Majority of people intending on installing Ubuntu would not want to lose their windows Operating system.these can easily be achieved through a process of dual booting which simply means booting 2 or more operating systems from one PC.
With Ubuntu Feisty fawn dual booting has not been easier.And it is possible to install Ubuntu on your Computer without altering anything,in fact your windows would be just like it has always been.I personally currently dual boot Ubuntu with Windows vista not only was the process easier and faster than installing vista its self.it has also been stable no wahala at all.
We are going use to senerios
1-Dual Booting with a fresh XP Install.
2- Dual Booting Ubuntu and XP with XP already installed
1-Dual Booting with a fresh XP Install.
This senerio concerns installing Windows from scratch and then creating the dual-boot.
What you will need:
- Windows XP Boot Disk
- Ubuntu 7.04 Boot Disk
Make sure your computer is set to boot from a CD.
Most computers already do that by defaults.but just in case yours doesnt then go into your BIOS. From there go to “Boot” and go to “Boot Priorities”. Make sure CD-ROM is set to boot first and you’re all set.
Installing Windows XP
Now Open your CD tray and switch off your system.make sure the system is completely off.then insert the XP Boot CD in the CD tray close the tray and start the system.
A blue MS-DOS screen will load up first asking you if you want to install drivers or run an Automated System Recovery. Just wait for them to go by and then Windows will begin to load files needed to install XP.
You will now see a setup Screen.Press enter
Agree with the usual EULA agreement by pressing f8
Now to the important part of this installation. You will now see a screen where you will tell Windows XP to install itself. Since you want to Dual boot your system in that case you should not give XP all your drive You need to create a partition for XP . Press the C button on your keyboard to create a new partition.Note if You already have windows installed on your system and you want to do a fresh install be sure to delete the old partition by pressing D.then You can now create a New partition.
You will now see a screen in which you can edit the size of our new partition. Depending on your hard drive size and preference, determine the amount of gigabytes (GB) you are going to give XP to use . After you have chosen the size hit Enter to create the partition.
Note –
- Windows XP requires at least 1.5 gigabytes of hard drive space.
- 1000 megabytes (MB)= 1 gigabyte (GB). So if you wants to give say 9GB to XP that would be 9000MB
You will now be brought back to the screen install screen Highlight the new partition you created (leave out unallocated space you will need it for Ubuntu). and press Enter to install. The next screen will ask you how you would like to format the partition (FAT32 or NTFS). The choice is up to you and what you prefer. -XP works better with NTFS-. Regardless of your choice, choose the quick option as this will make the installation go a whole lot quicker
Now press F to Format the drive and begin the Installtion of XP on your systetm
Once that is done you will see this
Then these
Then finally These
Finally you have installed windoze sorry windows..now remember that during the installation you did not use all your partitions for windows…now the unused partition is where we are going to install ubuntu.It is a raw partition meaning that it has not been formatted to any file system.and you can see it if you go to Control planel/Administration tools/Cmputer management/disk management.You will see it has an “unallocated partition” in black youcan check the size cause that would be the size of your UBuntu
Note* if these is not the case and you installed windows on the whole drive .No probs just go to the second tutorials you will learn how to dual boot in that kind of situation
OK Now that you have installed windows.its now time to install UBUNTU.
Get your Ubuntu CD.
Now make insert it in your CD tray,shut down,close the tray,and start your system. the ubuntu CD would boot up.when it does you will see these bootup screen
Highlight “Start or Install Ubuntu” and press enter the loader would take some time going back and forth but the patient.after some times you will see these screen
Double click the install icon and choose your language
Next pick your location
Select Your Key Board Layout most Commonly used is U.S English.
Ubuntu will then load the disk partitioner to determine where it’s going to be installed. Choose “Manual – use the largest continuous free space”. This will automatically select the unpartitioned space That left unsed during the XP install. Click Forward.
Next you will see the migrating assistance which is for helping you import some of your Windows account settings like wallpapers and bookmarks into Ubuntu.however i would advise u don’t tick any account cause am not sure of how effective the migrant assistance is.So click forward
Time for your user name and password *remember to turn off CAPS
On the “Ready to install” screen, you’ll see that Ubuntu now has enough information to commence the installation. In the summary under Migrate Assistant, it should say “XP (loader)”. This means that regardless of whether Ubuntu found any user account to migrate, it certainly knows that Windows XP is installed on the other partition and is aware of it.Click Install
Now when the installion complete you have to remove the cd and shut down.when you restart Note* that when the Grub screen comes up there will be an entry “Other operating systems” and beneath that “Microsoft Windows XP Professional” (or Home, whichever version you’re using). By default Ubuntu will load itself after 10 seconds.
Well i guess that is it.You have your Ubuntu XP dual boot! please let me know if You encountered any problem following this steps.
