Dual boot: Windows 8 + Ubuntu 14.04

I've written an extensive, step-by-step tutorial to installing and configuring Windows 8 (or windows 8.1) and Ubuntu (14.04 Trusty Tahr) in a dual-boot, side-by-side configuration on a real, production machine - Asus VivoBook (Ultrabook) with UEFI, Secure Boot and GPT, including preliminary reading and preparation steps, Windows 8 installation, Ubuntu installation, hardware setup, disk and partition layout change, resizing, shrinking and creation of new partitions, bootloader setup, tests in both operating systems, additional tips and tricks on data backup, system imaging, recovery, GRUB, GParted, Clonezilla, and more. Enjoy.

http://www.dedoimedo.com/computers/dual-boot-windows-8-ubuntu.html


Cheers,
Mrk

 

Nice tutorial
Thanks for sharing your knowledge.

 

Thanks for this tutorial, right at the time I'm thinking about it

However on your article you create a primary partition for Linux, whereas on another tutorial (dualboot Win7 + Ubuntu) you create an extended partition first, then linux partitions inside.
Which method do you advise for a Windows 8/Ubuntu dualboot (without UEFI, GPT) ? Also, in case someone changes its mind and uninstall Ubuntu, which method do you prefer to restore the MBR and thus remove GRUB ? (Acronis restore, Win8 DVD boot with a "bootrec.exe /fixmbr", GParted ?).

I'm waiting Linux Mint 17 to be released and I may try for fun

 

This is GPT, so all partitions are primary.
If you are doing it with the ms-dos partition table, then yes, try to create an extended partition, if there are any left.
What's the layout currently, btw? And yes, fixmbr is the simple method to fix it - you don't even have to remove the data from the ubuntu partition.
Mrk

 

Thanks for the explanation. Currently I have 3 partitions :
- 350Mo NTFS "reserved for system"
- 136Go NTFS C:
- 749Go NTFS E: (Data)

I think I will resize my C: partition, as only 29Go are used, and will make space for Linux there.

Thanks
Guillaume.

 

That's an option. I guess data is heavily used.
Mrk

 

250Go free on the Data partition, not full but often growing. Might free space here too, I guess 50Go would already be a lot.

Guillaume.

 

does the procedure will be drastically different with Linux Mint ?

 

Linux Mint 17 is based on Ubuntu 14.04, si I guess it should be the same.

Regards,
Guillaume.

 

thanks

 

Hello,

I tried dual booting Linux Mint 17 Cinnamon x64 with Windows 8.1 Pro x64, and I wasn't successful.
From Windows I resized my DATA partition and made 50GB left at the end of the disk.
I booted the Linux Mint DVD, checked in GParted that the free space was correctly seen, but decided for a first try to let Linux Mint handle it and followed the automatic install.
Windows 8 was detected, Linux Mint installed in the free space and installed grub.

After a reboot, grub lists Linux and Windows as boot entries, but when I select Windows, I have a blinking cursor on a black screen, nothing happens.
When I select Linux, it boots perfectly.

I inserted my Windows 8 DVD and booted it, selected repair mode, asked for a command prompt, and did a bootrec /fixmbr and bootrec /fixboot.
Now my Windows is booting fine but obviously I wiped the grub menu.

What did I do wrong ? I do not think that creating partitions manually in gparted would do any change.

EDIT : from what I read on the Internet, it may be because grub booted right to the Windows partition, whereas it should boot to the "System Reserved" one ?

Regards,
Guillaume.

 

I did installed Mint 17 few days ago alongside Win8.1.1 and all isfine (grub took over the boot and i can select windows boot manager to launch win8. what you forgot to do is to select "something else" at the preinstallation to separate your linux reserved space in 3 partitions (/ , swap and /home) then install Mint. Also Win8 fast startup must be disabled and secureboot also disabled (if possible)

 

I tried again, but same blinking cusor while trying to boot Windows 8.

I disabled Fast Boot on Windows 8 (it was On by default apparently), rebooted and checked the option was still Off, then installed Linux Mint, I created the partitions when selecting "something else".
Linux still starts fine from Grub, but not Windows. By editing Grub entry, I can see that it boots to the "system reserved" partition.

