dualbooting Vista and Linux

Once you get the LiveCD booted, click /System/Administration/Partition Editor and tell me what hd's are listed and in what order.

 

First one is my intern drive. It is called /dev/sda
My external drive is second and is called /dev/sde
I have two partitions on this second drive. /dev/sde1 is a NTFS one.
/dev/sde2 is a ext4 partition with ubuntu on it.
I partitioned them so that ubuntu is first, then I have some room dedicated for swap files and after that the NTFS partition comes.

When I installed GRUB, I selected /dev/sde. I didn't select a partition.

 

OK. This tells me that Ubuntu is seeing the internal drive as the first boot drive. So even if Grub is installed in its MBR, the machine won't see it with the BIOS setup we have.

So here is where things get tricky. We have to make the BIOS see the external drive as sda instead of sde or we will be forced to put Grub in the MBR of the internal drive or else modify the Vista boot loader to chain to Grub.

Reboot and enter the BIOS setup again and see if there are any other options under either "removeable," "harddisk" or "other devices" that could possibly be your external drive. Is there possibly a "SCSI 1?" If not, we may just be faced with the fact that your BIOS just doesn't have the option to make the external drive sda.

 

Under removable device priority I can set USB-ZIP0 : Generic USB Disk first.
I can't do that with my usb drive unplugged.

Hd priority is set as add-in cards first.
Boot sequence is set has CD/DVD first, Removable second, thirth disabled and boot other devices disabled.
When booting I get an message that there is not system disk.

 

OK. Your BIOS just won't let us do what we want. So let's see if Vista will.
Check this link and see if you can use it to add Ubuntu to your Vista boot menu. Scroll down to the part about adding Ubuntu to your Vista menu.

 

EasyBCD won't let me select the drive where Ubuntu is installed on.
It only let's me choose my internal drive.
I am trying some things ATM.

 

That's wierd. Does Vista see the NTFS partition on the drive? Can you see the drive in Drive Manager?

You said you had the Vista MBR backed up, so maybe its time to face the music and install Grub there. You won't have to reinstall Ubuntu to do that. You can boot the LiveCD and do it in a couple of minutes in a terminal.

I'm worried that if nothing is seeing the external drive as a bootable drive, that if you put grub in the MBR of the Vista drive, you won't be able to boot anything. So be positive that you have the ability to restore the MBR before putting Grub there.

 

Yes, Vista recognizes and sees all my partitions on my external drive.
My Ubuntu partition is set as primary and active.

 

Should I get the 2.0 beta?

 

2.0 beta of what?

edit: You mean of EasyBCD. I just checked their forum and it seems the problem is with some external drives. Apparently, some are just not bootable. Which would explain why it's not showing in your BIOS options.

It could be that your only solution will be to create a small partition on your Vista drive and install Ubuntu there. When you do that, you can use that partition as "/" the root partition, and choose the external drives partitions as "/home" and "swap." That way you can keep the partition on the Vista drive fairly small.

Vista's Drive Manager has the option to "shrink" the C:\ partitions but, personally, I'd use the Partition Manager on the Unbuntu LiveCD to do it. All you'd need is 5 - 10 gb, depending on the number of apps you wanted installed.

Create the partition first, and then when you install, choose the "manual" option so you can select the new partition on sda as "/" and sde2 as "/home" and the swap partition on sde as "swap." When you choose where to install grub, make it the "/" partition on sda and not the MBR. (sda,1) and not (sda) Then you can use EasyBCD to add it to your Vista boot menu.

 

EasyBCD

 

Thought so. See the edited portion of my previous post.

 

Ok thanks, I will try to install Ubuntu on my internal drive since there is no other option.
Thanks for your help Lewmur.

Regards,

-Demonon.

 

You're welcome. Good luck.

 

I did what you advised me. A "/" partition on my main drive and "home" on my second one. I also installed GRUB on the "/" partition.
Still, with the help of EasyBCD there comes no extra screen which asks me if I want to boot into Ubuntu. Even if I try installing NeoGrub.

BTW, there is no sign of GRUB in msconfig either.

 

This is what EasyBCD shows:

There are a total of 2 entries listed in the Vista Bootloader.
Bootloader Timeout: 5 seconds.
Default OS: Microsoft Windows Vista

Entry #1

Name: Microsoft Windows Vista
BCD ID: {current}
Drive: Active Boot Partition
Bootloader Path: \Windows\system32\winload.exe
Windows Directory: \Windows

Entry #2

Name: Ubuntu
BCD ID: {53a07fbf-31ad-11de-9795-001d9220ed48}
Drive: U:\
Bootloader Path: \NST\NeoGrub.mbr

 

You don't need NeoGrub. Open EasyBCD, click Add/Remove Entry button and then click the Linux button. Two text boxes should appear with the top one saying Grub. The bottom one where you select the Linux partition. Click the down arrow and select the partition on the first drive that says Linux Native. Now click Add Entry and you are done. Reboot the computer and you should have an option that says NeoSmart Linux. Choose that and it should bring up the Grub menu.

 

Nope, still absolutely nothing.
Is it wise to check if GRUB is installed correctly to the partition.
Is there a way to install GRUB through the live cd?

 

When you say "nothing," do you mean there is no NeoSmart Linux option or that the option doesn't bring up the Grub menu? If the entry is there but doesn't work, then yes, you can boot the LiveCD and use it to make sure Grub is properly installed.

 

When I say nothing I mean there comes no menu at all.
My PC boots like it boots without adding Ubuntu in the Grub menu.

 

What Grub menu? You should be looking at Vista's boot menu. Not a Grub menu. Did you use EasyBCD's NeoGrub to create a Grub menu? If so, I'll have to investigate how to back you out of that.

edit: Open EasyBCD. Click the Add/Remove Entries button. A window should open showing the entries in the Vista boot loaders menu. What are the entries? If one of them is NeoGrub, highlight it and click the Remove NeoGrub button. You should be left with two entries. Vista and NeoSmart Linux. Is that what you have?

 

The people on the "Neosmart.net/forums" helped me with a triple boot which I would
have never got going without them.
Go into the "Easybcd" section and ask for help. They are knowledgeable and friendly.
Hope this helps you.

 

Sorry I formulated it wrong.
I did what you asked without adding NeoGrub.
EBCD has two options, Vista and NeoSmart Linux, but I don't get any options asking me if I want to boot into Ubuntu.

 

Thanks Shankle,

I will check that site out too for more information.

 

NeoSmart Linux is the option to bring up the Ubuntu grub menu. When you first turn on the computer you should get a screen saying Vista and NeoSmart Linux. Choose NeoSmart Linux and the Ubuntu boot menu should appear. If you don't get those two choices, run EasyBCD again and make sure the "Timeout" is not set to zero.