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Kubuntu re-partition [solved]


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The main question is: How did you partition your harddrive? Windows needs to be installed in the first partition of the drive. If you have your Linux tOS here already, then there is no other way than to kill your Kubuntu, partition the drive properly, install Windows and then install Kubuntu again. The only other option there is, is to have two separate drives, one which is used for Win, the other for Linux. Then you can select the booted hdd e.g. through the BIOS boot-menu or set up a dualboot-config in grub.

 

Assuming this is your drive:

||-------------linux----------|

 

You have to set it up this way:

||----Windows----|----linux---|

 

This will not work:

||----linux----|---Windows---|

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It can be done without re-installing, but that wil require some (serious) repartitioning with gparted. If terms like partitions, MBR and FDISK giev you the creeps, don't try it. If you are up for a challenge (and have backuped important data to another medium), then download a liveCD containg this jewel (for instance here, but also System Rescue CD). Expect it to take hours, so only try this if re-installing is too cumbersome (because of tweaks/settins etc). The general process is as follows:

  • Shutdown PC clean and boot from LiveCD
  • Shrink your Linux partition to the minimum (check with df how much is needed). It pays off to clean your PC off any files you do not want to keep (thumbnails, browsercaches, /tmp, /var/tmp, obsolete downloads etc).
  • Move the Linux partition out of the way to the back of the hard disc
  • Create a new (physical) partition
  • Possibly change the partition type from your existing Linux partition to extended (which may require creating a new extended partition and then a logical partition in it followed by copying your old Linux partition onto the newly created logical partition). I am no guru on partitioning, but seem to recall that one can have at most one primary partition active. Don't know whether this is Dos, Windows or higher level limit.
  • Zapping any unused partition
  • Distribute free space over Windows & Linux partition -- move Linux so that is adjacent to Windows
  • Install Windows
  • Restore Grub (or Lilo)

For reference: I 'simplified' my Linux partitioning (merged /, /boot, /var and /usr, followed by space redistribution over /, /home and swap). This took two sessions of 3 hours on a 40 GB disc which was at best 50% full. Quite some time was 'lost' because I wasn't clear on how to create free space to move stuff to -- it is like one of those puzzles with one locomotive, a set of railcars and soem junctions where the loc needs to be moved from front to back without being taken off the rails). I did not have the complications o Windows install overwriting the MBR

Edited by pindakoe
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