Dualbooting Windows 10 technical preview and Ubuntu on an IBM T43

 

I've been using Ubuntu for a few years now, but I'm no expert. I like it, specially on my laptop, but I still want to have Windows as well. Some programs that I like needs that. So having dualboot solved my problems. I've made dualboots (and triple, for testing...) with many versions of Ubuntu, and with everything from Windows 2000 and up. But not with Windows 8, at least not yet. I've tried Windows 8, I can't keep away from new OS versions, but I didn't like it, and didn't make that many installations of it. But with Windows 10 I feel differently. This is something I will want on my laptop, and on my desktop as well. But I want Ubuntu too, so it must be a dualboot.

I've read about the new EFI mode that new machines have, it can cause trouble when making a dualboot, but this old machine has a standard bios, and has never caused any trouble when making dualboots. I do not yet own any PC with EFI, I'm more for using old hardware than buying new stuff. I realise that my old T43 with 40Gb drive isn't really suitable for dualbooting two modern systems. But I had to try.

First I made a USB stick with my fresh download of Ubuntu 14.10 using the tool from Ubuntu 14.04 LTS. I already had a DVD with Windows 10 technical preview on it. From the Windows installation disk I erased all existing partitions and made a new 20 Gb partition for Windows 10. I choose to install on it, and it got formatted and Windows 10 installed. After installing some drivers and letting the system go online to get updates, I went on to Ubuntu. That wasn't quite as easy.

First my new USB stick wouln't start my PC. Choosing to start from USB was no problem, just clicking F12 on startup brought up the meny for startup media. But my stick gave the error "Missing parameter in configuration file" gfxboot.c32 not a COM32R image. I don't know what this means, I'm no expert. I read that this could be bypassed by typing Help at the prompt, and it did. Pressing enter started my old T43 from the USB stick. I got Ubuntu installed. But I didn't like this, so I burned an Ubuntu DVD instead, and that one started withour any errors. And yes, I made more than one installation, just to see how i worked.

 

Next problem was that Ubuntu installer couldn't see that there already was an OS installed on my T43. It did see the partitions, and seemed to report the existing free space correctly, but did not detect Windows 10. I thought this could have something to do with how Windows 10 is shut down, so I changed how the startbutton works, from the default "sleep" to "shut down" , and also disabled "fast startup" that can cause trouble. But this did not help. I went on and installed anyway. And it turns out it does work. Grub still does not report an existing Windows installation, but it can be started by choosing Windows Recovery Environment at startup.

Now I have Windows 10 and Ubuntu 14.10 and I can choose at startup which system i want. There is not much space left on my disk, but I can look at these systems and learn how to find my way around in them. And perhaps one day have them installed on a machine for everyday use. But i guess I will have to deal with EFI starup then.

 

I tried this on an extra disk I had nothing important on, I use it only for testing purposes. You should be aware that things can go wrong and all data on your disk can get lost. Be careful.

 

 

 

 

 

Back