Reinstallation of windows in dual boot system

Question

I have windows 7 and ubuntu 12.04 as dual OS. I need to reinstall a fresh windows 7 OS. The boot manager lies on windows partition as windows was the first OS. Can someone help me in this matter??

Answer 1

1) Install Windows like you would do usually (just don't erase ext3/ext4/swap/Fat32 Ubuntu partitions). This will not harm Ubuntu but will erase Grub and replace it with MBR, so you will only be able to start Windows.

2) Run Ubuntu as a live-cd and reinstall grub on your boot partition :

See https://help.ubuntu.com/community/Boot-Repair for instructions on how to install grub.

Answer 2

You are trying to install Windows on a system having Ubuntu. There are 2 ways to get it done.
First, install windows as normal and then,

1. Recover the Grub after installing Windows.
2. Back up the previous Master Boot Record and Restore it after Windows installation.

I recommend following the first method since it is a lot easier.

The first method can also be done in different ways such as using a repair disk or by installing the Boot-Repair app in Ubuntu.

1. Download the Boot-Repair disk from the following link. It is a CD starting Boot- Repair automatically.

2. Install Boot-Repair in Ubuntu. For that
   

   • connect internet
   • open a new Terminal, then type:

     sudo add-apt-repository ppa:yannubuntu/boot-repair && sudo apt-get update

   • Press Enter. Then type:

     sudo apt-get install -y boot-repair && (boot-repair &)

   • Press Enter
   • Done!

Answer 3

if you want to keep the windows 8 bootloader, you can just install it normally and use EasyBCD to add the ubuntu bootoption to the windows bootloader

Note if easybcd stops working, go into your program files/ easybcd and copy the .exe, double click the new copy and it works