How to use Gparted to dual boot with Windows/ Linux

This guide is in 3 major parts and the hyper links don't work so you will have to scroll down manually I'm afraid:

Part 1. Hello Linux. (Install Linux in dual boot mode with Windows)

Part 2: Windows Strikes Back.(The return of Bill & Co) (Completely remove Linux and create Windows partitions)

Part 3. Linux Returns. (Completely remove Windows and only use Linux)


To install on an external drive, see this link:

http://www.linuxbsdos.com/2013/10/23/ho ... ard-drive/


WARNING BEFORE YOU START TO PARTITION YOUR DRIVE:

MAKE SURE YOU DEFRAGMENT YOUR WINDOWS DRIVE BEFORE YOU START RESIZING THE WINDOWS PARTITION AS IT MAY LEAD TO DATA LOSS.
MAKE SURE YOU HAVE ENOUGH SPACE LEFT ON YOUR WINDOWS DRIVE TO INSTALL MORE APPS AND FILES AND YOU LEAVE ENOUGH SPACE FOR THE OPERATING SYSTEM TO MOVE AROUND A BIT, THE MINIMUM YOU MUST LEAVE ON AN XP PARTITION IS 2GB, 20GB WOULD BE BETTER

BACKUP ALL YOUR DATA ON AN EXTERNAL DRIVE OR OTHER MEDIUM IN CASE THINGS GO WRONG.

IF YOU DO NOT HAVE YOUR WINDOWS RECOVERY DISK SET ALREADY MADE, STOP NOW AND CREATE A RECOVERY DISK SET BEFORE YOU CONTINUE. SOME PC'S HAVE A DISK SET AND SOME DON'T, PLEASE CHECK!!!!!!!!!. SOME PC'S ONLY HAVE A RECOVERY PARTITION, IF YOU ERASE THAT PARTITION, YOU WON'T HAVE WINDOWS ANYMORE REMEMBER THAT!!!!!.

USE THIS GUIDE AT YOUR OWN RISK, I WILL NOT BE HELD RESPONSIBLE FOR ANY DAMAGE TO YOUR PC OR LOSS OF DATA.

Important: People with UEFI installed on their PC should look here first!:

https://help.ubuntu.com/community/UEFI

http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=2147295

Ubuntu partition guide:

https://help.ubuntu.com/community/Howto ... ningBasics

Firstly, you will need to download Gparted and create a bootable disk:

http://sourceforge.net/projects/gparted/

Create a disk from the downloaded ISO file and boot your PC with the disk inserted in the CD ROM drive, you may need to change the "Boot Order" of your PC so that it can boot from the CD. You can change the boot order of your PC by going into the BIOS setting manager of your PC.

See:

http://en.kioskea.net/faq/283-how-to-ac ... ios-set-up

How to create a disk from an ISO file:

https://help.ubuntu.com/community/BurningIsoHowto

You will need a CD/DVD burner drive to create the disk.

Part 1. Hello Linux.

This guide is intended for people who wish to dual boot both Windows and Linux systems. You can of course use it just for Windows or Linux, that is up to you.

The first pic is of my normal desktop hard drive layout which if you look to the top right, it tells you which drive you are looking at, in this case; it is drive “/dev/sda. You will also notice that there is a lock symbol by the Linux partitions, this denotes that the partition is mounted, you cannot format a mounted partition.

Pic 1


The second pic is of my external drive which I am going to use for this tutorial, it is labeled “/dev/sdc. As you can see from this pic, it is formatted to the “NTFS” format which is normal for Windows XP/2000/Vista/Windows7.

Pic 2


Now, lets resize our Windows partition so we can create our 3 Linux partitions. Right click on the box where it states “/dev/sdc1-55.89Gib” and then on “Resize/Move”, then you simply need to enter the amount of megabytes you would like your new partition size to be, in this case, I have put 20000, which is roughly 20GB, then click the button which states “Resize/Move” and you will now have a smaller partition on the left, and a blank space on the right.

(1GB is 1024MB)(1TB is 1024GB) I just rounded it off to a 1000. If you wanted to create a partition of 80GB, type: 82000 (82000MB's = roughly 80GB) I use a root partition of about 20GB normally.

Pic 3


Now you have unallocated space on the right which is where we are going to create an “Extended Partition”, within this partition, we will create our 3 Linux partitions.

