Dualbooting Windows 8.1 and Ubuntu

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Christian1306

Member
I want to start using ubuntu on my laptop, a Acer E5-573G-P4G8 , for who is interested in specs just look the exact model up, as there are also more powerful models. This one has a intel pentium 3556u.
So I got ubuntu on a USB drive and installed it alongside windows option(both are installed in UEFI,as I didn't change that option before installing because I wanted them both in the same boot system.
When I went and restarted it , it is like it was never installed, it doesn't give me any option to boot windows or ubuntu, it just defaults to windows.
Any help is appreciated :)
 
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_Pete_

Active Member
right click on This PC or whatever they call it in Win 8.1. In the box that pops up left click on advanced system settings. In the box that pops up left click on the advanced tab if it isn't already selected. Then left click the button in the start up and recovery box. You should see both your operating system there if the dual boot went okay. There are also options to choose how your computer boots and to which operating system first. If Ubuntu isn't listed then It would seem that the dual boot set didn't work. I would then install Ubuntu again.
 
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Christian1306

Member
_Pete_ said:
right click on This PC or whatever they call it in Win 8.1. In the box that pops up left click on advanced system settings. In the box that pops up left click on the advanced tab if it isn't already selected. Then left click the button in the start up and recovery box. You should see both your operating system there if the dual boot went okay. There are also options to choose how your computer boots and to which operating system first. If Ubuntu isn't listed then It would seem that the dual boot set didn't work. I would then install Ubuntu again.
Click to expand...
Thank you!! I didn't even know about this, i'll have to reinstall ubuntu now :)
 
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_Pete_

Active Member
Your welcome but be careful with it because using this function can mess things up completely that's why it is hidden. Also you may end up with two entries for Ubuntu there but just delete one of them. The problem you may have is knowing which is the working one LOL. Good luck.

Forgot this bit. You will have to set your bios to display the POST if it doesn't already. I think the boot options come up during the POST display although I might be wrong as it is a long time since I played with dual boot. The ghosted out time that you see in that boot box is the time that the dual boot option is shown at POST. if you don't select a boot option during that time your computer will boot to it's default operating system, in your case Windows 8.1.
 
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Christian1306

Member
Even if I mess everything up I have nothing on this laptop as its just a secondary machine, and if dualbooting gives me many more headaches I'll just try ubuntu by itself.
 
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_Pete_

Active Member
LOL well that's just defeatist but to be honest that does make it much easier. As I have said it has been a long time since I did any dual booting. Ubuntu is so good these days that I just run it from the USB stick for what I want to do with it.
 
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Christian1306

Member
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_Pete_

Active Member
Okay also just for interest I have set up a dual boot on my spare lappy (Windows7) using Xubuntu. It has set up okay and when I now boot the computer I get the option to choose Xubuntu or Windows. But I was wrong about that "startup and recovery" box showing the fact that there is a dual boot system set up. It only shows how long the dual boot options box is displayed before the computer boots to the default OS. I'm sure it used to show both OSs back in the XP days but that was a long time ago and I'm old.

I didn't have to change anything in the bios in my computer. You probably had to change the boot order so that it booted from your usb drive. You could have mashed F12 and that would have brought up the boot list and allowed you to select to boot from the usb drive.

HHMM just read that link to the Acer forum. that is relating to a UEFI bios computer which my spare isn't. I don't want to try it on my UEFI computer because of the disk partitioning that goes on. Getting rid of partitions is relatively easy, I use Paragon Partition Manager which is free. But stuff could and does get lost when you create partitions on a disk that is already installed and I have lots of family photos on my main laptop and whilst they are all backed up I don't to, potentially, lose them on that machine.
 
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