I have no UEFI or GPT, just a very standard BIOS, a system reserved partition, and Windows 8 (+ a Data partition).
I tried a "sudo update-grub" from Linux, then a reboot, to no avail (same problem).

Will try again later

Regards,
Guillaume.

 

does the mount point is on sda/hda ?

there is my GUI/UEFI partition table

http://i.imgur.com/k2gAmZH.jpg

you can see sda8,10,11 are my Mint partitions (respectively: root, swap and home)

Win8.1.1 is installed as sd4, and sd5 is a Windows NTFS data partition

Sd2,6,7,9 are ASUS-made partitions containing the recovery partition of Win8 OEM


i proceeded this way to install Mint after Win8 was updated to win8.1.1 (updating win8 to win8.1.1 after Linux installed will corrupt grub)

1- on win8.1.1, using Disk Management, i created and allocated a single partition of 150+gb for Mint. ( ASUS partition s a bit messy so i had to shrink/extend 2 partitions , give them new letters, etc...)
2- disabled fast startup , rebooted , opened UEFI , disabled Secureboot , set my usb as first boot device, exited
3- launched Mint live CD
4- open Gparted, checked if my allocated space was recognized, it was, formatted it as ext4, then click on install icon of mint ,
5- during preinstallation, selected "something else"
6- create the 3 partitions described above
- 50gb as ext4 partition set as /
- 4gb as ext4 set as Swap
- 100+gb ext4 set as /home
7- then the installation was launched. after Mint asked me to restart or keep using Live; i restart
8- grub took over the boot , select choice 4, i went back to UEFI , re-enable Secureboot, exited
9- launched Mint , it ran fine;
10- rebooted, selected "Windows Boot Manager (3rd choice)
11- launched Win81.1, is ran fine
12- went back to mint and updated it.

i am a very beginner with Linux so i guess i was lucky to complete this task at first try

 

I don't see anything different between what you did and me, except I don't have UEFI and SecureBoot. I also have Windows 8.1 installed first, and installed Linux Mint afterwards. I have a single HDD, sda.

I may try handling the boot menu with EasyBCD on Windows, it should work too.

Regards,
Guillaume.

 

yes , but be careful, Mint is still detected as Unbuntu.

Bonne chance a toi (i am also French )

 

It works with EasyBCD. When I select Windows, Windows 8 boots up as usual, and when I select Linux Mint, it launches the grub menu, where I have to press enter a second time, but at the end Linux boots.

Finally (champagne !)

 

congrats

as i always said "each sytem is unique"

 

I think dual booters will face a problem if they install ubuntu and one of its derivatives like Xubuntu or Kubuntu or Linux Mint, because the second distros bootloader will overwrite the first distros bootloader.
This is because the boot configuration seems to have /boot/efi/EFI/ubuntu hard wired in it somewhere.
Creating a separate ESP for the second distro is also not a solution.

Please have a look at THIS article where the problem is descibed in detail.

 

That guy always complicates things a lot when he talks about shims, efi, bootloader.
In my experience, nothing sinister happened. So not sure.
Mrk

 

I've always used EasyBCD and never had any issues dual booting.

 

Only for UEFI and only if one dual boots Ubuntu and one of its derivatives. (U)(Ku)(Xu)buntu with say Fedora will be OK
according to the article.
EasyBCD was not compatible with UEFI. Is it now compatible ?

 

I am using Win8.1.1 / Xubuntu / Kali (debian) on same UEFI/GPT ultra-portable; the trick is after installing a new distro , just use the wanted bootloader by login in the respective distro and " sudo update-grub" , that is all. it works flawlessly , i tried on it Mint KDE/XFCE/LXDE, ubuntu/Xubuntu/Lubuntu, etc... nothing bad happened with the bootloader; only Kali replaced grub2 by grub1, but with the trick i wrote above, i got back grub2. and it recognized all Oses.

 

Mint 17 has this pointer in their release notes:-

"EFI support
If your system is using secureBoot, turn it off.
Note: Linux Mint 17 places its boot files in /boot/efi/EFI/ubuntu to work around this bug."

https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/ source/grub2/ bug/1242417

guest, haven't tried yet, but if your trick works, all's fine.

 

yes you turn it off during install then you turn it on again after all updates