Re: Dual boot GNU and Windows 7

[Sebastian Tennant]

Quoth Piscium <address@hidden>:
> What version of Windows do you have?

Windows 7.

> I remember reading a while back that resizing Windows Vista partitions with
> Gparted can make it unbootable (XP should be fine though). Not sure if that
> is still the case, or what is the deal for Windows 7.

Funny, I just read something similar.  As a result I thought I'd try resizing
using Windows' own disk tool and this is what it tells me:

 "You cannot shrink a volume beyond the point where any unmovable files are
  located."

       Total size before shrink: 431938 MB
 Size of available shrink space: 201358 MB
        Total size after shrink: 230580 MB

Can you believe it!

The 35 GB of data actually on the disk is somehow distributed over 230 GB of
disk space in such a way that none of the remaining 195 GB of empty space can
be used for anything else.  How brain-damaged is that!

I'm actually wondering whether or not I should bother keeping Windows now.

> Usually it is recommended to put swap towards the beginning of the disk as
> disk access is faster. 4 GB may be excessive, I have 3 GB swap in mine and I
> don't remember ever using more than 100 MB.

Thanks for the tip.  I'll set aside 2 GB nearer the start of the disk.

> Grub does not "overwrite the existing Windows bootloader" rather it
> overwrites the MBR which in your case points to the Windows boot loader.

Ah... and the Windows bootloader resides on the Windows boot partition.  I see.
Thanks for correcting my thinko.

> Anyway, the combination of Grub2 + os-prober works reliably so I
> wouldn't expect and issue.

That's good to know.

> You need the Windows CD that came with your PC,

No such thing, but I've made a Windows 'rescue disk'.

> set your BIOS to boot from CD.

Already done that.

> After you boot from the Windows CD you go in Windows command mode (that is no
> graphical interface), I think you need to choose a rescue option. There is a
> command to restore the MBR so that it makes it point again to the Windows
> boot loader. I forgot what it is but should be easy for you to google
> it. After you run the command you reboot normally (without the CD) and it
> goes into Windows.

Thanks very much.  This is just what I needed to know.

Seb
--
Emacs' AlsaPlayer - Music Without Jolts
Lightweight, full-featured and mindful of your idyllic happiness.
http://home.gna.org/eap