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My PC doesn't have a working CD drive and the BIOS is too old to boot from USB drives. It has Windows 7 installed. I've split the hard drive into 2 partitions with the first one (H:) being NTFS and the second (I:) being FAT32.

I've used Unetbootin (an older version of it that has the "Show all drives option", since the latest one doesn't detect the I: drive for some reason) to download Ubuntu 10.04 Netinstall to the drive I:. The procedure seemed to have went fine, but there is an issue.

When I reboot the computer I don't see an option to choose OSs (Windows 7 boots up immediately) and the Ubuntu installer is not available as an option anywhere. It is as if the second partition is not detected at all (although I can see it in My Computer and browse its contents). If I go to the BIOS Advanced Settings and try to reorder the boot sequence there is only one Hard Drive option, that is my whole hard drive, unpartitioned (along with many others such as CD-ROM, USB-FDD, Flash drive, LAN, etc).

I am guessing there is some kind of an issue with the Windows MBR, but if I remember correctly that should only be touched when I successfully install both OSs (since the second partition doesn't contain a real OS at the moment, only the Ubuntu installer)

My main goal is to get rid of Windows alltogether and have a single Ubuntu drive.

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Adding the unetbootin partion to your boot menu

  1. Download EasyBCD (just press Download).
  2. Select "Add New entry".
  3. Go to the operating system tab
  4. select "linux/BSD"
  5. Give it an name (example "install ubuntu")
  6. Select the correct partion (the partion on the image is an example can be diffrent on your system!)
  7. Press add entry
  8. Reboot and select "install ubuntu" in the (windows) dual-boot menu
  9. After installation you can now remove the install ubuntu" partion using gparted and follow this guide to add the free space to your ubuntu system.
  10. Press upvote !!!

enter image description here

Installing from a ISO file.

  1. Download EasyBCD (just press Download).
  2. Select "Add New entry".
  3. go to the portable/external media tab
  4. Give it an name (example "install ubuntu")
  5. Select the ubuntu ISO path
  6. And press "Add entry"
  7. Make a new partion using disk-management (max size you can maby)
  8. Reboot your system.
  9. Select "ubuntu install" in your (windows) dual-boot menu.
  10. Install ubuntu on that new partion.
  11. Than you have windows dual-booted with Ubuntu
  12. You can now remove the windows partion using gparted and follow this guide to add the free space to your ubuntu system.
  13. Press upvote !!!

DON'T REMOVE THE WINDOWS PARTION WITH THE INSTALLER! REMEMBER THE DISK IS LOADED FROM WINDOWS!!!

enter image description here

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  • Sorry for the confusion. I meant that the original drive has XP installed, not Windows 7. Unfortunately, EasyBCD doesn't work with XP, so I am back to square one. Any suggestions?
    – Dzhuneyt
    Mar 7, 2013 at 10:10
  • For XP I should read this (I Never did something like that on XP). support.microsoft.com/kb/289022/eng
    – Thomas15v
    Mar 7, 2013 at 16:53

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