Dual boot mess.

[Greentea]

I'm very new to Linux but want to switch to it from Windows for all the usual reasons.

I wanted to install Linux along with Win7 so I created a new drive partition - D. When installing, I was presented with the option to install 'Alongside Windows', thinking it would install to the D partition. Of course, it installed literally along side, on the C drive.

It may not make a huge difference but I really wanted it to go into the D partition and be separate. Since the install, my Windows 7 has lost all its sound and the clock is all screwed up. I'm not sure what else.

Since I cannot delete the Linux install in the usual way, by deleting its partition, how then do I delete it? After that, how do I correctly install to the D partition?


Any help is appreciated. Thanks!

 

[wizardfromoz]

... and a nicer thing couldn't happen to Windozey ... naahh, I'm only kidding (Australian wicked sense of humour)

(Wizard appears in a puff of smoke, fire crew arrive and drench him with their fire hose)

Welcome to linux.org @Greentea , albeit under extenuating circumstances.

My Windows expertise (if I ever had any, after 25 years of it) is somewhat rusty, as I had my epithany of blowing away Windows 7 and going totally Linux nearly 4 years ago. But the Windows cavalry will likely be on hand before long, and you will be in safe hands, rest assured

Meanwhile, I'll ask you a few questions and make a few observations which will help both you and those whom will follow me. OK?

OBSERVATION/S

1. Vitally important is to safeguard any personal or important data you have on your Windows install, if you have not already done so ... to external storage is best, even if it means a 64 GB USB stick/pendrive or whatever.

2. Recovery solution is important, eg a Windows install disk or partition if you have access to one. Perhaps not, and hence you're here? Even if your Windows Backup Tool/s still work, that might be useful. The sound and clock can.. always be fixed later. Actually, I think I read here not so long ago about the clock going cockeyed with a dual boot, someone will remind me (I am 3,000 years old, and the memory is not what it was)

QUESTIONS (others may ask more)

1. So does the Linux actually work, and which one is it? eg Ubuntu, Linux Mint, Fedora, whatever? If you have the original install .iso, can you tell us its name? eg linuxmint-18.3-mate-64bit.iso . 32-bit or 64-bit architecture?

2. If it is Yes to the above (in that case you will see what is referred to as a Grub Menu, likely with your Linux at first choice and Windows 2nd)), and it is one of the Debian-based Distros (distributions) such as Ubuntu or Linux Mint, then you can go to Terminal (Ctrl-Alt-t is a shortcut), type in

inxi -Fxs

and it will generate output that you can copy and paste up to here, that will be useful, and probably make Q1. redundant.

Cheers, and I will keep an eye, or my crystal ball, on your Thread

Chris Turner
wizardfromoz

BTW - Pearl Harbour Day, eh? Easy to remember your birthday . Encouraging is that we have a good spread of Members aged from 55 - 75, and many of them end up saying "Why didn't I try this years ago???"

 

[atanere]

Hi @Greentea, and welcome! Wizard has you off on a solid start. Take things slow and easy as mistakes with partitions can be disastrous. As he suggests, please backup any critical files from Windows in case something goes wrong.

I'm at work on my phone, so I won't go too far either. I'll point out your mistake though... at the point you picked "install alongside Windows" you should have instead picked "Something else." That would have let you install into the partition that you created, except you need to realize that Linux does not use C: or D: to identify drives or partitions... so care would still have been needed to make sure you did not overwrite your Windows partition by mistake.

Or, if you had not created a new partition in the first place, then "install alongside Windows" would have worked fine too, and it should provide an option for you to set the size of the new partition at that point.

Anyway, it is possible to do as you ask and delete the Linux you've installed and then reinstall it into the partition you created for it. Or maybe to just start over. Like anything with Linux (or computers in general)... there is more than one way to proceed. So I'll step back for you to respond to Wizard's questions and get back to my job.

He might have asked this, but let me again be clear with this question: Do you have a bootable Windows 7 installation DVD? We hope you don't have to reinstall Windows, but there is a tool on the install DVD that will repair the Windows bootloader, if we need to do that at some point.

Cheers

 

[Greentea]

Thanks guys! I appreciate the help. Would've replied sooner only I 'duh' destroyed the MBR, got locked out of Windows, then corrupted my Linux install on the pen drive, so off to a rocky start. I re-installed Linux to the pen drive on another machine which, when installed on machine A, restored the boot record. I'm using Mint 18.3 Mate.

I've toyed with Ubuntu and Bodhi over the years but never as yet managed to cross the divide. Off topic, but I think 'switching to Linux' is not the issue. Plug it in, it's beautiful, it works. The problem is Windows-only applications that you become dependent on, then have to find replacements for. I've never been a fan of Libre or Gnumeric. This for me, is the only obstacle, at least once past the install debacle.

