Putting 2 OS's on 1 HDD

[luke127]

Hey guys. Sorry for the silly title but couldn't remember the word that we use lol. Anyway I am thinking about putting Linux on my windows 7 PC. How would I go about this? I know I need to partition the drive then what?

 

[MindoverMaster]

Dual booting? If you want to install Linux alongside Win 7, you need to do nothing. Just make sure you insttall 7 first, so that grub can become the boot sector.

BTW, how is this hardware related?

 

[patonb]

Because he either needs 2 harddrives, or partion his old drive into at least 2 sections.

All relates to setting up his hardware to run a dual boot.

 

[MindoverMaster]

He said two OS's on one HDD, patonb.

And partitioning is not hardware related.

 

[luke127]

Uh can we stop arguning about the section and just answer the question! Yes dual booting is what I am after. So I just stick the disk in and install Linux onto the partioned drive?

 

[carnageX]

Uh can we stop arguning about the section and just answer the question! Yes dual booting is what I am after. So I just stick the disk in and install Linux onto the partioned drive?

MoM did answer you..

Yes, just insert the disc, boot off of it, and then you can partition your drive from the Ubuntu install wizard. Make sure you select the option to install on a partition, and not the entire disk, otherwise you'll format your entire drive.

 

[patonb]

Also make sure you back up your windows install, because youre going to have to shrink your drive to make empty space. Shrinking can, rarely, destroy the install.

 

[luke127]

How could it destroy the install?? As long as I don't shrink it to 1 GB I should be fine! I have 400 GB of free space so I will take out 100 GB accordingly

 

[carnageX]

Something could go wrong during the resize and corrupt the partition itself, partition table, or MBR, etc. It's just always a good idea to have important data backed up just in case something were to go wrong.

 

[luke127]

Will take this into consideration thanks Carnage.