I have Parrot Security OS version 5.1 (electro ara) installed as the only operating system on my Dell Inspiron 5110 laptop. However i want to share this laptop with my family members. They are familiar with the Windows operating system but none of them have ever used a Linux distribution. The laptop has the following specs : 4Gb RAM, 320Gb HDD, i3-2310 processor 2.1Ghz and graphics Mesa DRI Intel® HD Graphics 3000 (SNB GT2).
I want to dual boot Parrot Security 5.1and Windows 7 home premium. As far as i know, Windows needs to be installed first and then Parrot afterwards. I have the windows iso and the parrot iso already downloaded.
There is one main problem though, i do not want to lose my stuff. I have a made a lt of progress with parrot so far and i don`t want to start all over. My end goal is to dual boot Windows Home Premium and Parrot Security 5.1. Please help me to reach a decision.
Parrot version in use(if you are not aware of it, open terminal and type cat /etc/os-release | grep VERSION):
Safest way is to back up all your files & folders you want to keep to an external drive or a suitably large usb pen-drive first.
you are correct in that you must install windows first [and set it up] then install your Linux, the Linux grub will then make it the primary system when you boot. you can either mess about partitioning and formatting the drive yourself or after installing windows let the Linux installer do it for you, after you have set up your Parrot and re-installed your previously saved file’s remember to install a back-up application [I use timeshift]
I will give you the same warning as I would anyone installing a windows duel boot, from time to time some Windows updates will break your Linux installation and you will need to re-install Grub when it happens.
Thank you @Brickwizard i plan to backup “/var/cache/apt/*.deb”, “/root/.config”, and “/home/kirk/.config”
Is there anything that might go wrong? I dont have enough space to backup the entire system. I have an 8Gb usb flash, a 2Gb usb flash, an sd card with 6Gb free space, a smartphone with 10Gb free space and a Parrot bootable drive which i made using Balena Etcher. This is all i have. I was wondering, what if i create a partition formatted to exfat on my hard drive, store my data & files there, and then install windows on the remaining partition. Then i install Parrot os afterwards. Both Parrot and Windows "read" exfat right?. Then i just move the data & files from this exfat partition to the newly created BTRFS partition of Parrot. I dont want to try this experiment because i might lose my data. Please help me reach a decision. Thankyou.
The theory is fine as long as as you take care in what you are doing, one wrong instruction, and you will lose the lot. So as I am old and miserable, so take a belt and braces approach, for this sort of work I have a 500gb 2.5" SATA laptop drive and a SATA to USB adaptor cable that I use for backing up, the cost was negligible
But my crazy idea of the exfat partition, does it have any chance of working? If not i`m going to move as much of my stuff as possible to my smartphone and USB drives. I appreciate your help very much.
As I said in theory yes it can be done, but you only need to make one mistake to lose the lot.
I have had another thought, How about you obtain a USB 2/3 pen-drive of sufficient space [w10 with office & etc will need at least 60GB] and make a persistent windows’ installation on it, then they can boot to windows from that and keep your Parrot drive safe. Usb2 pen-drives are relatively cheap and although a little slower than your main drive should be fine for casual use.
Just like you warned, i ruined everything. I accidentally executed “rm -rf” on the partition. I had mounted it to “/media/kirk/backup” and but then deleted everything accidentally. I’m trying by all means to recover the lost files using testdisk.
update : I suffered a power outage whilst using my Parrot OS and now its stuck in a bootloop. Even if i try to start in recovery mode it still gets stuck in this bootloop. For some reason my Parrot OS bootable USB no longer works. Whenever i try to boot from it i get a screen which says “failed to load ldlinux.c32”
if you have no luck there then you could try using another pendive with say Ubuntu, let it boot to ram [as if you were about to install] then use it to try and recover files, but you will need to know the suffix [jpeg/doc etc] and globally search for files with those suffixes, [I used this method to recover my daughters picture files she accidentally deleted, unfortunately for her, it found every uncorrupted picture, including ones she had individually deleted that she thought was too embarrassing for her old dad to see]
its a laptop, now no guarantee but this trick may clear the loop, disconnect the mains power, if you can pull [disconnect] the main battery, press and hold the power button for 60 seconds, reconnect power & battery and see if it boots.
I followed your instructions properly. The operating system booted but failed to reach the login screen. The screen is blank. Reducing and increasing brightness works. On this blank screen, i have tried typing my password (hopeless attempt ). I lost the Parrot OS .iso file and have to download it again and use someone else’s laptop to create a Parrot bootable USB. It must be really frustrating to help a guy like me. I screw up everything. Thank you for all the assistance you have given me, i have learned a lot from you.
Try pressing del as it boots, it should bring up the grub menu , scroll down to the entry that has advanced options, and run fix broken packages , see if that works for you
not at all, that’s the way we all learn, in fact to my mind breaking and fixing your installation is the best way to learn,
It didn’t work. I don’t know if i’m doing it correctly but it didn’t work. I repeatedly pressed the delete button on my “qwerty” keyboard whilst the operating system was booting but nothing happened. My keyboard has 2 delete buttons and i have tried using the other one but to no luck.
I have tried more than 15 times but its not working. I don’t know why but it just won’t work. My keyboard works perfectly and the left shift button worked the last time i used the operating system. I will keep trying just in case i am missing something. I hope we are in the same time zone, if you fall asleep i will be left to deal with this situation alone .
Probably not I am in GMT/ZULU/UTC+1 I will be on line till 2100 my time [about another 21/2 hrs]
Information I need to do further research, the Make, and full model number [product code] of your machine from the plate usually on the bottom this will tell me far more than you need to know,
also do you still have your parrot installation medium [Pen-drive or optical disc] or any other bootable linux medium dosn’t matter what it is or how old it is at this stage.
). I lost the Parrot OS .iso file and have to download it again and use someone else’s laptop to create a Parrot bootable USB. It must be really frustrating to help a guy like me. I screw up everything. Thank you for all the assistance you have given me, i have learned a lot from you.
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