Atanere, you're right - 'Do something else' was exactly what I was thinking where I went wrong. I misinterpreted 'along side of'. The dev team might consider revising to something like 'along side of existing OS on same drive letter'.


Now kind of reluctant to uninstall/reinstall Mint to D. Even with backups it's really no joy doing a fresh install and losing all your settings and applications. If I'm very confident of the steps, I might give it a go, otherwise, both OS boot just fine from C.


Much appreciate the help!!

 

[atanere]

Even with backups it's really no joy doing a fresh install and losing all your settings and applications.

For some, that's true... but I do a fair amount of fresh installs and actually prefer them myself. If you haven't discovered it yet, Mint 18.3 now includes a backup tool called Timeshift that you may well be interested in. It creates "snapshots" of your current system so that you can restore them later if disaster strikes. Our resident Wizard has a nice ongoing tutorial about using Timeshift effectively... check it out here.

Cheers

 

[Greentea]

Thank you. I'll take a peek at Timeshift. It sounds like Windows System Restore. Oh I forgot - I have the 64-bit Mint. Any tips on safe uninstall from C would be welcome. ; )

If I decide to try another distro I think it's much easier and safer to rip it out of a dedicated partition.

 

[Condobloke]

I have a shortened summary of timeshift....(with all due apologies to Wiz )


This should be read in conjunction with Wiz'z topic....NOT instead of it

WIZ's TIMESHIFT TOPIC

Spoiler: Timeshift Summary

Click on menu and type in ... Timeshift


you will be asked/prompted for your password.....type it in....you will see NO responss on the screen...hit enter after typing it and Timeshift will open


Click on Settings


If you have more than one hard drive connected they will show here


select the one you wish to save your backup to....then click on close. ((You can save it to the same hardrive/ssd the OS is on. It makes better sense to save it to another hdd/ssd in my opinion. If you dont have another hdd/sdd installed you can always do that later....put it on the list of things to do. (yes...keep a list)....or if you have an external hard drive which you can connect via usb, plug it in....close timehsift and then open it again...it will recognise the added drive))


You will now be back at the main window of Timeshift


Click on Create


Timeshift will simply start making a snapshot of your system as it is right now. It will save that snapshot to the spot you chose.


Simple. (and it works)

 

[Greentea]

Thank you! I'll take a look as soon as my install is settled.

 

[atanere]

Any tips on safe uninstall from C would be welcome.

Well, you should realize that Linux is NOT installed in the "C:" partition. Linux cannot install into NTFS, so the "install alongside of Windows" process split your C: for you so that Linux could install into a filesystem that it can use (probably ext4, if you made no changes at that point). Run Gparted (from Mint) to see how your hard drive is currently partitioned.

This gets to the point where I mentioned having a Windows bootable install DVD. If you boot into Windows, and go into Disk Management... you can delete the partition that holds Linux, and then you can expand your C: back into that space to recover some or all of what Linux set up (there is probably at least one other partition also, but it may not be continuous). But "safely" still depends on you. (Hint: BACKUP!)

The problem is that after you delete the Linux partition with Windows, your computer will probably not boot anything anymore. The GRUB bootloader that Linux installed to boot both systems will be confused. You said above that you "destroyed the MBR"... and maybe that is the same or similar to what I'm describing. The Windows fix that I have in mind is that you would need to boot up on a Windows install DVD and get to a Command Prompt... (from memory) I think you need to follow a path to "Repair Windows" to get to the Command Prompt. Maybe this is what you did already. When you're at the Windows Command Prompt, you have to issue two commands:

bootrec /fixmbr
bootrec /fixboot

These commands from the Windows DVD will restore the original Windows bootloader to the MBR. After that, Windows should boot again, and you could go back to reinstalling Linux whichever way you want to go. But again, if you choose "Something else".... you will need to be careful and pay attention to the partitioning method that Linux uses.... you can still hose things up. It's actually probably better to use the "install alongside of Windows" method since you've been through that (but don't create any partition for Linux beforehand) and then you could make the partition sizes more along what you want them to be.

I don't know if this is worth the trouble and/or risk to you or not. We don't want you to trash your Windows accidentally, but you haven't shown us your partitioning layout so we're kind of guessing in the dark. Besides your C: partition with Windows, you may have another partition (D: or sometimes no drive letter at all) that holds Windows Recovery files that you may need to protect too.

 

[Greentea]

Thanks.

'The problem is that after you delete the Linux partition with Windows, your computer will probably not boot anything anymore.'

Exactly. This is exactly what I did and that is exactly what happened. When I used the Windohs install CD, the first thing to appear was 'This will erase your OS', or something very similar. The last time I tried to 'repair' my Win OS with this, it did just that, wiped it clean.

So as of now, case closed. I'll live with the two 'along side' each other, hop sides and transit to Mint. Looking forward to it!


Much obliged for all the pointers!