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Is it possible to dual boot between Ubuntu and Windows 7.vhd? If anyone knows please tell me how?

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2 Answers

up vote 1 down vote accepted

You need to either get grub to pass over to the windows boot manager, or boot linux via the windows boot manager.

Go with the first approach to begin with (I would trust Grub more).
I would have thought a menu.lst entry like the following would chain into the windows boot manager which would then do the "booting from vhd" magic as usual;

title Windows 7
rootnoverify (hd0,1)
chainloader +1
makeactive
boot

...but that's pretty much what Ubuntu would make for you anyway. Which operating system did you install first? Or are you yet to install Ubuntu?

If you are yet to install, do not install grub to MBR! You should instead install to the first sector of the /boot partition. Otherwise, you're going to overwrite the windows boot manager.

The alternative is to do the reverse; let windows start grub. No idea here, your mileage may vary and all that.

Chain load grub from Windows boot manager

Google hits for "chain load grub from windows"

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this isn't the question asked. he's not looking to boot to a standard Win7 install, but a VHD. these instructions would suffice for a standard Win7 install (ie, installed to a real partition). – quack quixote Apr 17 '10 at 14:50
Presumeably the windows boot manager handles that though, so chain loading into it will allow it to boot as normal. This was my theory at least. – RJFalconer Apr 17 '10 at 18:05
thanks to everybody, I´m going to test the chain load grub, and then tell you something. – user34492 Apr 18 '10 at 22:45
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I did it! I followed the first tutorial(Chain load grub from Windows boot manager), and everything perfect; so thanks very much! – user34492 Apr 18 '10 at 23:59
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up vote 0 down vote

As you already have a VHD file, you could just use VirtualBox.

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yeah i know, but i want to know if is possible to have the two options in GRUB, ubuntu and W7.vhd. Thanks – user34492 Apr 17 '10 at 13:02
Righty. You would either have to get grub to pass over to the windows boot manager, or boot linux via the windows boot manager. This is beyond my personal experience, but I shall add another for this anyway. – RJFalconer Apr 17 '10 at 14:24
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