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owlectomyThis is a problem that kept recurring on my computer: I would boot into Windows, and the next time I turned the computer on there wasn't anything there. I had to reinstall Linux on a separate partition just to get back the screen that would allow me to switch between operating systems. So, the second time this happened I tried posting for help on UbuntuForums.
Turns out, Dell computers now ship with a proprietary program called DataSafe, which is supposed to keep your data safe in the event of, say, a catastrophic hard drive failure, but which also messes around with how the computer boots, in such a way that it cannot coexist on a dual boot system (unless you do a whole new install and put GRUB in a different directory, which I didn't really feel like doing, and I've got different backup options anyway).
Even though uninstalling DataSafe (and installing sbackup -- yes, I've got it set for automatic daily backups now!) was pretty simple, I'm a bit disappointed in Dell for this. They support Ubuntu -- they offer it as an OS option on some of their computers -- but their proprietary, automatically installed software can't cope with me having two operating systems installed?
Turns out, Dell computers now ship with a proprietary program called DataSafe, which is supposed to keep your data safe in the event of, say, a catastrophic hard drive failure, but which also messes around with how the computer boots, in such a way that it cannot coexist on a dual boot system (unless you do a whole new install and put GRUB in a different directory, which I didn't really feel like doing, and I've got different backup options anyway).
Even though uninstalling DataSafe (and installing sbackup -- yes, I've got it set for automatic daily backups now!) was pretty simple, I'm a bit disappointed in Dell for this. They support Ubuntu -- they offer it as an OS option on some of their computers -- but their proprietary, automatically installed software can't cope with me having two operating systems installed?
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