How to dual-boot Debian 6 and Windows 7

in debian, Tutorials/Tips / on February 17, 2011 at 2:57 pm /
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The first LV will be for /. Like the VG’s name, the names for the LVs can be anything you feel comfortable with. For ease of management, it is better to use a name that reminds you of the mount point 9of the LV). I like to name the LV that will be used for / as root, swap for that which will be used for swap, and home for the LV for /home. Continue.
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How much disk space should be allocated to this LV? For guidance, a new installation of Debian 6 takes up about 3.1 GB of disk space, and by default, the installer allocates 10 GB to it. So, 5 GB should be enough. Since we are dealing with LVM, we can always grow the partition after installation. Continue.
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Repeat the previous four steps for the other LVs. When all LVs have been created, the screen should be similar to what you see in the image below. Scroll to “Finish.” Continue.
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The last task in creating LVs is to specify a file system and mount points. So, select any LV, and click Continue.
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Scroll to “Use as” to specify a file system. The default on Debian 6 is ext3. You can stick with that or choose any other available journaling file system. Continue.
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Scroll to “Mount point” and choose the mount point for the LV. Then scroll to “Done setting up the partition.” Continue.
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Repeat the previous three steps for other LVs. When finished, scroll to “Finish partitioning and write changes to disk.” Continue.
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Debian 6 uses GRUB 2 as the bootloader, and will attempt to install it on the Master Boot Record (MBR) of the hard disk. If this is okay by you, then click Continue to move to the next step. Note, however, that installing GRUB in the MBR when you are attempting to dual-boot with Windows will overwrite Windows boot files. This is not the recommended approach. It is better to install it in the boot partition of the Debian installation. So, select No and click Continue.
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All the steps involved in this tutorial are important, but this one is especially so. Remember the partition number of the boot partition? For this tutorial, the boot partition is /dev/sda5. The partition number is, therefore, 5. The device to specify for installing GRUB, in GRUB’s syntax, is (hd0,5). The 0 is the first hard disk and the 5, the partition number. Continue.
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Continue with the rest of the installation. When completed, the system will reboot into Windows. This is expected. The final task is to add an entry for Debian 6 in Windows’ boot menu. The easiest tool I know of to do that is EasyBCD, a free application from NeoSmart Technologies. You may download the latest version here. Install and launch it.

This is the main tab of EasyBCD. It shows the only entry in the boot menu. Click on Add New Entry.
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On the Add New Entry tab, click on the Linux/BSD tab in the upper part of the window. Debian 6 uses GRUB 2, so select “GRUB 2″ from the Type menu. Edit the Name filed to Debian, then click on the Add Entry button. Click on Edit boot Menu.
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Here are the two entries. Windows is the default. You can change the order if you want to. Exit EasyBCD and reboot.
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To be sure that it works, boot into Debian. It should if you followed all the steps as suggested. Note that if you attempt to boot into Debian, you will next encounter the GRUB menu.
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I hope this guide has been helpful. If you need further assistance, feel free to ask for help at the forum. It is a better environment for discussing and resolving issues than the commenting system. Gratias.

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43 Comments

  1. Gustavo says:
    May 4, 2013 at 6:29 am

    Thank you very much for the excellent instructions. Best wishes

    Reply
  2. madrid7 says:
    December 30, 2012 at 9:17 am

    Perfect. Thanks so much!! :)

    Reply
  3. Yannbane says:
    November 25, 2012 at 1:04 pm

    When you say “do this for other LVMs” at the mount point section, you should really explain that for the swap LVM, a different file system option needs to be used (“swap area” instead of “ext3″).

    Otherwise, great tutorial! Thank you very much.

    Reply
  4. Jeremy Lukins says:
    July 28, 2012 at 11:45 am

    I tried this with Windows 8 but once Debian was installed (with a few errors) it wouldn’t bring up a boot menu and I lost my Windows 8. (Not a big problem as it doesn’t take long to re-install and it’s a machine to play with.)

    Do you know if there is something different with Windows 8? It’s a Dell Inspiron Duo with 2GB RAM. I know I don’t have specific error messages but I will try and get them.

    Thanks though, good blog.

    Reply
  5. Nithin says:
    June 5, 2012 at 11:08 pm

    THanks a lot…thanku

    Reply
  6. mohand says:
    May 15, 2012 at 3:23 am

    Thanks a lot. Perfect tuto.

    Reply
  7. New to Linux says:
    April 1, 2012 at 1:00 pm

    I have tried to install Debian on a Windows 7 machine using these instructions. During the installation and the partitioning process Debian showed the whole hard drive as free space even though Windows 7 64-bit is installed on the drive. Continuing with the installation lead to losing windows 7.

    Any ideas why is Debian is seeing the whole drive as free space?

    Here is the procedure used:
    I used the Debian 6. Booted from the Debian 6 CD. Selected Graphical Install. Followed the steps in this article.

    Thanks.

    Reply
    • finid says:
      April 2, 2012 at 12:23 am

      That is strange. Never has a situation like, especially with the Debian Installer.

      Did not try any of the other installer options, like Expert mode, for example.

      Reply
    • mohand says:
      June 7, 2012 at 4:29 am

      Check in Windows7 if your hard disk is mounted as dynamic disk and not basic one in which case you’ll have to do the conversion using the appropriate partitioning software with the necessary precautions of course!

      Reply
    • thetsar says:
      July 24, 2012 at 5:07 am

      I think that you have to go to Windows first, and “shrink” the partition to make room for Linux. Otherwise, Linux will grab the entire partition and bye-bye Windows.

      Reply
      • finid says:
        July 24, 2012 at 5:52 am

        Not necessarily. You can shrink any partition from the installer. You just have to be careful. The installer will actually do it automatically.

        Reply
  8. Jaimyn says:
    March 23, 2012 at 3:54 am

    Hello, I assume that you boot from the Debian CD instead of windows? Am i correct? (I’m just checking as i don’t want to wreck my pc)

    Reply
    • Jaimyn says:
      March 23, 2012 at 11:17 pm

      Doesn’t matter. The tutorial assumes you have booted into the debian CD and have gone through all the steps up to drive detection. Btw thanka heaps for the very good tutorial. It is BY FAR the best out their.

      Reply
  9. vitvrn says:
    March 13, 2012 at 9:08 am

    Thank you! It was very useful.

    Reply
  10. Chalon says:
    February 27, 2012 at 11:00 am

    I’m confused, you use 20G for the home, 5G for the /root and 2G for the swap, so of the 114G you partitioned, you’re only showing me how to use 87G. How do I access the remainder?

    ty!! awesome guide tho btw :)

    Reply
  11. Anonymous says:
    February 19, 2012 at 12:06 pm

    I would just like to thank you, this helped me out a lot.

    Reply
  12. Alex says:
    February 3, 2012 at 3:23 am

    Is it much more difficult to do this when you want to install Debian on a second HDD?

    I tried last night using the installer with default options (aside from picking a partition on the other HDD to use) and it failed miserably at the “install bootloader” stage.

    Reply
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