Dual booting Windows and Ubuntu

Hi there! I hope this will help.

First of all it sounds like you've got a scratched or otherwise bad Windows disk. 

Secondly, dual booting with Windows may not even be required for you. if you need to run PC software on your Linux box check into Wine first and see if your application will work or not.

For example, 

http://appdb.winehq.org/appview.php?iVersionId=4494

 It looks like VS2005 doesn't work well with Wine.

The next thing you can try is VirtualBox. 80% of what doesn't run under wine will still run under VirtualBox. However, to use VirtualBox you need a licensed version of Windows on an undamaged CD.

The other 20% will require a dual boot in which case you'll need a Windows CD and license.

To do a dual boot use the Linux CD to setup your partitions. Use the manual setting to create the ext3 partition for linux, a smaller swap partition and a third partition for Windows. Then install windows. Then install Linux. 

Well I don't think its because of a scratched or bad disk because I have tryed 3 different disks of Windows XP and now im trying Windows Vista, and it does the same thing everytime I install them. And I am familier with Wine and have used it with other applications, but like you said VS2005 doesn't work well with it. Also I will give VitualBox a try, that I have never used before, thanks. But I would like to try to get my dual boot working.

Here is an update on the error im getting when trying to boot Windows:

 - When I turn on the computer and Windows begins to load I will see a blue screen flash very quickly (too quick for me to read what it says) and it will reboot the computer and then it will take me to the black seen saying, "Windows failed to start. A recent hardware or software change might be the cause." And it will give me options for Safe Mode, Last know good config, and Start windows normally.

 - When I run the startup repair tool from the Windows Vista cd, it does it's scan and then says, "Startup rapiar cannot repair this computer automatically."

Now the strange thing is, is I got Vista too boot to the desktop once. I just kept trying to boot and after about 5 tries it finally booted. So I thought maybe I should install all the Vista updates and see if that would help, so I installed them and rebooted, but Im back to where I was, not being able to boot. Anyone got any ideas?

When dual booting, the proper order of events must be followed.

1) partition the Hard Drive and re-format it entirely(make sure to back up your emails, bookmarks and files etc... before you format it),

2) Re-install Windows and then

3) re-install Linux

Use F-12 to select your boot device (CD drive) or go into the bios and configure your boot order selection to CD Drive.

It sounds to me like you had LInux on there and tried to re-partition your hard drive to make room for Windows. That can get pretty ugly. You can loose everything on your hard drive and screw up the boot loader (Which is what seems to have happened).

I hope there isn't anything on the hard drive that needs saving. That's a whole other issue.

 [edit]

I should add that partitioning a hard drive is not easy, though the tools on the Linux disk usually make it easier.

An interesting trick is to actually boot the Linux installer and use that to partition the HD. Here's the sneaky catch. The linux installer usually sets up all the partitions and types of partitions (eg... root and swap with boot flag set appropriately). If you then back up and go to the manual partition process you can then add a partition for Windows (Usually the NTFS type). I would recommend a minimum of 50Gb and warn that less than 20GB won't leave you any room to surf the net or install software.

Once you have the partitions set up, write them to the disk. Exit out of the Linux installer and then install windows on the windows partition you set up.

Once windows in done installing, let it reboot and allow it to flow naturally into Windows. Let it do all of it's updating and install your drivers etc...

Once that's done, shut down the computer and let the updates install.

On your next reboot, install Linux as usual to the partitions you set aside previously. You have to select which partitions to use manually, but that's pretty easy. let Linux rip though the install and reboot.

On this reboot you'll see the boot selection menu for Windows (one option) or Linux (3 options). Let it use the default Linux option. Do your system upgrades at this point, reboot.

Select windows or Linux as you need from that point on. 

Yeah, I had linux on there first, I should know better and install Windows first and then Linux but I was trying it out with a how-to I found here, http://apcmag.com/how_to_dualboot_vista_with_linux_linux_is_already_installed.htm?page=1 . About losing files on the hard drive Im fine, because Ubuntu boots fine, its just the Windows partition thats messed up, plus I have everything back up anyways.

I have tryed taking Linux off and installing Windows by itself, but now that I think of it I don't think I fully reformatted the hard drive. So I will try that and see how it goes. Thank you guys for the help.