Windows – Installing/dual-booting Fedora 17 on existing Windows 7 HDD

First, I strongly recommend that you read the Fedora 11 Install Guide

It's really going to depend on the existing layout of your system, but here's how I would do it:

1. Go get a Live CD with GParted on it. I would suggest either the official GParted LiveCD or SystemRescueCD.

2. Plan the partition layout (this is somewhat dependent on the amount of free space you have available). It's typically easier to have all of your Windows partitions at the beginning of the drive and then your Linux partitions after them, but you also want to have your /boot partition be a primary partition (not technically necessary, but you may confuse the installer if it's not). You may need to shrink or move some of your existing Windows partitions to free up enough space (This is typically safe, but the usual backup warnings apply). It is best if you end up with at least 10GB available for Fedora, although you can fit it into less. Here's the layout I would suggest:

   • System Reserved
   • Windows Root (C:)
   • /boot (~200 MB is plenty)
   • Extended Partition (Contains the rest of the partitions)
   • Windows Data (D:)
   • Free Space (to be filled by Fedora when you do your install)

   Alternatively, you may prefer to just slide all of the windows partitions to the beginning of the drive and see if Fedora will be happy to install to an Extended Partition in the Free space area (it would put /boot and the LVM block all in the Extended Partition).

3. Start the Fedora 11 install (whether from the Fedora 11 LiveCD or the Install DVD, my preference is for the latter but YMMV).

4. At the Partitioning screen, tell it you want to do a custom layout and that you want to review it first. This should take you to the Partitioning screen.

5. Assign the pre-created /boot partition to the /boot mount point (edit that partition in the partitioning screen).

6. Create an LVM block taking up all of the free space.

7. In the LVM block, create a swap LV the same size as the amount of RAM you have in your machine.

8. In the LVM block, create a root partition ( / ). You can have it take up the rest of the space in the LVM (this is the default layout), although it's easier and more flexible to keep it small (10-20GB) and leave the unused space available for future use. If you find you're running out of space on your root partition, you can extend the LV and the filesystem -- the ext3/4 & XFS file systems can even be grown while mounted (lvextend then resize2fs or xfs_growfs).

That should work fine... but seriously, read the Install Doc as I'm sure it will have both more detail and better clarity than I.

First of all you must find out which is the current active partition (it holds the boot configuration files and Windows 7 boot manager). To find out use Windows Disk Management.

It is best if first partition on disk is active (and primary). Download Visual BCD Editor for Windows 7/Vista. It comes with "Dual boot Repair tool".

Run Dual-boot Repair.

1) Click on Disk Management. Now see if first partition is marked active. If not mark it active.

Steps 2,3,4 only if first partition was not active !

2) Click on "Automatic Repair" (Dual-boot Repair) - this will create the boot configuration data and boot manager on first active partition.

3) Reboot. Windows 7 will be the default boot entry.

4) If XP is missing from boot-menu you can add it using Visual BCD Editor - right click in tree view and select "Create missing Windows loaders".

Now you have Windows 7 boot manager on first partition(active) and boot configuration data is also stored there.

Copy Windows 7 partition using Partition Wizard 7 Home(free tool) to new drive. Reboot to default (old Windows 7).

In Disk Management (and Explorer) check that you can see your new partition (new Windows 7). Add another boot entry for new Windows 7 (again using "Create missing Windows loaders")

Now you will have 3 boot menu entries - XP, old Windows 7, new Windows 7.

Check you can boot to every boot-menu entry. If all seems OK - delete old partition for Windows 7 (!! if it is not the first active partition !!) and delete boot menu entry for old Windows 7 - run Visual BCD Editor - select old Windows 7 loader in tree view, right click and "delete".

Note: Windows 7 always boots to fist disk and active partition on that disk !