I'm thinking of install Ubuntu soon to my HDD on my laptop.

How can I tell which partition my Windows XP is on and how do I properly burn the ISO onto a disk. I have a ISO burning program I downloaded and was wondering what speed to burn it.

 

Hi there,

How can you tell?

First, Windows is usually installed on the first partition of the first hard disk.

Second, when you ask for info on your drives / partitions in Linux using either a GUI or a CLI tool, you'll also get info on the filesystem they were formatted with.

Here's an example (see this image):
http://www.dedoimedo.com/images/computers/partimage-gparted-unmounted.png

Mrk

 

Ubuntu will also give you the option to do a guided install, where the size of your windows partition will be reduced to make room for the Ubuntu partition. I've used this option in the past and it is pretty foolproof and straightforward. If you want to have fun playing around with partitioning, see the man above (this post, not God). As far as burning speed, urban legend has it that you should burn it at the slowest possible speed.

 

Use good media and burn at slow speed, use programs like ImgBurn if burning from Windows and select opc in burn options, this gives the best burn. Leave partitioning to the excellent gparted, it knows what to do and does it well.

Good luck.

 

I have ISO Recorder.

 

Good enough, just burn at slowest speed possible.

 

Go for it cheater,Dito to all the above poster theses guys are the linux gods in my mind and taught me and help me get started.Mrk has superb tutorials as well you may want to take the time to read them.The information of linux seem endless great support to boot.

 

This is how I have mine at the moment. I have 2 hard drives hence sdb. Windows XP is on sda..xx There is one ntfs partition which I use for image
backups. Hope this meets with Mrk's approval.
The /boot is there in case /boot should break. When restoring an image
I would skip /boot (unless damaged) and only restore / and /home.

(I think one needs to click on .png to see it normal size).

 

Ocky, the boot partition contains your kernel image (vmlinuz). So, it is quite important to back it up, too. If you were to restore an older version of the root that does not match the kernel version under boot, you might have problems with broken libraries and whatnot.
Mrk

 

Point taken - thank you Mrk. I can see how one could easily land up with a
mismatch of an older /root image restore and a recent kernel in /boot,
unless one knows for sure that this is not the case.

Being dual boot, and having installed Ubuntu after XP, I suppose a restoration
of C:\ incl. the MBR (should it ever be necessary), will not mess up Grub (i.e. overwrite it) ?

 

To make things easier you could just use wubi and install ubuntu inside windows. After you've burnt the disk just run it while in windows. Should you change your mind you can easily uninstall it like you would a regular windows program.

 

I've heard alot about wubi but, since I no longer have windows, I don't have that option. Is there any security issues related to it? I guess most would be running the linux program with only user privileges on a system with administrator privileges.

 

Good question Ben. Am I still in Windows and vulnerable with that version of Ubuntu running form my desktop

 

Vulnerable may be a little strong. I imagine for the most part, any malware that is downloaded while using wubi will probably remain isolated in that folder, unable to execute. I was just wondering if there were any hypothetical or real-world situations that would point to a lesser degree of security than an actual install.

 

Its not actually running from your windows desktop. After you've installed it you reboot and you'll get a pre-boot screen which allows you to either boot windows or ubuntu. All it is basically is ubuntu running on an ntfs partition. I doubt any windows malware you download is gonna be able to execute inside ubuntu so the only problem you might have is if you boot into windows then go to the ubuntu directory and manually execute the malware.

 

The checksum is taking a long time to install. Its been in the same place for about 20 minutes.

 

If you restore C including the MBR, you will overwrite GRUB stage 1. You will have to restore it afterward. So it's best to restore without MBR or use a tool like super Grub Disk to fix the GRUB.
Mrk

 

Well I woke up and its STILL at that spot. I did a cold restart and my computer did a disk check everything is ok. I'll try the ISO burned to a CD next. Wubi didn't work unfortunately.

 

WUBI downloads files from the web, so if there was Internet connection problem, it would/could not complete.
Mrk

 

There was no problem with my internet and I stopped my HIPS program and let it do its thing. At 2 am I fell asleep and when I woke up it was at the same spot no progress made.

 

Hmm.. would this still be the case if the backup image of C: incl.MBR was created after Grub was installed ?
Sorry to nitpick but I am still somewhat confused.

 

Yup, it would. Because MBR restoration takes into account only the Windows partition, regardless of what exists beyond it.
Mrk

 

Thank you. Just one last question. If I were to restore /boot, and considering
my dual boot set-up with XP, I think that I would need to repair Grub
afterwards using the live CD because the restore will overwrite the MBR
and I would not be able to boot into Windows. Am I right ??
I saw this on the Ubuntu forums:

Re: HOWTO: Restore GRUB (if your MBR is messed up)

1. Pop in the Live CD, boot from it until you reach the desktop.
2. Open a terminal window or switch to a tty.
3. Type "grub"
4. Type "root (hd0,6)", or whatever your harddisk + boot partition numbers are (my /boot is at /dev/sda7, which translates to hd0,6 for grub).
5. Type "setup (hd0)", ot whatever your harddisk nr is.
6. Quit grub by typing "quit".
7. Reboot.

 

Hello,
No, it would not. GRUB does not overwrite Windows data. It appends to it. GRUB is multi-OS friendly. Maybe you should read my GRUB tutorial?
Mrk