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William
Asked: 2012-01-05 19:15:16 +0800 CST

Tell Ubiquity to not install GRUB

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I have almost convinced a family member to dual-boot with Ubuntu. I've showed him wubi, and he thinks that he's ready to give Ubuntu a try and dual boot. However, he thinks that overwriting the Windows bootloader is too risky and doesn't want to. I know you can restore the Windows bootloader after installation of Ubuntu, but that's not what I mean. Is there any option in the installer that I'm missing to skip installing GRUB? Thanks for any help in advance.

boot

2 Answers

  1. Best Answer

    As you install Ubuntu, watch where you are installing grub.

    Install grub into the same partition you installed ubuntu. This will NOT install grub into the MBR.

    The exact location varies with the version of Ubuntu you are installing, here are screenshots for 12.04

    Install 1

    Install 2

    See also https://help.ubuntu.com/community/GraphicalInstall

    From there you will then need to configure the windows boot loader to boot Ubuntu. This may be more or less difficult then using grub, depending on how well you know windows.

    There is a tutorial here - http://www.ubuntugeek.com/use-the-windows-bootloader-to-dual-boot-windows-vista-and-ubuntu.html

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  2. Here's a step by step guide to setting up the Windows bootloader to boot Ubuntu: http://www.iceflatline.com/2009/09/how-to-dual-boot-windows-7-and-linux-using-bcdedit/

    I believe the alternate installer has an option to skip the installation of a bootloader, however I haven't used it for a long time so am not 100% on that. The other way is to, as in the link above, choose to install GRUB to the partition that you're installing Ubuntu to so it won't overwrite any of the Windows files.

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