Dual Booting Ubuntu and XP

Recently I've been asked the question, "Can Ubuntu and XP be dual booted?" This isn't the first time I have ever seen this question. Also, I've been asked the question, "What is the best way to dual boot Ubuntu and XP?" Again, this is another question that I haven't seen for the first time.

For the question of a possible dual boot. The answer is totally yes, and if you buy one of those Intel MAC's you can tripple boot OSX, XP, and Ubuntu. As for the question of what is the best way to dual boot them....well, I don't have a great answer. I mean, there are plenty of ways to do a dual boot for Ubuntu and XP...the problem is I don't think one way is 100% best. The best I can do is tell you my favorite way to do it.

The first thing I suggest is that Windows should be installed first. Because of this, we will look at the dual booting process in two different scenarios. We will look at it as Windows already being on the system, or it being a clean hard drive, and neither Windows nor Linux are on the system. Sure, you can start with Ubuntu on the system first. The thing is I prefer Windows to be on there first.

Let us start with the idea of Windows already being on the hard drive. You have to find a way to make a partition. A partition is a separation of memory in your hard drive. What it does, is it sections off memory telling it where the section starts and where it will end. There are 2 ways you can do this in Windows. You can either download a partitioning program, such as Partition Magic, or you can use your boot disc to make a partition. I want to focus on Partition Magic first.

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With partition magic, all you have to do is load it, and then make a partition. I wont go into detail on how to do that, because you can go to Google for that information really easy. The only thing I do want to say is that you should make the partition into free space.

Partition Magic Tutorials

There is a link for you guys, you know just to be a little nice. Anyway, after you make the partition you can then put your Ubuntu disc into your CD-ROM, restart your computer, and then boot from the disc. In my case I have a dell, so I press F8 and it will give me the option to boot from disc. If you are using HP, you have to go into your BIOS to set it up to make it boot from the disc. Now let me explain how to do this if you have a blank hard drive, then I will explain the Ubuntu booting process.

If your hard drive is empty, turn on your computer and get into the option where you can boot from a CD-ROM. If you have dell, then F8 should be your key. Put the boot disc into your CD-ROM drive and then let it boot from the disc. It will ask you to press buttons and make decisions and such. When you get to the part about a partition, follow the instructions as to what to do. It's pretty easy if you just read what buttons you need to press.

Before I go on I want to add something I forgot to mention. When doing your partition try to make a third partition on your hard drive of about 5 gigs or 10 gigs, depending on your hard drive size or preference. The reason why I say this, is because you will need it for a few security reasons. You can get both Windows and Linux to read and write to each other's partitions, but it may not work on your system for who knows what reason. Make sure you format it as a FAT32 file. You can do this with partition magic, or when doing a fresh install of windows you make the partition an NTFS partition, and then when you are in Windows later you can format it by right clicking it and turning it into a FAT32 file. I suggest you make a partition so you can swap files. You can use this partition if you need a fast place to store your data, in case you need to reformat for any reason. This is just my opinion though, if you feel there is no need, then just partition the hard drive in half.

Now comes the fun part. After the partitions are worked out and Windows is all settled down, you insert your Ubuntu disc and boot from it. After you are in Ubuntu (I'm going on the idea that you are using a Live CD), you double click on the install Icon and you start configuring and loading Ubuntu. You will come to the part where you pick your partition and all that. I suggest you go with the selection that says something along the lines of, "Install Ubuntu onto the largest free space." Then from there just go with whatever configuration works for you and load Ubuntu onto your system.

With this dual boot you will want to try to get Ubuntu to be able to read the Windows partition, and Windows to read the Ubuntu partition. Also, you will want to get Ubuntu to read the FAT32 partition. I suggest you check out my links section and go to the Ubuntu Wiki link to give you help with that.

I hope this helps anyone who needs the help, and I hope that they don't run into too many problems. Remember if you do, in my links section, there is always the Ubuntu Forums that you can go to for help.

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Dual Booting Ubuntu and XP