Dual Booting XP and Ubuntu

This is a step by step guide to dual boot Ubuntu and XP where XP is installed first.

Beginning Ubuntu Installation

1. Boot into Windows or using an Ubuntu Live CD and backup any valuable documents/photos etc. onto removable media such as CD-R/DVD-R.

2. Run the Windows defragmentation tool on C: (My Computer, Right click on drive, Properties, Tools, Defragment Now)

3. Download and burn, or order a CD

4. Once you have the CD, insert it into your CD-ROM drive and reboot your PC.

   • If the computer does not boot from the CD (eg. Windows starts again instead), check your BIOS settings and fix as appropriate.

5. If successfully booted from CD, the Ubuntu logo will be displayed on the screen. Press Enter to continue.

6. Follow the prompts until you are asked this question: “How do you want to partition the disk ?”.

Resizing Partitions Using the Ubuntu Installer

Automatic partitioning

1. Choose the First Option (It should be something like: “Resize IDE1 master, partition #1 (hda1) and use freed space”).

2. Specify the size of the new partition as a percentage of your entire hard disk.

3. Click on “Forward”.

4. continue to Finishing Ubuntu Installation

Manual partitioning

1. Choose “Manually edit partition table”

   • Listed will be your current partitions

2. Select the partition you want to resize and press Enter.

3. Select “Size:”, press Enter.

4. Select Yes, press Enter.

5. Type in a new size in Gigabytes for your partition, it’s recommended you free up AT LEAST 10 GB of free space for your Ubuntu install. Press Enter when happy with your changes. It may take some time to apply the changes.

6. Create a swap partition of at least your amount of RAM (if you don’t know, 2000 MB is a good value).

7. Create a partition for your Ubuntu installation, at least 10 GB.

8. Select “Finish partitioning and write changes to disk”.

Finishing Ubuntu Installation

1. Finish installing your Ubuntu system.

2. On reboot, remove your Ubuntu cdrom from the cdrom drive, you should be presented with a list of operating systems to boot. Ubuntu should have automatically detected your Windows installation and added an option to boot it on this screen.

And that’s it. This is taken from https://help.ubuntu.com/community/WindowsDualBoot

If you encounter any problems during the installation, visit this site -> http://www.ubuntu.com/support