Ubuntu, Windows 7, new hard drive partition mess. Please help!

[canabiz]

Hey guys, i bought a new hard drive (1TB) couple of days ago with the intention of dual booting Windows 7 and Ubuntu. Here is a chronological sequence of events

1. I first installed Windows 7 Ultimate on the hard drive straight out of the box. So far so good

2. I then installed Ubuntu 12 alongside Windows 7. I only want to allocate 100GB to Ubuntu and the rest to Windows 7 (900GB) but did it the other way around and this is when all hell started to break loose

3. I could not boot into Ubuntu (message was the display was not supported and the optimal resolution should be 1680x1050 or something along that line). I was able to boot into Windows 7 but with 100GB, that won't do me any good as I intend to use Windows 7 as my primary O/S and Ubuntu as something to tinker with

4. I used Windows 7 boot disk to try to format everything and re-install Windows 7 from scratch. No go.

5. I used Ubuntu boot disk to try to format everything but Windows 7 does not recognize the partition as NTFS

6. I used MiniPartition Wizard to format the disk as NTFS. Windows 7 still does not recognize the partition as NTFS

7. Thinking the hard drive is corrupted, I used MiniPartition Wizard to completely wipe the hard drive (fill it with zeroes). Windows 7 does not recognize the partition

8. So now I am sitting here with an unusable hard drive. MiniPartition Wizard can't format the drive, I can't install Windows 7 on it. Technically I could still install Ubuntu on the entire drive but that's not what i want to do.

Please advise. If you know any other bootable tools that can fix this mess and reformat the drive to NTFS so that I can put Win 7 on it, please let me know. Thank you!

[jericho129]

Hey guys, i bought a new hard drive (1TB) couple of days ago with the intention of dual booting Windows 7 and Ubuntu. Here is a chronological sequence of events

6. I used MiniPartition Wizard to format the disk as NTFS. Windows 7 still does not recognize the partition as NTFS

7. Thinking the hard drive is corrupted, I used MiniPartition Wizard to completely wipe the hard drive (fill it with zeroes). Windows 7 does not recognize the partition

8. So now I am sitting here with an unusable hard drive. MiniPartition Wizard can't format the drive, I can't install Windows 7 on it. Technically I could still install Ubuntu on the entire drive but that's not what i want to do.

Please advise. If you know any other bootable tools that can fix this mess and reformat the drive to NTFS so that I can put Win 7 on it, please let me know. Thank you!

I've used Acronis in the past to 'delete partitions' and then format.. it's worked for me.

Once that's done you might need to create partition(s) for win7 to recognize it.

Lucky for you you're dealing with a new HD to start with so you don't have to worry about data loss or anything...

Also, check out Hiren's Boot CD... tons of very useful programs for this kinda thing.

[xalex0]

run fdisk to delete all partitions.

[audit13]

You could also boot with the Win7 installation disc to a command prompt. Then use diskpart to clean the disk and create new partitions.

Using diskpart to create all partitions will also prevent Win7 from creating the 200 mb hidden partition.

[JamesA1]

I've used Acronis in the past to 'delete partitions' and then format.. it's worked for me.

+1 for Acronis in this situation. Trying to change partitions in a dual-boot arrangement with Windows 7 is difficult, but Acronis can back up your Windows partition, copy is successfully to another partition of a different size, and adjust the Windows boot files for the new partition. And if it gets screwed up, you can re-partition and restore the backup to start over.

[gnuman]

Of you can run Windows why not go to Admin Tools > Local Storage and delete the partition for Ubuntu? Heck you can even do one better once you do that. Why not install Ubuntu in Windows as an application through wubi (http://www.ubuntu.com/download/help/install-ubuntu-with-windows)?

Dual booting is kinda annoying for me though because I wouldn't want to reboot to change OS. You can also download and install VirtualBox and run it within Windows as a virtual machine. The graphics of Virtualbox is enough to get the full unity to work properly.

[Busybuyer888]

Of you can run Windows why not go to Admin Tools > Local Storage and delete the partition for Ubuntu? Heck you can even do one better once you do that. Why not install Ubuntu in Windows as an application through wubi (http://www.ubuntu.com/download/help/install-ubuntu-with-windows)?

Dual booting is kinda annoying for me though because I wouldn't want to reboot to change OS. You can also download and install VirtualBox and run it within Windows as a virtual machine. The graphics of Virtualbox is enough to get the full unity to work properly.

+1. With Virtual technology (MS Virutal PC, VMWare, Virutal Box) the need to dual boot has really almost disappeared.

Also, you can install two HDs and use the BIOS to maniuplate which disk to boot first if really need both OS to be native.

Multi-boot can lead to headaches. These other methods, have ZERO maintenance issues.

[killoverme]

+1. With Virtual technology (MS Virutal PC, VMWare, Virutal Box) the need to dual boot has really almost disappeared.

Also, you can install two HDs and use the BIOS to maniuplate which disk to boot first if really need both OS to be native.

Multi-boot can lead to headaches. These other methods, have ZERO maintenance issues.

+1 if you just want to mess around with ubuntu, VM is the way to go. The only reason I could see to dual boot is if its a netbook or something that doesn't have a lot of power to VM.

This way (VM) you can do your normal stuff (e-mails/surfing/games/etc...) side by side while tinkering with ubuntu. Its a win-win.

[canabiz]

Hey guys thanks for the feedback. I downloaded Hirens Boot CD and used Super Fdisk to format the drive in FAT32

I then converted that into NTFS using the Command line from the Win 7 boot CD. I finally re-installed Win 7 and it's back to normal.

I will mull over Ubuntu (my colleague recommends using Linux Mint so I will look into that). I have a smaller HD (300GB) so I may just put Ubuntu on that or use VM.

[elgros4]

MINT is base on Ubuntu, it's similar.
Using a second hardrive to simplify things is a good idea.