I have an old windows 7 PC with several drives and I'd like to install Zorin 17 as dual boot but not on the same drive as windows.
Windows is currently using legacy bios to boot so I'm trying to install Zorin in legacy mode too, but each time I get a warning message about the fact that there isn't an EFI partition (using the “Something else” option during install).
I used Rufus to set the USB to MBR but I still get the same result.
Please can you tell me how to install Zorin with legacy bios on a different drive from windows ?
You would have the least problems when you install Zorin together with the bootloader grub on a separate drive. You can set this up by selecting "something else" during installation. I'm not entirely sure whether you can then also select which operating system you want to start when booting (grub may have to be configured additionally for this), but you can always control which operating system is to be started with the boot options in the BIOS.
If you need more help, you are welcome to take a screenshot of your partitions, preferably with gparted in a live session (use Zorin Boot Stick for it and choose "Try Zorin", then you can open gparted).
You can ignore that warning and proceed with the installation.
On legacy mode you generally need two partitions
/boot
/
Note: On this screen take a look at the bottom side for an option Bootloader Location , make sure you select the same drive that you are trying to install Zorin.
You are right. After the installation on the first boot it may not display the grub and directly boots into Zorin.
You just need to update the grub to fix it. Simply in a terminal window run
sudo update-grub
This will add the Win boot entry to grub and next boot onwards it will give you the option to select which one to boot into.
Unetbootin - old USB installer creation tool; and writes in the older / legacy MBR format.
I've used that for many, many older XP and 7 based systems in the past. Still got an older Satellite laptop kickin lol Hard to get the Linux treatment though; doesn't like any of the kernels..
When You in ''Something else'' look under the Partition Table. There is the Option ''Device for boot loader installation''. Choose there ''Windows Boot Manager'':
@littlekun should the 2 partitions be "ext4" type or should I have a "reserved BIOS boot area" partition ?
@Ponce-De-Leon I don't have any partition named 'Windows Boot Manager", your example is an EFI partition but I'm using legacy bios.
On my windows disk, I have a NTFS partition named "Windows 7"
And about the reserved BIOS boot area, I don't have much knowledge about it. I had read it somewhere that, this one is required when setting up MBR partitioning under UEFI or GPT partitioning under BIOS.
Don't take this information granted and I am even 100% not sure about it
You can go with /boot and / for now. Just in case if this doesn't work then, since it's a fresh Installation on a separate drive and assuming no important data is on this drive, go for an reinstall and add it this time.
My old laptop has Legacy BIOS. When I have used "Something Else" installation method. I have paritions swap (as still have HDD not SSD), root and home:
