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I have installed Ubuntu 12.10 on my laptop, but would like to install windows for the purpose of gaming (Hallelujah). But I haven't left any unpartitioned parts of the HDD so now I am stuck on (How to remove one partition from ubuntu and use it to install win7 in a safe way?) I do not want to reinstall everything all over again, but definitely want to play games on my laptop.

I do not want alternatives with Wine or PlayOnLinux, cuz I have runned a few games and they were all buggy, I want dual-boot.

fdisk -l output:

**Disk /dev/sda: 750.2 GB, 750156374016 bytes
255 heads, 63 sectors/track, 91201 cylinders, total 1465149168 sectors
Units = sectors of 1 * 512 = 512 bytes
Sector size (logical/physical): 512 bytes / 4096 bytes
I/O size (minimum/optimal): 4096 bytes / 4096 bytes
Disk identifier: 0xe2cf4679

   Device Boot      Start         End      Blocks   Id  System
/dev/sda1   *        2048     2000895      999424   83  Linux
/dev/sda2         2002942  1465147391   731572225    5  Extended
Partition 2 does not start on physical sector boundary.
/dev/sda5         2002944     4001791      999424   82  Linux swap / Solaris
/dev/sda6         4003840     6002687      999424   82  Linux swap / Solaris
/dev/sda7         6004736   406003711   199999488   83  Linux
/dev/sda8       406005760   606003199    99998720   83  Linux
/dev/sda9       606005248   706002943    49998848   83  Linux
/dev/sda10      706004992   879212543    86603776   83  Linux
/dev/sda11      879214592  1035462655    78124032   83  Linux
/dev/sda12     1035464704  1075462143    19998720   83  Linux
/dev/sda13     1075464192  1115461631    19998720   83  Linux
/dev/sda14     1115463680  1269835775    77186048   83  Linux
/dev/sda15     1269837824  1465147391    97654784   83  Linux**
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  • Can you add the outcome of sudo fdisk -l?
    – Mitch
    Apr 15, 2013 at 14:33

3 Answers 3

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Installing Windows after Ubuntu

This is not hard as everyone says, but you need to be prepared before you start or you will leave the computer in an unbootable state.

Basic procedure

  1. You can use gparted to resize a partition, but you must either boot from live media or be using a partition that is not mounted.

  2. Decide how much space you can spare. You will find various opinions out there, but Win 7 needs at least 40 GB IMHO. With games installed, you may need more.

  3. Back up your data. You have a lot of logical partitions. To delete logical partitions, you need to first be sure logical partitions with a higher number are unmounted. Moving partitions is not recommended.

  4. You need to create a primary partition formatted as NTFS. If you can let go of /dev/SDA15 The easiest thing for you may be to A) delete it, B) shrink your extended partition, and C) use the new unallocated space for your Win partition.

  5. Assuming you have a valid product key for Windows, when you insert the recovery discs or install dics, you need to choose the options that will not restore your computer to factory image or use the entire disk. The installer will be able to find the NTFS partition and install to that. The exact details of the Win installer menu are off-topic here, however, but you can find instructions for this part if you search. But be careful with this step; you don't want to accidentally blow away Ubuntu.

  6. Once you have rebooted the computer into Windows, follow the steps for first time use, validate your product key, etc. But Windows will have changed the MBR, so you will not be able to boot Ubuntu.

  7. You have a choice to stay with the Win bootloader and use EasyBSD or something to fix booting, but it's easiest to reinstall Grub2.

  8. See Reinstalling Grub2, but here's the key part of that page.

    A) Boot from the live media.

    In these examples, X is the drive letter (a, b, c, etc.); Y is the partition number (1, 5, etc):

    Example: sudo mount /dev/sdXY /mnt

    sudo mount /dev/sda1 /mnt

    Example: sudo grub-install --boot-directory=/mnt/boot /dev/sda

    sudo grub-install --boot-directory=/mnt/boot /dev/sda

    In short, you mount the partition, but install to the drive. The actual commands here are suggestions based on what you posted, but it's up to you to make sure you are installing Grub2 where you want it.

  9. Now Ubuntu will boot but not Windows. Login to Ubuntu and sudo update-grub

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  • A problem appeared my GRUB stopped working after step 8 now it fails to boot, but drops me in grub rescue without any options to chose from. Any Idea how can I fix this? Could you point me on how to reinstall the GRUB or how to replace it with the windows bootloader? (googled much but am finding outdated articles for ubuntu 7.x ~ 9.x, but none for the 12.10)
    – DaGhostman Dimitrov
    Apr 16, 2013 at 14:10
  • Do step 8 again. Read the full instructions at the linked page. Make sure the version of your live media is the same as your installed version. Be sure the partition number in the mount command is the right number. If it still doesn't work, use the chroot method further down the same page, which allows you to run update-grub from the live media.
    – chaskes
    Apr 16, 2013 at 17:06
  • Have fixed the grub rescue, but something went wrong when fixing grub.. I ended up backing up and reinstalling everything, now I am going to do them in the otherway around, 1. Install Win7 2. Install Ubuntu 3. Enjoy =D Thank you anyway Your answer was perfect, my problem is probably in something that I did.
    – DaGhostman Dimitrov
    Apr 17, 2013 at 8:53
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Try Virtualbox. Emulate Windows. Hope it help.

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  • tryed.. even gived it 2 cores(proc) and full video (128MB which was max?!?)
    – DaGhostman Dimitrov
    Apr 15, 2013 at 18:13
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Open GParted and resize a partition.

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