Will Windows Overwrite GRUB?

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pwnage101

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Apr 10, 2007
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I need to install Win7 on my laptop with the following partitions:

|-------linux-------|---swap---|----------empty-----------|
242 GB, 6 GB, 348 GB respectively

If I install windows 7 in the empty partition will I need to fiddle with GRUB? If so, is there a better way to install windows? Should I even use GRUB, or some other bootloader?
 
I'm 99% sure that windows will overwrite GRUB, but it should still allow you to boot your other operating systems. If it doesn't, you should be able to do a "repair" with your linux install disc (or manually if you so choose)


I feel it's necessary to tell you that I am not a linux expert and I recommend verifying the "it will still boot your other operating systems" part of my comment.
 
To the best of my knowledge, Windows will always overwrite the boot sector of the hard drive it's installed to.

The best way to do it from where you're at in my opinion is to make sure Grub is installed to the linux partition. Then install Windows 7 in the empty space partition. Then use a tool like EasyBCD to modify the windows 7 boot loader to have a second option that points to the grub partion.
 
As expected, windows booted by default.

Then I installed EasyBCD but now if I try to boot into linux it hangs on a screen with a blinking cursor. What can that possibly mean? I certainly did not overwrite it with windows, and EasyBCD recognizes it as "Linux".

Current partitions:
|------linux(ext4)------|------swap------|------SystemReserve(NTFS)------|-----------(C: )(NTFS)-----------|
 
Last edited:
Scratch that, turns out you're supposed to specify GRUB2 for it to work (GRUB was default in EasyBCD) because ubuntu has been usnig GRUB2 since 9.10.
 
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