Pic 4


Right click in the unallocated space box on the right and then on “New”, a menu will pop up, where it says “Create as”, we need to select “Extended partition” from the drop down list and then on “Add”. You do not need to put in the amount of MB's at the moment as we need the whole of the empty space in the extended partition.

Pic 5


Once you have selected “Add”, your gparted workspace will look like this and you will notice that the unallocated space box; now has a blue border.

Pic 6


Now we will create out 3 Linux partitions in the unallocated space with the extended partition.

First of all we will create a “Swap” partition (see comments below about RAM size). Right click within the box and “New”, type in 1024 in the “New size” section, to the right of that is “File System” which you need to select “linux-swap”, where it says “Create as:”, leave it at “Logical Partition”. Click on “Add when finished.

(WHAT WE HAVE DONE IS TO CREATE A SWAP PAPRTITION WHICH WILL SUPPORT THE PC'S MEMORY AND IT SHOULD BE ABOUT THE SAME SIZE OF YOUR PC'S RAM. I HAVE CHOOSEN 1GB =1024MB FOR THE PURPOSE OF THIS DEMO)
"But not greater than the available amount of RAM that your PC has!".

See also:

https://help.ubuntu.com/community/SwapFaq

I have also given the partition a label, you should do this with all the Linux partitions, if you don't want to, it is up to you!.

Pic 7


Now you have created your swap partition, you should have this in front of you.

Pic 8


Now we will use the rest of the space for our “root” and “home” partitions.

Right click in the empty space then “New”, in “New size” type 15000, Create as “Logical Partition, “File system “ext4” then on add, label is “root” which will become our “root” partition during the install, make a mental note of the size you have allocated as we need to know what partition is what during the installation of our operating system, all we are doing at the moment is getting our partitions ready for a full installation of an operating system.

I always use about 20Gb for “root” under normal circumstances, remember this is a demo drive and only 60GB in size!!.

Pic 9


So now we have “swap” and “root” partitions, that leaves just our “home” partition.

Right click in the remaining space “New” and you can leave the New size as it is as we are going to use the remaining space for our “home” partition, “Create as” is still “Logical Partition and “File system is “ext4”, click on “Add” when finished.

Pic 10


And this is now this is what you should have in front of you, all you now need to do is to click on the “Apply” button (white tick in green circle) and wait for it to finish doing its thing. Once you press that button, there is no turning back so make sure you double check everything before you commit.

Pic 11


You will get one last warning. Click on “Apply” if you are sure!!.

Pic 12


You will get confirmation that the operations were successful.

Pic 13


Now your gparted layout should look like this.

Pic 14


You will now notice that the partitions have a drive letter, /dev/sdc1 is the Windows partition, sdc2 is Extended, sdc5 is swap, sdc6 is root and sdc7 is home, Linux does not use the same method for drive description as Windows and that is why it does not say “C Drive” for the Windows partition. Normally if you only have one hard drive, the drive lettering would be like the very first pic: /dev/sda1 etc

Now when it comes to installing any Linux system, under Ubuntu based systems, select “Something else” when asked where you want to install your OS.

The mount points are as follows:

Swap = swap has no mount point

root = / (Forward Slash)

home = /home


Your format for root and home should be ext4, swap doesn't require a format. (I think it automatically uses FAT32 ???)

If you didn't have anything on the partitions prior to install, you don't have to format the partitions again, if you had a previous version of the SAME OS on the partition, you can leave /home untouched and just install the new OS on the root partition, this will save all your settings and files, it must be the same OS. This is only for when you are re-installing so please bear that it mind.

See my guide about "Something Else: here:

http://www.zoringroup.com/forum/viewtop ... 956#p22956

Here is a good link about selecting "Something else":

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qBCHsgry2RQ

Ubuntu install process:

http://opensource-sidh.blogspot.de/2011 ... -dual.html

Anyone wanting a full Gparted tutorial can look here:

http://www.dedoimedo.com/computers/gparted.html

Part 2: Windows Strikes Back.(The return of Bill & Co)

Okay, so now you have had it with Linux, your hardware didn't work, you couldn't get your head around the way Linux runs and you miss all the viruses on Windows and you want to remove Linux and replace all the partition(s) for Windows only.

What we will do now is remove the Linux partitions and reset our drive to one partition only.

Assuming you only created the 3 standard Linux partitions, your drive map (layout) should look like this.

