4

I've tried two days now to get ubuntu AND windows 7 to dual boot...

What is the current status? I have completely removed win 8 and installed ubuntu 13.04 to the whole SSD. You may ask, why I have done this? Because MacAfee destroyed my win8 completely so I couldnt even boot win8 anymore. and I also couldnt get into any repair menus! ok, lets go on. After installing ubuntu, I used LVM to make two logical partitions, one ubuntu root partition with 40GB, and one for windows, 180GB. There is also a efi-partition and a swap partition afaik. My idea now is to install windows 7 on the logical partition next to ubuntu.

In the UEFI boot menu I disabled "secure boot".

Option A: Try to boot from USB (cost: 8 hours, result: epic fail!):

  1. created a bootable usb
  2. plugged in laptop
  3. started laptop
  4. pressed ESC immediately
  5. the usb device was listed
  6. I chose the usb device to boot
  7. nothing happens, instead the defaul Ubuntu grub 2 shows up!

So my next idea is to try to boot from a burned win7 dvd!!

Option B: Try to boot from dvd:

  1. bought a USb disk writer
  2. bought dvds
  3. burned my win 7 iso directly to dvd with K3B(ubuntu burn program)
  4. turned off pc, and turned on again
  5. pressed ESC to get to the boot options
  6. NO cdrom Boot option available!!!!

here is a screenshot of the contents of win7 dvd(which I think is the same when it was on usb) :

enter image description here

THE NEXT STEP

Next I must add a new boot option in efi for the dvd, so the computer can boot from it. But I dont know how exactly the Path to the *.efi File is: the "add boot option" interface looks like this:

enter image description here

so my question finally is what is the path to the .efi file when its on a dvd?

UPDATE: SOLVED(kind of)

Thank you guys for trying to help me :) I ended up solving this mess the way that I only have windows 8. Sorry, but after 2,5 days (8+8+4 hours) I have no more energy to try out more things. So what I did to get windows 8 on the whole disk was:

  1. Go to efi menu
  2. Disable Secure Boot Enable CSM (I think otherwise my dvd drive would'nt be recognized)
  3. Stick in ubuntu live usb
  4. open terminal
  5. use fdisk and delete EVERY PARTITION (gparted wasnt able to do anything of help)
  6. shut down the notebook
  7. plug out ubuntu stick
  8. plug in dvd with windows8 via extern dvd writer
  9. start notebook, and boot from win8 dvd(win7 didnt work, it told me "windows can't be installed on this drive because it's a GPT partition style. WTF? )
  10. installed windows (end of the story)

now when i need ubuntu i run a vm or boot from live usb.

UPDATE 2: THE REAL SOLUTION

After a few days of Win8 I recognized that not all of my old win7 programs worked, even with several compatibility options. So I decided to give it another try. First I downloaded Rufus and wanted to create a bootable win7 usb stick with it. So I selected my win7 professional N iso and pressed OK. Unfortunately, it failed with an error message like "error while formatting" or something. After that I realized that my usb drive was literally destroyed. I tried to reformat it with windows8 partition tool, but that didnt work.

Again I searched for partition tools in the web and I found what I now think is the best tool for partitioning ever! It is - drum roll - Parted Magic v. 2013.06.15 !! Steps to solution begin here

  1. I downloaded the ISO file and burned it to a dvd.
  2. made a backup of my files
  3. rebooted my laptop with the parted magic image
  4. Started GParted (other Gparted versions didnt work)
  5. Created a complete new empty Partition table in GPT scheme (windows 7 can only be installed on GPT partion tables when the boot manager is UEFI, and it's 64bit systems)
  6. Created a NTFS-partition of half the ssd size, for my data
  7. extremely important you must left out an unpartitioned space of at least 25GB(in my case I left 100GB unpartitioned) because in the installation setup of windows, windows automatically creates all the partitions he wants and needs for a clean windows installment.
  8. Applied all the changes(so my whole disk was formatted an all data is lost. therefore I made a backup of my files)
  9. Put in windows7 installation dvd
  10. Reboot, now the win7 installation loads
  11. Select the unpartitioned space to install
  12. Everything goes fine. You now have a perfect clean windows7 installation!
  13. You may need to install missing drivers for your specific hardware. In my case I downloaded drivers for my Asus UX31A. After that all was setup.

More info about step 7, that lead me to the solution: Windows and GPT FAQ

Thank you all for your help.

Improve this question
7
  • Considering Windows 7 does not support Secure Boot you should be able to just simply install Windows 7 and Ubuntu. Here is a related question: superuser.com/questions/315212/… be sure you modify the boot order of your devices. The path to the efi file is device path/efi/
    – Ramhound
    Commented Jun 21, 2013 at 14:51
  • tahnks for the quick answer, but i need the concrete path. what is the device? what is path? and it must end with a .efi file. i will try several things now. thanks
    – artgrohe
    Commented Jun 21, 2013 at 15:17
  • oh and the related question is not related. its just the headline that sounds similar. but the content is strongly different. he wants to install ubuntu. i want to install windows
    – artgrohe
    Commented Jun 21, 2013 at 15:19
  • You have to determine the path based on where the driver you want to supply. I read the related question and you can apply the knowlege to get Windows and Ubuntu installed.
    – Ramhound
    Commented Jun 21, 2013 at 15:32
  • You say you "used LVM to make two logical partitions." LVM doesn't create logical partitions, though; it creates logical volumes, and Windows can't use Linux's logical volumes. Thus, you may have gone deeply down a dead-end street on this one -- or you may simply be miscommunicating. I recommend you run the Boot Info Script and post a link to the RESULTS.txt file that it generates. This will clarify how your system is currently configured, which is necessary to offer a solution that's anything more than a wild guess.
    – Rod Smith
    Commented Jun 21, 2013 at 18:45

1 Answer 1

Reset to default
4
  1. created a bootable usb

How exactly did you do this? I suspect you followed some old tutorial and ended up with a non-UEFI USB installer.

The easiest way to create a UEFI USB installer for Win7 is by using Rufus on a Windows PC (see Partition scheme and target system type in screenshot below):

1

You can do it manually if you want, but why go to all that trouble?

Improve this answer
3
  • oh I didnt know about rufus. I found 3 other usb installers, none worked. Sounds like rufus would have worked... but its to late now. I have solved my problem the other way. I updated my post
    – artgrohe
    Commented Jun 27, 2013 at 7:56
  • Yep, if you see point #9 where you say Win7 refused to install on a GPT partition, that was because the setup media wasn't booted in UEFI mode. Anyway, now it doesn't matter but it's just something to remember for next time.
    – Karan
    Commented Jun 27, 2013 at 15:06
  • Please see my updated post for the real solution
    – artgrohe
    Commented Jul 1, 2013 at 7:58

You must log in to answer this question.

Not the answer you're looking for? Browse other questions tagged .