Comment 16 for bug 948716

Hi Mike,

I will try to answer your questions.

On Thu, Mar 15, 2012 at 10:22 AM, mikifin <email address hidden> wrote:

> Let's review, so that I get you what you want. I am going to image the
> PC as it is. Wipe it and install Ubuntu using your file on a OEM Windows
> 7 system. This may take awhile, maybe several days.
>

You ought not to this, I'm pretty sure that the bug is fixed now so only to
this if you really wish to and have time. Probably you don't need to wipe
everything, installing copy of Ubuntu to H:\ drive seems to be good enough
test to me.

> First, I have to say that I was attempting to install 11.04 and
> installing the files to a back partition in my case H directly from the
> Ubuntu site not with a CD/DVD.
>

Yes, I understood. H: drive is the one with FAT filesystem, right? (that's
the key point). I just realized that the version I uploaded would install
Ubuntu 12.04. I'm sorry but I don't know the proper way to create wubi for
older releases. I've changed isolist.ini file to match 11.04 and uploaded
the new version to the same location. You can try it (it will say that it's
going to install 12.04 but that's not true -- it will try with 11.04) but I
can't guarantee it will work correctly -- don't use it unless you have time
for another iteration.

Now, this is the process I used initially and I will repeat it using
> your new file. I opened a network connection from a Windows 7 Home
> Premium OS, downloaded wubi from the Ubuntu site and ran it on my
> desktop and it appeared that wubi went onto the internet and downloaded
> the files from Ubuntu for the 11.04 version and installed them to the H
> drive. The Windows boot menu appeared, I selected Ubuntu and next a
> "grub2?" boot menu appeared and I selected Ubuntu and it failed.
>

That sounds reasonable.

> Since that time I did three things. I investigated the issue from the
> windows side. First I discovered that the Windows system was setup on a
> dynamic drive. Then second I discovered that I had to shift the drive to
> a static drive to install another OS and did that. I then discovered (as
>

Uh. So, had you done this conversion (dynamic to basic) before trying Wubi?
Actually Linux supports dynamic disks but grub2 does not so one can't boot
Ubuntu system from dynamic disk.

> is common on most OEM computers like Dell) that they fill up the drive
> with primary partitions so that you can't install another type of
> operating system. It seems Windows systems only allow four primary
>

That's generic partition table limitation not Windows one.

> partitions, so third I turned two of the partitions to extended
> partition, which gave me the ability to install another OS.
>

That's ok but please note that you can skip this if you are going to use
Wubi -- it doesn't need separate partition.

> I decided to backstep to 10.43 and changed the partitioning as
>

Uh? What's 10.43?

> described above and then installed the Ubuntu files using a downloaded
> Ubuntu image ISO on a DVD and used the wubi.exe in the image and
> directed the installer to put the files on the C or primary partition
> (sda0?) instead of a back partition and it worked like a charm. This
>

It's sda1 and it's NTFS (not FAT) -- that's the key difference.

Again, probably you don't have to reinstall everything: now you at least
have the working system and unfortunately I can't guarantee that my
wubi.exe will work with 11.04.

Regards, Ilya.