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I'm trying to install Windows 7x64 and Ubuntu 13.04 x64 side by side on a laptop. I've successfully installed each on the laptop. However, when Windows is installed and I try to install ubuntu it doesn't recognize my windows installation and says there is nothing on my hard drive. I only have the option to start from scratch with the hard drive. I had installed windows 7 to a partition, and left half the drive free to install ubuntu into. I tried both partitioning the partition intended for ubuntu and leaving it raw. Neither worked.

I then installed ubuntu first and when I go to install windows, it says it can't install to the partition because it's partitioned as UEFI.

Any ideas on how to dual boot and get both installed? Any help is much appreciated!

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2 Answers 2

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Have you tried recreating the partition in Windows 7 setup?

NOTE: After installing Windows 7, you need to reinstall GRUB. It gets overwritten by the Windows bootloader.

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  • Yep. I tried recreating it and leaving it. Neither works for getting them both installed. Best I can do is start all over with the hard drive and lose the other OS (either way, ubuntu first or windows first) or leave it.
    – user200406
    Oct 10, 2013 at 18:48
  • Check the following: UEFI Mode enabled in BIOS Setup? Really Windows x64?
    – s3lph
    Oct 10, 2013 at 19:45
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It sounds like your current state is a working Ubuntu installation on a GUID Partition Table (GPT) disk. (There's no such thing as a disk that's "partitioned as UEFI," so I'm assuming you meant GPT here. If not, please double-check how the disk was partitioned by typing sudo parted /dev/sda print | grep Partition. The result should be Partition Table: gpt or Partition Table: msdos.)

If my assumption is correct, you can do one of two things, at least on recent (~2-year-old or newer) hardware:

  • Install Windows 7 in EFI mode. A Google turned up this page describing how to do this, but I don't vouch for the directions. Try your own Web search or ask on a Windows forum if you need help with this. Once this is done, you may need to re-install GRUB or some other boot loader. Boot Repair is one relatively easy way to do this; or you could replace GRUB with rEFInd or some other EFI boot loader.
  • Convert the disk from GPT to MBR (the gdisk program can do this; see here for details), install Windows, and then re-install GRUB (Boot Repair is one relatively easy way to do this).

If your computer doesn't support EFI-mode booting, the first of those options won't work. Essentially all computers that shipped with Windows 8, and most computers sold in the last 2-2.5 years support EFI-mode booting, but sometimes it's not enabled by default.

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  • Typical installs of Windows 7 on gpt drives convert drive to MBR, but leave backup gpt table. Then Ubuntu install will not work as you have mixed MBR & gpt. That is usually easily fixed with Rod Smith's fixparts program. You can convert Windows 7 install to UEFI install if that is what you want or you have to consistently install both systems with BIOS booting on a drive partitioned with MBR(msdos)
    – oldfred
    Oct 10, 2013 at 23:36
  • The failure you describe, oldfred, probably resulted in the initial problem described by user200406; however, once user200406 got Ubuntu installed on a GPT disk (if that's what happened), the problem with the MBR setup with leftover GPT data would have been erased.
    – Rod Smith
    Oct 11, 2013 at 2:06

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