install of vista though, so where do i begin?

thank you for any help

[MikeTbob]

Just download and burn the Distro of your choice, and boot the machine with the newly created disk. When you get into the installer be sure to use only the selected drive and not the drive that contains windows. It should be pretty painless and straightforward. There usually is no need to install Windows every time you install Linux, things have improved a lot in the last year or two.

[looper]

that simple? wow...ok downloading...will be back with more questions i'm sure, lol.

thanks for the reply

[MikeTbob]

FYI, you can also download LiveCD's, which are Linux distros that run entirely from the CD/DVD, so you can check them out before you install them, It's a very cool feature and I think all Distros should have one.
LiveCD list:
DistroWatch.com: Put the fun back into computing. Use Linux, BSD.

[devils casper]

I would suggest you to unplug Windows Disk during Linux Installation. Plug-in Windows Disk after successful Linux installation. Open Terminal and execute this

sudo fdisk -l

Post output here.
We will post code for setting up dual boot. You will have to edit one file only.
Both disks will be independent and there won't be any chance of error/mistake.

[looper]

well i had successfully installed ubuntu, but i changed the resolution and got a black screen. i tried to reinstall it but now i get a message saying there are errors on the hard disk. i'm going to try unplugging windows disk and installing again.
yep...i'm a newb!

[looper]

Disk /dev/sda: 320.0 GB, 320072933376 bytes
255 heads, 63 sectors/track, 38913 cylinders
Units = cylinders of 16065 * 512 = 8225280 bytes
Disk identifier: 0x5d36eaad

   Device Boot      Start         End      Blocks   Id  System
/dev/sda1               1        1919    15414336    7  HPFS/NTFS
/dev/sda2   *        1920       38913   297154305    7  HPFS/NTFS

Disk /dev/sdb: 320.0 GB, 320072933376 bytes
255 heads, 63 sectors/track, 38913 cylinders
Units = cylinders of 16065 * 512 = 8225280 bytes
Disk identifier: 0x00046fa3

   Device Boot      Start         End      Blocks   Id  System
/dev/sdb1   *           1       37460   300897418+  83  Linux
/dev/sdb2           37461       38913    11671222+   5  Extended
/dev/sdb5           37461       38913    11671191   82  Linux swap / Solaris

thats what i got when i typed into the terminal. how do i dualboot? thanks for the help, i really appreciate it. .

[yancek]

I assume, based upon your last post, that you have successfully installed Ubuntu? I will assume that you installed Grub bootloader to the master boot record of the disk Ubuntu is on and that this disk is set to boot first in your BIOS. Boot into Ubuntu. login as root (sudo) and change directories to the Grub directory: " cd /boot/grub/", open the menu.lst file with "gedit menu.lst". Put the following entry for vista in the menu.lst file:

title Windows Vista
rootnoverify (hd1,1)
map (hd0) (hd1)
map (hd1) (hd0)
chainloader +1

[looper]

when i installed ubuntu i had the other HD disconnected. i installed it and everything is working great. the other HD is supposed to boot first, so when i turn the computer on i get

Grub 1.5 
              error 17

or something like that. in order to boot to ubuntu i have to go in to boot options at startup and choose the drive ubuntu is on. also, i managed to open the menu.lst with gedit but where exactly does that code you gave go? anywhere on the page? thanks so much.

p.s. if i disconnect the windows harddrive everything boots up fine by the way. i tried to change the boot order in the bios but both drives have the same name, whichever one i choose gives me the error 17 and i have to choose the ubuntu harddrive from boot options in order for it to work.

[yancek]

Put the windows xp entry below this line in menu.lst

### END DEBIAN AUTOMAGIC KERNELS LIST

With this entry and your Ubuntu drive set to boot first you will have the option to boot either Ubuntu or xp. If you have the xp drive set to boot first, you will only be able to boot xp as you don't have an entry in the xp bootloader to boot Ubuntu. The xp entry I gave you in my last post is meant to work with windows on the second drive.