Clara Raubertas // Freelance Web Design, Web Development, and Web Consulting // Cambridge and Boston, Massachusetts clara raubertas design. development. consulting.

So Internet Explorer 7 has been out for a while now, and I finally caved — I can’t get it to work using the wonderful ies4linux, so I need to have a copy of Windows available to test sites in action.

Fortunately I still had the re-installation disc from the copy of Vista I wiped from the laptop when I got it. Here’s how I set up my dual-boot:

1. Burn an Ubuntu Live CD; boot from that CD, and launch the GParted partition editor from the System > Administration menu.
   

   Note: This step is where I ran into the most issues. I tried to create a new partition for Windows, following the instructions from this guide — but the Windows install would freeze at “expanding files 0%”, and later give me error # 0×80070017. Googling suggested that this error might have been a problem with the disc, but that didn’t really make sense since this was a factory disc. Eventually I figured out that it just meant there was some problem communicating between the disc and the hard drive — Vista didn’t like the partition I’d set up after my Ubuntu partition.

   Here’s how I solved this issue: I used GParted to move my Ubuntu install forward on the disk, then created a partition (without formatting it) for Vista at the beginning of the drive. Then — since Ubuntu’s bootloader was still at the beginning of the drive, and Vista gets confused when it sees that trace of another operating system — I needed to zero out the new partition, with dd if=/dev/zero of=/dev/sda1 where sda1 is the new partition. Warning! If you try to use that command without knowing what you are doing, you may well zero out your whole drive!! ALWAYS HAVE BACKUPS.

2. Put in Windows CD; choose “Custom Install”; select the new partition as the destination (it should be called “Unallocated” or something — it was pretty recognizable after my work with GParted); click through until it starts installing; wait a LONG LONG time.
3. Boot into Windows! Plug in ethernet cord; reboot to install drivers, etc. that allow me to have nice things like correct screen resolution and wireless internet.
4. Use the Ubuntu Live CD and these instructions to restore my bootloader and set up dual-boot
5. Happily choose between Ubuntu and Vista every time I boot up!

In general, this install would have gone a lot smoother had Vista been able to peacefully coexist with another bootloader. Different versions of Linux have no problem living on different partitions, and when you have an existing Windows install, you can easily install Linux in a separate partition without any confusion. But then, I guess that’s because Linux is designed to be used the way its users want to use it, and Windows is designed to be used the way Microsoft wants you to use it.

Using Vista a little bit gave me a better appreciation for people who try Linux and don’t care for it — I found myself disliking things about Vista just because it was unfamiliar and didn’t come set up the way I like it. But even though I know I could customize it and get more comfortable with it, I’ll still stick with Ubuntu for most of my computing, since I know it’s what ultimately gives me the most flexibility.