This article is the next in a series of guides on how to dual-boot Windows 7 and Linux and BSD distributions. It covers dual-booting Pardus 2011 and Windows 7. If you want to dual-boot Windows and another operating system, like a Linux or BSD distribution, you will likely do so on a computer with one or two hard drives.

We have come to a cross-roads in the computer world today. Stick with the familiar Microsoft Windows, or try the stable, secure, but unfamiliar GNU/Linux-based operating systems that have recently started taking off. There are two big factors that stop most people from loading GNU/Linux onto their computer. The first is that they think they need to be a geek to install it.

Without an operating system – Mac OS X, say, or Windows XP – a computer is just a dumb box of chips, and even the most exciting application will have no environment in which to run. And, it's easy to forget that you have a choice of which OS you run.

Multi-booting, installing more than one operating system on a computer’s hard drive(s), has become very popular over the years, fueled, of course, by the popularity of Linux as an alternate system for desktop and servers.

Today, I read about a new netbook (running Linux, of course) that stores its operating system on a USB key, presumably so that you can take it out and bring your file and settings to any computer. The first time I skimmed the article, I misread it and didn't see that it ran Linux. Later, I realized that it must run Linux, since you just couldn't do that with Windows.

The first two articles on dual-booting Windows 7 and Linux distributions published here involved installation on a computer with a single hard drive. Those articles on dual-booting Fedora 14 and Ubuntu 10.10 with Windows 7 are available here and here. This article will cover a different use-case, dual-booting Windows 7 and Ubuntu 10.10 or Linux Mint 10 on a computer with two hard drives.

This is the latest in a series of tutorials that has been published on this site on how to dual-boot Windows 7 and Linux distributions. Previous articles published on this subject are how to dual-boot Fedora 14 and Windows 7 and how to dual-boot Ubuntu 10.10 and Windows 7. This article presents a step by step guide on how to dual-boot Linux Mint 10 and Windows 7.

While I will never encourage anybody to use Windows, any version of Windows, I do accept the fact that a significant percentage of users still have to use it. I also accept the fact that some users would like to dual-boot between Linux and Windows.

For those Windows users who have discovered what Linux has to offer, but for one reason or another are not ready to completely abandon Windows, dual-booting between the two operating systems is one method of keeping a foot in both worlds. And to help those users, this article presents a step-by-step guide on how to dual-boot Windows 7 and Ubuntu 11.04 on a computer with one hard disk.