Does installing dual-booting wipe everything stored on Windows?

No. You will have two separate systems. You will need to resize, "shrink" the Windows partition.

Thanks very much, that's good news. I was confused by the following comment:

'After finalizing the installation, however, the hard disk will be re-partitioned and all existing data stored on it will be lost. Ensure that you have made and tested a backup copy of all important data.' from:

https://help.ubuntu.com/8.04/switching/installing-partitioning.html#installing-partitioning-dual

Can you understand what is meant here?

It is always worth backing up data when trying something new like this. Perhaps you can borrow an external drive from someone for a few days or make dvd's or something of your most valued or treasured data?

If you have never installed an OS before and have no linux experience (ie like most of us when we first tried Ubuntu) then things may go wrong, although almost all of us were lucky and managed to get through safely. I'm not sure why you're being asked to use the "Manual" Partitioning route although i do personnally prefer it because then i can prepare the partitions in advance and i see exaclty what's going on in detail. Anyway, these guides might help give an overview of setting up a dual-boot
http://www.psychocats.net/ubuntu/dualboot

https://help.ubuntu.com/community/WindowsDualBoot

The psychocats one includes some good screenshots
Good luck and regards from
Tom :)

Thanks a lot, Tom. Your friendly and helpful advice is much appreciated.

Rychard

________________________________
From: Tom <email address hidden>
To: <email address hidden>
Sent: Sunday, 5 April, 2009 21:29:57
Subject: Re: [Question #66570]: Does installing dual-booting wipe everything stored on Windows?

Your question #66570 on Ubuntu changed:
https://answers.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+question/66570

    Status: Open => Answered

Tom proposed the following answer:
It is always worth backing up data when trying something new like this.
Perhaps you can borrow an external drive from someone for a few days or
make dvd's or something of your most valued or treasured data?

If you have never installed an OS before and have no linux experience (ie like most of us when we first tried Ubuntu) then things may go wrong, although almost all of us were lucky and managed to get through safely. I'm not sure why you're being asked to use the "Manual" Partitioning route although i do personnally prefer it because then i can prepare the partitions in advance and i see exaclty what's going on in detail. Anyway, these guides might help give an overview of setting up a dual-boot
http://www.psychocats.net/ubuntu/dualboot

https://help.ubuntu.com/community/WindowsDualBoot

The psychocats one includes some good screenshots
Good luck and regards from
Tom :)

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You're welcome, it's good to see someone new and asking question here already, before going ahead and possibly getting into trouble. I just looked through the psychocats guide again and noticed they didn't seem to advise how much space Ubutnu needs. At minimum Ubuntu needs about 8Gb but 15Gb is much better. Note that it really doesn't need any more than this because it can read data stored on you Windows partition. My current install is only about 10Gb and i watch movies i saved on the Windows side.

Good luck and regards from
Tom :)

no dual booting does not wipe everything stored on windows. do not touch the
windows partition while dual booting. never touch the system files of
windows which u can see in ubuntu partition.

On Sat, Apr 11, 2009 at 2:14 PM, Tom <email address hidden>wrote:

> Question #66570 on Ubuntu changed:
> https://answers.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+question/66570
>
> Status: Open => Answered
>
> Tom proposed the following answer:
> You're welcome, it's good to see someone new and asking question here
> already, before going ahead and possibly getting into trouble. I just
> looked through the psychocats guide again and noticed they didn't seem
> to advise how much space Ubutnu needs. At minimum Ubuntu needs about
> 8Gb but 15Gb is much better. Note that it really doesn't need any more
> than this because it can read data stored on you Windows partition. My
> current install is only about 10Gb and i watch movies i saved on the
> Windows side.
>
> Good luck and regards from
> Tom :)
>
> --
> You received this question notification because you are an answer
> contact for Ubuntu.
>

Lol, i sometimes use the Ubuntu side to fix problems with the system files on the Windows side and routinely use the Windows partition to store data so that it can be seen from either OS, whichever i boot into.

Saving web-pages has been tricky once or twice because Windows can't handle such long file names - i think it can only support something like 256 characters in a file name, to me more than 8 characters seems excessive although it's handy to have a short note! Apart from web-pages most things have reasonably sensible names and so there's no problem saving linux stuff in Windows spaces.

Good luck and regards from
Tom :)

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Hi :)

Have you been able to test the new Ubuntu 10.04 before it gets officially released?
http://www.ubuntulinux.org/testing/lucid/beta1
Trying it as a LiveCd or as an extra dual/multi-boot would be ideal. Developers and everyone are keen to try to iron out any problems before 10.04 gets officially released so you might find faster & more effective answers to your bug reports which would make 10.04 work better on your system for you

Thanks and regards from
Tom :)