Mesanna’s Weblog

So here’s the story so far.

I had a PC running Windows XP and I set up a dual boot system with Ubuntu. As part of the installation, Ubuntu installs the Grub bootloader and everything’s fine with this. Both Ubuntu and Windows are listed in the Grub menu and I can boot into the Operating System of my choice.

After messing about, I somehow managed to gobble up all the available space on my hard drive and I can’t start Ubuntu (see this post). It seems a bit of PC housekeeping is called for.

I have three hard drives in my system and after moving some files around, I can free up a 25Gb partition for Ubuntu /root. I still don’t fully understand how I managed to fill a 9Gb partition in a couple of weeks, but that’s history now.

Part of the extra space I was creating for Linux was coming from my Windows partition, so I decided to wipe everything and start again.

Now I had read on the web that you can’t just wipe Linux (and the Grub bootloader) if you want to go back to Windows because your system just won’t start – because, hey, you just wiped the bootloader! However since I was formatting and re-partitioning, I figured this didn’t really apply to my situation.

Doh!

I carefully deleted my Linux and Windows partitions. I created and formatted the new partitions and got on with installing Windows. I’d forgotten what a pain it is to have to go to the Windows Update site and download 5,000 critical updates, but all is good, Windows is installed and all my hardware is working. I made a deliberate decision not to install many Windows programs at this stage as I’m trying to wean myself onto Linux full time.

I have to restart my system and I take out the installation CD. Oops, Windows won’t start. An error about no installation disk. Strange. I put the CD back in and reboot. My BIOS always asks me if I want to boot from the CD-ROM drive, so I say no, and Windows starts normally. However, try starting without the Windows CD, it would throw a hissy fit. Bloody Windows

I tried re-booting from the Windows CD and selecting the Recovery option to fix the Master Boot Record from there. No joy. I’m fed up with Windows now and decide just to charge ahead and install Ubuntu.

A little sidebar here ….. Having now installed Windows and Ubuntu back to back, I actually think the Ubuntu installation was simpler and easier. So if anyone reading this is a little intimidated by the thought of installing an operating system from scratch, don’t be! It really is easy. The only complicated thing is the partitioning, and that’s only complicated if you want it to be. If you don’t know what you’re doing, just use the Guided Partitioning Wizard and let Ubuntu do it for you. But I digress…

I get Ubuntu up and running, then restart my system. The Grub menu loads up, but – oh dear – no Windows listed on it!

Now, I don’t believe this to be a huge problem. I know exactly which partition and hard drive Windows is installed upon, so I just need to add the details to Grub. This involves editing the menu.lst file. This is located in /boot/grub. You need to open it via the terminal with sudo, or you won’t be able to save any changes. To do this, type the following:

sudo gedit /boot/grub/menu.lst

Now, although I know what to do, I haven’t actually done it yet. I’m curious to see just how long I can last before I find something that I need Windows for. I’m going to be doing a new web site design soon and I’m curious to see if I’ll be able to manage that without Windows.

I still find it strange how Windows didn’t overwrite the MBR given that this was a completely fresh installation on a newly created partition, but that’s computers, eh