Wait!, have you saved all the stuff off of your Linux partitions that you want??, once you delete these partitions, all data on those partitions is gone forever!!.

Pic 15


Now, right click each of the Linux partitions in the boxes and then on delete. Do all 3 one after the other.

Pic 16


Once you have deleted all 3 Linux partitions, your layout should now look like this.

Pic 17


You will now see that we have no Linux partitions but we still have the “Extended” partition which also needs to be deleted. Right click on the word “Extended” in the list on the left and delete the extended partition.

Pic 18


Now your layout should look like this.

Pic 19


Now we have our unallocated space on the right of the layout and we will resize our Windows partition. Right click the Windows partition and then on “Resize/Move.

Pic 20


Now you will have a small window, move your mouse over the right black arrow (a double arrow will appear on your mouse cursor) and hold it down and drag it all the way to the right.

Pic 21


Then you should now have a window that looks like this.

Pic 22


Once you click on the “Resize/Move” button, you will have a window like this.

Pic 23


Now, just check to see that you have a window something like mine and then you can click on “Apply” when you are satified that everything is okay.
Wait!!!!, double check before you commit just be on the safe side. You will get one last chance to do just that.

Pic 24


Click on “Apply” when you want to finish the operations you have selected, be sure that everything is correct!!.

Pic 25


Close the window and you are done!!.

Pic 26


Close Gparted and restart your PC with the Windows disk inserted in the drive because now we must repair the “Bootloader” or “MBR” which no longer exists.

Please see this video link on how to do this, or you can download “Boot Repair” and create a disk which will automate the job for you:

For Windows 7.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kFU8kngy ... re=related

For windows XP/Vista.

http://helpdeskgeek.com/how-to/fix-mbr-xp-vista/

For Boot Repair:

http://sourceforge.net/p/boot-repair/home/Home/

(You need the “MBR” options tab)

Once you have repaired the “MBR”, you can start using Windows again.

Part 3. Linux Returns.

Okay, so now we have decided that we only want Linux on our drive and we want to remove Windows completely and create partitions for Linux systems only.

Your current layout should look something like this.

Pic 27


We now want to delete this partition completely, right click on the big box and then on delete.

Pic 28


We now have a clear box with no partitions in it.

Pic 29


We only need one swap partition, right click on the box then "New", (see part one for swap size) and create our Swap partition.
Create as "Primary Partition". File System = Linux-Swap. Label = swap. Click on "Add".

Pic 30


Now our layout looks like this.

Pic 31


Now we can create our root partition, right click on the box then "New", Create as "Primary Partition". File System = Ext4, Label = zorin root. Click on "Add".

Pic 32


Now our layout looks like this.

Pic 33


Now we can create our home partition, right click on the box then "New", Create as "Primary Partition". File System = Ext4, Label = zorin home

Pic 34


Now our layout looks like this.

Pic 35


If we were only creating one home partition, we would have used all the remaining space on the drive, let us add another root and home partiton so we can install 2 version of Linux, remember, we only need one swap.

We must create an Extended Partiton, right click on the box then "New", Create as "Extended Partition". Label = extended partition, a label is not necessary, you can label it if you want to. Click on "Add" when done.

Pic 36


Now our layout looks like this.

Pic 37


Now all that remains is to create another root and home partition and you have now got 5 partitions with which you can install 2 versions of Linux on.
Now create the last of our root and home partitions, right click on the box then "New", Create as "Primary Partition". File System = Ext4, Label = pinguy root and pinguy home.

Pic 38


Pic 39


Pic 40


Now we are finished and your drive should look like this.

Pic 41


All you have to do now is click on "Apply" and let it do its thing, you will be asked if you want to continue, click on "Apply" only if you are sure!!.

Pic 42


You will get confirmation about the success of the operations and you can click on close.

Pic 43


Thats it, now we are finished and your drive should look like this.

Pic 44


Now you can set about installing your 2 preferred versions of Linux using the "Something Else" method as described earlier.

Try not to mix and match the various types of distro as if you use an Ubuntu based system and a Red Hat system on the same hard drive, it can lead to complications with the GRUB bootloader!!. Try to keep to one or the other!!.

The End.


I hope this guide has helped you and if you have any questions, please post them on the forum!.

Any comments for improving this guide are welcome

Best regards. Wolfman

This thread has been updated!.

Updated with more info on UEFI:

http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=2147295