Tutorial : Dual booting Ubuntu and Windows XP: with Win XP already installed and having NTFS partitions

Dual booting Ubuntu and Windows XP: with Win XP already installed and having NTFS partitions. Ubuntu has taken by storm as a popular flavor of Linux. This has happened because Canonical (the makers of Ubuntu), has adopted a unique strategy for marketing Ubuntu. It not only rests at that; but the OS has undergone a lot of improvements and is ready to catch the eye of PC users, who somewhat fear the “text” mode, by radically upgrading the UI.

Enough said; let’s move on to our target.

I’ll explain you in short, the situation in which I was. That would probably be easy for to relate to.

My notebook specs: Dell Inspiron 1420, 2GB DDR2 RAM, 128MB Nvdia Graphics, 160GB SATA HDD, DVD Combo drive.

Situation: My hard drive had configuration like this:

Since I wanted to dual boot the system; I needed to make room for Ubuntu. That would mean reconfiguring the whole file system or resize partitions using any partition tool.

The easiest way to dual boot Ubuntu with XP, is getting XP installed first, and then installing Ubuntu. The reason being, Windows needs itself to be installed in the master drive (C drive). If you do it other way around, you might end up screwing up your bootloader. I found Ubuntu’s bootloader (GRUB) to be friendly (it understands the Windows installation its location).

So the point to remember is : Install windows XP first and then install Ubuntu.

A 10 GB partition was quite sufficient for Windows XP, as all my program files get stored onto my D drive which is large enough. Ubuntu can enjoy itself on a drive which is of 20GB. Its too much, still, with a large HDD, it can be worth it, since, you want to learn Ubuntu and keep installing its free programs.

The re-configuration of my HDD and creating new partitions and then again installation of Win XP, was pointless in this case, as I felt it would be okay to sacrifice my Stuff0 drive. (You can choose any drive you want, depending on your data intensity).
Note of caution: Back up all of your drives before starting this. Get a portable (you can borrow it, as I did!). Copy all the data which means to you.

You need to only COPY PASTE your data onto any external media. Do not CUT and PASTE. Cut paste is NOT required here and it also takes some more time.

Next, format the partition where you want Ubuntu to be installed. Right click the partition and click “format”. Then select the checkbox “Quick Format”. The partition shall be formatted in NTFS format. That shouldn’t matter to us, as Ubuntu will format the same drive in its type. In my case; I formatted my Stuff0 partition after copying all my data onto a portable.

Once you backup your partitions (which takes hell lot of time to complete); we proceed to our next step.

Insert your Ubuntu Intrepid Ibex Installation disk (which also acts as a live CD) and restart your system.

Assuming that your DVD drive comes first in the boot sequence; select the option “Try Ubuntu without any changes to your computer”.

Let the live environment load. It takes some time as you are booting from the DVD. We need to check if Ubuntu shows our existing partitions. One way to do this is to go to “System >> Administration>> Partition Manager”

Here you’ll see your partitions. The “unknown” type of partition (mostly /dev/sda) is your C: drive where Win XP is installed. Identify the drive where disk space free is maximum. That would be your target partition. In my case it was /dev/sdb6. Drive D was /dev/sdb5, while the last drive it showed as /dev/sdb3. The numbering depends on primary and logical extensions. But let’s not get into that.

Identifying your target partition is very important as any mistake shall install ubuntu on that drive. Hence, be careful. It’s not difficult at all. Just that you need to be in your senses while doing this step. Now you can close the partition manager. Now that you’ve identified the target drive, things to come are a piece of cake.

Double click the “Install” icon on the Ubuntu desktop. We’ll now proceed with the installation.
Select appropriate choices, like languages, time zone, keyboard layout etc and proceed. Ubuntu installer will then scan your existing drives and OS installations (XP here).

What you would see next is “Prepare disk space” window. It would show you “Before” and “After” bars.
Select the “Guided” option (it’s selected by default). You see /sda6 (referring to the Stuff0 partition) selected here. Don’t change anything here. It shows you 2 boxes with percentages of space that Ubuntu would occupy. You don’t have to do anything here.

What happens is internally, ubuntu makes space for /,/home and swap partitions.
What’s going on here?

As you can see partition sdb6 (which is your Stuff0 of 20GB) will have ubuntu installed on it. And of course, Ubuntu’s bootloader (GRUB) will take care of dual boot sequence.

Proceed for the rest of the installation. The DVD will be ejected once it’s done, before asking you to restart the system.

When you restart the system (remove the DVD before that), GRUB shows Ubuntu in its list as well as Windows XP entry in “Other Operating systems” list.

Check into Windows XP to see whether XP is working fine. It should probably do. All your settings are retained files left untouched. All the drives show up in “My Computer” as it is, with only exception being “Stuff0” which is empty and would show something like a 3GB partition. Don’t worry, as XP doesn’t show Linux partitions as it is. It’s better not to touch that drive and keep it for Ubuntu itself.

Well then! Ubuntu is finally installed, and is in dual boot! Enjoy!