Help! Multi-OS computer troubles.
I recently set a multi-OS system using Disk Director and OSS. I was attempting to create another primary partition to install Windows 7 to and was not allowed the option to create another primary drive. It is my understanding that you can have four primary drives on a single hard drive. As far as I knew, I have three.
I have two primary partitions devoted to different XP installs (out of necessity), and one for Ubuntu as I have learned that GRUB2 doesn't like installing to a logical drive. Additionally, I have and extended partition with two logical drives. One is the Linux Swap, the other is for data. Reason dictates (and is apparently ignored) that I should still be able to make one more Primary drive. however in both Disk Director and Windows' Disk Manager, I am unable to do this. Does anyone have any idea why?
Thanks in advance for any help!
Taylor,
I have tested Ubuntu 10.04 in several different scenarios and it seems to work okay.
GRUB2 can be "forced" into a Logical partition successfully. While it's now apparently considered a "bad idea" to do this, the risk is no greater than with GRUB (meaning it may require a repair if the booting files get moved).
OSS 11 detected Ubuntu just fine on both Ext3 and Ext4. So, you can probably reconfigure your system to use Ubuntu on a Logical partition and also use Ext4 (if you wish). Remember that DD 11 doesn't currently support Ext4.
This is what I did to setup GRUB2 in the Logical partition:
- Install Ubuntu: Partitions were already configured and I manually selected the mount points. In my case, there were only the "root" (/) and the swap partitions.
- Select the Advanced option/button on the last wizard page and select the Ubuntu partition as the destination for GRUB2.
- After installation is done, GRUB2 isn't installed to the partition's boot sector (this happens with GRUB also [at least, for me]). GRUB2 must be installed manually.
- Boot to the Ubuntu Live CD.
- Mount the Ubuntu partition. This can be done easily by just browsing to it and letting Ubuntu open it (Places >> Computer and double-clicking on the partition). The partition will be mounted to media/##### where "#####" is a long number.
- Open a terminal and switch to sudo mode: sudo -s
- You can find the mount value by running: ls /mediaIf there is more than one, you may need to "ls" into it and verify the contents. For example: ls /media/482ff690-b033-466c-808c-704cf8140410Note that you don't need to type the entire number. You can type the first few and then press Tab.
- My Ubuntu partition was /dev/sda6 so my command to install GRUB2 was: grub-install --root-directory=/media/482ff690-b033-466c-808c-704cf8140410 --force /dev/sda6
- Ignore the warning. GRUB2 should be installed and OSS should find it.