Need Help: Boot managers, Windows, Linux, Dual Boot...

noel · Post by **noel** » June 22, 2006, 9:09 am

I have a small problem I'm hoping to get some help with...

I currently have a work Laptop that has a 40GB Harddrive. I have partitioned 20GB for windows and 20GB for Fedora Core 3. I'm using GRUB as my boot manager.

I'd like to change the setup to be:
Resize the Windows Partition using Partition expert to 30GB. Replace Fedora Core 3 with the new version of Ubuntu. Change the partition manager from GRUB to whatever Ubuntu uses.

My concern is that I don't want to fuck the windows partition or make it inaccessible. I've heard I can just do a format /mbr and I'll get rid of the boot manager, but my concern is that if I do that my windows partition won't be accessible. Is it possible to do that, remove the linux partition using fdisk and still have windows be bootable? I know if I can get rid of the Linux partition and the boot manager, and still have windows bootable, I can accomplish everything I want, but I'm not sure if I can do that and still have windows accessible. I guess I don't know enough about boot managers, but is it possible to remove the Linux partition and still have the boot manager take me into Windows? At that point I could just resize my Windows partition and then install Ubuntu -- overwriting my current boot manager and all would be well.

I'll have all the data backed up, so as a worst case I'll still have everything accessible, I'd just have to reinstall. I'd prefer not to have to do that if at all possible.

Thanks in advance for any thoughts, help, or advice.

Zaelath · Post by **Zaelath** » June 22, 2006, 11:00 pm

Likely this will be annoying at best, tragic at worst if you don't at least suck all your data off the laptop first.

I *usually* find that when you remove the linux partition/boot manager you can usually get windows to boot again, sometimes with automatic recovery, sometimes with much fiddling at the recovery console.

But, I would definitely be ready to do a full reinstall of windows before I started on this venture. But then again, I reinstall windows every 6 months on average without dual boot, so that's nothing new.

noel · Post by **noel** » June 23, 2006, 4:54 pm

Thanks Zae for the insight.

In a normal situation, I'd love to just do a clean install. Unfortunately due to my job, there are some applications and aspects of my Windows installation that I'm unable to reinstall for a variety of reasons.

That said, after backing up my data, I went ahead and tried it. The Ubuntu installation is actually better than it was in the last version. For sure this is the greatest Linux install EVER. I was able to delete the linux partition and resize my windows partition, then install Linux and I'm good to go.

Post by **Sylvus** » June 23, 2006, 5:30 pm

As a bit of an aside, if virtually all of my linux experience is red hat/fedora/cent, how different is Ubuntu?

I've got a dormant box sitting right next to me that I was planning on loading linux onto sometime soon, and I've been hearing good things about Ubuntu.

Hoarmurath · Post by **Hoarmurath** » June 23, 2006, 11:42 pm

Ubuntu is based on Debian, so the package management is quite different. Additionally, some things that are in one place in RH are in other places in Debian, and some things are done a bit differently, so it can be a bit confusing at first if you currently do everything "the RedHat way." The actual software is all the same, though.

noel · Post by **noel** » June 25, 2006, 2:34 am

I liked the previous release of Ubuntu a lot. It's almost dumbed down enough to make a Linux user out of me.

The new release is actually better...

The one thing I'm having a hell of a time with is getting my wireless NIC to work. If it did work, I actually feel like I could use Linux as my primary OS for allof my work stuff.