Ubuntu – How to boot Ubuntu ISO from Windows 8

dual-bootinstallationisowindows 8

I have a Lenovo ThinkPad S230u Laptop/Ultrabook with Windows 8 pre-installed on it. It doesn't have a CD/DVD Drive. I read another question that was similar to mine, but it involved using a Live CD, DVD or USB device. I have an Ubuntu 12.10 ISO file, ready to be mounted.

Can I install Ubuntu directly from an ISO, without using a Live CD, DVD, or USB device? If so, how?

Best Answer

You asked:

Is it possible to do this through an emulated USB(similar to PowerISO)?

You can install directly from the ISO image if you use Wubi. Here's two ways:

Put the ISO Image in a Folder with the Installer

Download wubi.exe and put it in a folder with the ISO image and (preferably) nothing else. Make sure the Wubi installer is for the same Ubuntu release as the ISO image.

Then just run wubi.exe; assuming the ISO image is uncorrupted, it will find and use its contents automatically.

Mount the ISO Image

If you have a Windows utility like Virtual CloneDrive, Daemon Tools, or PowerISO that lets you mount ISO images on a virtual drive, you can mount the ISO image, then run wubi.exe from inside the virtual drive. (It's a file in the ISO, so if you use this technique, you don't have to--and should not--use a separate copy of it.)

Related Solutions

Ubuntu – How to make a bootable USB stick from an ISO image? I’m running Kubuntu 12.04

Regarding upgrading firmware using linux:

You can refer to this page from lenovo forum. It worked for my x220. http://forums.lenovo.com/t5/Linux-Discussion-Knowledge-Base/Updating-the-BIOS-via-USB-X220-s-running-Linux/ta-p/674677

Here I paste the steps over, but credit goes to writer of geteltorito.pl

1.Get the bios update iso (8duj10uc.iso or later) from the lenovo support site.

2.Get 'geteltorito' and extract the boot image from the iso (isobar.c probably works too)

$wget 'http://www.uni-koblenz.de/~krienke/ftp/noarch/geteltorito/geteltorito.pl'

$perl geteltorito.pl 8duj10uc.iso > biosupdate.img

3.Copy the image to the usb thumdrive

$ sudo dd if=biosupdate.img of=/dev/usbthumdrive bs=512K

Reboot, Press F12 and boot from thumb drive.

Ubuntu – How to make live DVD EFI bootable

It sounds like you've already installed Ubuntu in BIOS mode. If I'm mistaken, you can either do so or try my first suggestion and/or a rEFInd installation to boot the installer in EFI mode to do the installation directly in that way.

First, try disabling Secure Boot and booting the Ubuntu installer in EFI mode. Secure Boot support is brand-new in Ubuntu 12.10, and it may yet be buggy, so eliminating Secure Boot as a possible troublemaker is worth trying.

If that works, you can boot the Ubuntu disc into live CD mode and use it to install the EFI boot loader of your choice. Ubuntu 12.10 uses GRUB 2, but several others are available, and you may prefer one of them. You could try something similar with the System Rescue CD, which supports an EFI-mode boot.

If you can't seem to get Ubuntu or System Rescue CD booted in this way, try installing my rEFInd boot manager from within Windows. (You'll need to either disable Secure Boot or jump through some extra hoops to get it working, though.) A basic installation with no extra changes will present a menu with Windows and nothing else; but you can enable a boot to Ubuntu in either of two ways:

You can edit the refind.conf file, uncomment the scanfor line, and add hdbios to the list of options. This will enable scanning for, and booting to, BIOS-based OSes, such as your Ubuntu installation. This option works with many, but not all, UEFI-based PCs.
You can install the ext4fs driver that comes with rEFInd 0.6.0. This will enable rEFInd to search for Linux kernels and launch them from your regular installation. You'll also need to create a refind_linux.conf file and put it in your Linux /boot directory, though; without it, the kernel will launch but it won't be able to find your root filesystem. You could do a one-time boot by selecting the Linux icon, hitting the Insert key a couple of times to bring up the editor, and adding ro root=/dev/sda3 (or whatever the Linux root partition's identifier is) to the boot options. Once Linux is up, running the mkrlconf.sh script that comes with rEFInd should generate a suitable configuration file to obviate the need for manually entering this option.

The last I heard, none of the BSDs had a working EFI-mode boot loader. If I'm misinformed or if this has changed recently, you should be able to install BSD and select it with rEFInd. If the BSDs are still behind the EFI times, though, you'll need to use either your firmware's selection tool or rEFInd to switch between Windows and BSD; AFAIK, no other boot program can switch BIOS/EFI boot modes on UEFI-based PCs. (rEFIt can do this on Macs, though.)