i have windows 7 installed (i install it first because for me it was always easier to have dual boot working) and i want to install 12.04 (i've tried 11.10 and 11.04 and i have the same problem) but i can't make dual boot works.
When i install w7, the installer create an additional partition with the loader (i'm not sure what is in this partition because other installers didn't create it) so in sda1 is a small partition with the loader and in sda2 is the windows 7 partition.
when i try to install Ubuntu, i create a partition for the / directory, one for the /home and one for swap. After install Ubuntu grub never starts and w7 starts automatically.
i tried setting the sda1 (while i am installing Ubuntu) as the boot directory but grub didnt recognize w7 (and i couldn't add it to grub). After reinstall w7 and Ubuntu i tryg the clasic 'fix' for grub the windows 7 loader keeps but showing a message that it is broken (and that i must use the w7 disk to restore it).
i hope someone has a solution for this, i search a lot but i can't found a solution.
thanks
Best Answer
When installing Windows 7 on empty disk it creates a small "System Reserved" boot partition and a bigger with Windows 7 proper.
You can install Ubuntu choosing to install its boot loader (GRUB2) to its partition instead of MBR. So it will not destroy Windows booting (and MBR).
Later to add Ubuntu to Windows boot menu create a "boot sector loader" and use "dd for Windows" to get a copy of Ubuntu partition boot record - see here, Section 8 how to do this.