Windows 7 – Rob the Geek

Getting Ubuntu to Boot AFTER installing Windows 7

From Google, and the various Linux community forums, this is a fairly common problem so, in an effort to be more useful than those who simply post a link to the GRUB man page, or an article which spells out how dumb it is to install Windows AFTER Ubuntu – I thought I’d drop my experience and the resolution here – I’m bound to need it at some point in the future.

The Fix:

While the suggested Boot-Repair GUI didn’t do the trick for me, the followingÂ did result in an eventual #WIN.

Boot from a Ubuntu LIVE CD/USB
From a terminal, enter the following

```
sudo fdisk -l
```
This will identify the device / drive. For me (and most users) this will tend to be /dev/sda
If you are still uncertain you can also run sudo blkid for more details and review the partition labels & sizes

Mount the Ubuntu boot partition

```
sudo mount /dev/sdXY /mnt
```
```
e.g. sudo mount /dev/sda1 /mnt
```

Run grub-install as below to drop the GRUB2 files back onto the boot partition where they should reside

sudo grub-install --root-directory=/mnt /dev/sdX

e.g. sudo grub-install --root-directory=/mnt /dev/sda

Reboot (into your freshly resurrected Ubuntu installation)
Open a terminal and refresh the GRUB2 menu with:

```
sudoÂ update-grub
```

That’s it.. you SHOULD now have both Ubuntu and Windows 7 detected at boot and be able to choose between them.

Thanks to the Ubuntu Community for this page – and all the others which pointed to different solutions and variants of this fix. If the above doesn’t work for you, Google is your friend – there’s a heap more articles out there which should offer you an eventual solution.

Setting up the EEE 1005PE

This post has been far too long in coming – mainly because some miscrent broke into my car and stole a bunch of my gear – including the charger for my 6 hour old ASUS EEE 1005PE. The replacment charger took over 40 days to source (that’s what you get for living in New Zealand).

Anyway, this georgous wee netbook replaced my vintage EEE 701 4G and came pre loaded with Windows 7 Starter – and a bunch of trialware which took an absolute age to purge from the drive. It’s now dual-booting Win7 and Ubuntu 10.04 (which is my primary OS of choice).

As a side note – under Ubuntu 10.04, the Atheros AR2427Â wireless card fails to be detected due a different hardware device ID of 002c which the ath9k wifi driver in the current (~ June 2010) kernel does not understand. However, all is not lost – simply follow the HOWTO written by James Little to add the patched driver to your current kernal and, 5 minutes later, you’ll have a wireless Ubuntu netbook once again (Thanks James!!)

Windows 7 RTM – The last installation

Windows 7 Packaging So Windows 7 is now released to manufacturing (RTM for you acronym junkies out there) and this is the last time I’ll need to be installing the operating system before it appears in the shops. During the Beta, aside from a few minor issues with hibernate, Windows 7 has been wonderfully stable and, I must say I’m impressed by the new Media Center interface (EngadgetHD have a look at it here).

Anyway – this is a HOWTO for installing the Windows 7 RTM [Get it here] from a USB drive, mainly because it’s faster than doing it from a DVD, and also – because my various DVD drives appear to not enjoy talking to each other. These instructions assume a Windows based operating system, I completed them using Windows Vista.

Continue reading “Windows 7 RTM – The last installation”

Installing Windows 7 (Build 7000)

Windows Logo Wow. I’m in love again.. well, maybe – I’m certainly in LIKE!

A few days ago I wiped out my gaming rig with the intention of installing the latest beta of Windows 7. The Beta was opened up around mid-January and attracted a LOT of attention, and downloads. Personally I grabbed both the 32-bit and 64-bit builds as at some stage I’d like to see if I can get an install running on the EEE.

Installation:

The 32-bit DVD turned out to be a failure, but – since I have a Core 2 Duo I was able to install the 64-bit version without issues, in fact I was struck by just how FAST it installed – I was go to whoa in around 15 minutes. In terms of peripheral detection, everything- including my Leadtek USB DVB-T tuner were found and working right off the bat.

So, first impressions are ‘wow’ and ‘cool’ and ‘I want to replace Vista PERMANENTLY’. If you have a spare machine kicking around at home, I’d fully recommend it.

Post Install:

Media Center – This just works. No fnarkling in the registry, no loading internal webservers and pointing guide downloads to a local source – it just works… with a DVB-T tuner that is – the channel names are captured but I’m not seeing the guide data getting populated within the grid. I have my suspicions that the guide may not be found as my DVB-T card is kinda ancient and may not be picking up the now/next data correctly. I know Mauricio has been testing the Win7 Media Center for a lot longer (and probably has more recent gear than I do) and, given that he’s replaced Vista on his primary media server box, I suspect he has had more sucess in this space.

I haven’t had time (or free PCI slots) to try a traditional tuner and, given the guide data in NZ is only transmitted in band for DVB-T transmissions, I’m not holding my breath.

Edit 02/02/2009: I’ve got the bug!

I wandered into the office at home this afternoon to find my Win7 rig dead. Well, running – but with no display and no ability to wake it up. Apparently others have also seen this behaviour but, unlike those commenting on the article, I have yet to have any sucess in the whole ‘turn it off and on and off and on until it wakes up’ department. So, at the moment – I’ve got a dead PC and no obvious way of sparking it back to life. Granted, it’s Beta – but this seems kind of fundamental so, assuming I can resurrect the box and get Windows 7 talking to me again, I’ll be disabling all power saving features in the hope that things don’t repeat. Failing that, it’s back to WinXP, or Vista, or Ubuntu + WINE.

Edit 03/02/2009: Aaaand we’re back

Managed to get the PC booting again, it may be conincidence, but after popping out the video card and booting off the onboard video, things livened up once more. Reinserted the video card and all back to it’s normal speedy self. Much enjoyment playing around on the system now.