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September 13th, 2011 03:00

Multiple OS support

Can I install two or more operating systems on my Dell Inspiron N5010? I tried installing windows XP with windows 7 but did not work, currently i use windows 7.  Also i need to know if i can install Linux OS.

11 Legend

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September 13th, 2011 06:00

Yes you can dual boot 7 and Ubuntu.

Install 7 as normal then use the wubi.exe within windows to install the linux.

11 Legend

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September 13th, 2011 09:00

Rahul ... dual-booting is not for the faint of heart ... it must be done correctly.

You said you "tried installing Windows XP with Windows 7 but it did not work" ... what was the problem?  How did you install it/them?

You can do as nat suggests and use the Ubuntu from Windows method by "installing" Ubuntu inside of Windows, OR you can actually dual-boot Windows 7 with any Linux OS by putting them on separate partitions.  Follow this tutorial to do so:

apcmag.com/how_to_dualboot_vista_with_linux_vista_installed_first.htm

(It is a tutorial for Vista, but it will work the same way for 7.)

2 Posts

September 14th, 2011 04:00

thanks!

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September 14th, 2011 05:00

A note of installing UBUNTU and the wubi application.

Get the 64 bit version here. It is a large download and may take some time. Also download 7zip (64 bit version .msi). Once it is downloaded, right click the file "ubuntu-11.04-desktop-amd64.iso" and select 7zip and select extract to "ubuntu-11.04-desktop-amd64". You will have a file in this folder called wubi.exe.

Copy this file and the "ubuntu-11.04-desktop-amd64.iso" into the same location. You may then delete the  "ubuntu-11.04-desktop-amd64" folder.

You should then have the following in a folder e.g. in documents\Linux

Now the wubi has problems with card readers, you should go to device manager. Press [Windows] and [Pause|Break] (or right click computer and select properties) and then select device manager

Go to disk drives, right click any device such as those marked in red and then click disable. Then run the wubi file and install UBUNTU.

Once UBUNTU is installed, when you power up your computer you will have a black screen saying Windows 7 or UBUNTU 11.04, here you select the one you want to use. If you don't click within the 10 seconds it will go automatically to Windows 7.

Next time you are in Windows 7, go back to the device manager and enable the card readers.

If the attempted dual boot with XP messed up your Windows 7 installation, you will need to reinstall Windows 7, I have wrote a guide below on how to proceed.

6 Operator

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September 14th, 2011 14:00

I prefer to duel boot with 2 HD's, though you can do it with 1 HD, using 2 partitions.

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September 14th, 2011 17:00

Its a Inspiron N5010 (laptop) so there is probably no way to have 2 internal hard drives. The wubi.exe installs linux within windows kinda, it creates a sem-duel boot as in you are asked what one you want to run at the start but the user does not have to mess around with partitions.

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September 14th, 2011 19:00

I actually installs Ubuntu as an application that runs alone from the Windows boot manager.  I don't like Ubuntu, but I much prefer an actual dual-boot of Ubuntu to the wubi version ... it runs much better and doesn't mess with Windows 7 (other than the boot manager - booting to the various OS's is then handled by GRUB).

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February 20th, 2024 13:25

@Philip_Yip​ Yes, you can actually have 2 hard drives inside the product, you just need to put a CD-ROM caddy in the disk drive so you can add a second one

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