Windows 8 user here. I'm trying to install linux on an existing partion on one of my hard drives but unfortunately, all Linux wants to do is wipe the drive I direct it to and go from there. I even physically pulled the HD with the windows installation but it still won't recognize the partitions during install but sees and will mount them perfectly fine when run from a live disk. It's the latest Ubuntu.
Nope. Not compatible with UEFI or Windows 8, in big bold letters on their site. And the Linux installer deleted all the partitions without even prompting me WTF. So I had to go back into windows 8 and "uninstall" affected programs.
have you got a windows disk/iso?? might be easier wiping the disk and setting up the partitions afresh, otherwise shrink the partition in windows 7 basic guide if needed then using a bootable ubuntu disk/stick install into the spare space created.
Yeah I do, but I don't need to reinstall windows since it has it's own drive and the drive that got wiped is the one that I install all my programs to. Well, it installed but I have to change the boot drive to boot into Linux, instead of being asked which OS would I like to boot into.
Are you running windows 8 pro? If so setup hyper-v and run it as a vm, if not download vmware player and run it in there * Hyper-v has limited support for network drivers in linux, best is to use a RHEL based distro (my fav is centos)
What i do is use gparted to set up my partions before installation. So i might set up root home and swap. Then during the installation select the something else option when it identifies other operating system on your computer. From there you assign root home and swap to the partitions you have created.I've never had ubuntu not install the grub loader, so that problem is weird. Also did you shrink the ntfs partition on the disk you were trying to install ubuntu on to make room for it. Since vista shrinking ntfs partitions is best done in windows
+1 for the gParted approach. I never trust an installer to make my partitioning decisions for me - Ubuntu often wants to hog the whole disk, and WIndows 7 makes a stupid 'system' partition (yet it works just fine without it). I have used the Ubuntu partitioner before, but it lacks a lot of features that gParted utilises very well.
if you set it to boot into the linux disk first, just add windows to the GRUB list, and you can choose where it is in the list. hopefully it'd detect windows and automatically add it, after which you can just move the OS partitions around to effect default startup, if it doesn't then a quick google search will give you guide to manually adding OS entries. personally I have both 7 and ubuntu on same SSD, but have previously had it on 2 disks, which was pretty much the same (though both on SSD means they both boot fast (12ish seconds for 7, and about 8 for ubuntu (this was with autologin and from grub to opening firefox)
To allow "Secure Boot" to remain active, You'll need to install from the 64-bit version of Ubuntu to get a signed kernel. You'll also need to tell GParted to create a partition of 100Mb called "/boot/efi" at the start of your boot disk. If Windows is not detected after installalling, you need to run "sudo update-grub" in a terminal.
