[Coco] [OT] Windows 8

[farna at amc-mag.com]

I use Linux Mint almost exclusively. Have XP installed in VM on my desktop
machine.

Windows 8 and dual boot... what a nightmare! I tried on a new machine
(bought for a friend) and managed to delete Windows 8 by accident. I
couldn't get it to show me a screen that showed both operating systems,
and decided to reinstall Mint 16. It detected the existing Mint 16 and
asked if I wanted to install over it. I selected "install over existing",
assuming it would do just that, install over the existing installation
keeping the same partitions. Wrong!! The entire partition table was wiped
and Mint installed on the whole HD. Well, no biggie, I made a restore DVD
before doing all this. Well, that is useless! It relies on the restore
partition on the hard drive. Hmm.... So I downloaded a bootable partition
recovery CD .iso image that works with Win8. No problem! Found the
partition, and I restored it. Boot from the recover CD, and it still can't
find the recovery partition! Went back and restored every Win8 partition
the CD could find (several boot partitions), and still no go! I bought
this thing through NewEgg, but it was drop shipped from somewhere - no
paperwork, just a mailing label. I'll be going through them to either
return it or get recovery media, but they are a little slow to respond in
e-mail. Never had a problem with them before though.  I might be asking if
someone can put their Win8 recovery partition on a USB drive and send to
me though. My friend wants Win8, but would like to learn/play with Mint
also. I think that I'll install Mint in a VM on Win8 instead of trying a
dual boot when I get this mess straightened out - at least until
Ubuntu/Mint works out an easy install. I have read up on what I need to do
due to the change in boot methods by Win8 -- wonder why MS did something
that won't play well with others... (tongue real far in cheek as I said
that!!)