Install windows 7 on the 2nd disk, gives 'hd1 cannot get C/H/S values

Question

I had a hd0(SSD, GPT), installed Ubuntu. Now I wanted to install Windows 7 on hd1(HDD, MBR), the 4th primary partition(labeled boot flag).

I tried to install with the original Windows 7 iso. It failed and said,

Windows cannot be installed to this disk. This computer's hardware may not support booting to this disk. Ensure the disk's controller is enabled.

I have no idea, but I tried every approach and failed. My SATA option can't switch to compatible, but AHCI.

Then I tried to install with Symantec ghost. Went with no error. I booted into ubuntu and update-grub2. It created an Windows 7 entry for me.

I rebooted. Failed to boot into hd1. I got the error message

no such device: 000C6CBB000AE8A8

hd1 cannot get C/H/S values.

When I tried: grub> ls Only hd0 appeared, but no hd1. Even when I stick in my USB stick, grub can identify it. But it can't identify my HDD.

And I use legacy BIOS.

Here's the output of fdisk /dev/sdb

Disk /dev/sdb: 465.8 GiB, 500107862016 bytes, 976773168 sectors
Units: sectors of 1 * 512 = 512 bytes
Sector size (logical/physical): 512 bytes / 4096 bytes
I/O size (minimum/optimal): 4096 bytes / 4096 bytes
Disklabel type: dos
Disk identifier: 0xb45b41fe

Device     Boot     Start       End   Sectors   Size Id Type
/dev/sdb2          718848   7010303   6291456     3G  c W95 FAT32 (LBA)
/dev/sdb3  *    680951808 976766975 295815168 141.1G  7 HPFS/NTFS/exFAT
/dev/sdb4         7012350 680951807 673939458 321.4G  5 Extended
/dev/sdb5        85528576 672557055 587028480 279.9G 83 Linux
/dev/sdb6         7012352  85526527  78514176  37.4G 83 Linux
/dev/sdb7       672559104 680951807   8392704     4G 82 Linux swap / Solaris

Partition 4 does not start on physical sector boundary.
Partition table entries are not in disk order.

sdb3 is where I would install Windows7 on

Answer 1

I solved it Finally.

Pitfalls I've encountered:

1. When you do have to mix GPT and Legacy BIOS boot( which is highly not suggested, you must create one BIOS boot partition. Here is the reason for this.
2. Older PC like mine may have compatible UEFI boot. If you aren't sure about your boot mode, Don't check in the BIOS/UEFI boot option, but check with disk tools, or dump the 512 first bytes.
3. If you want UEFI boot your system, you also need a USB stick with GPT( your installation media ), as MBR doesn't work well with UEFI.
4. Windows 7 installation program doesn't recognize USB 3.0, so use USB 2.0 instead.
5. Windows 7 doesn't support UEFI well, so first you need a file from Windows 8: bootx64.efi. With 3. 4. and 5. payed attention, you can UEFI boot the installation media.
6. As installing Windows 8/10. Remove the MSR and ESP partitions that left by the previous Windows 7 (assuming that you would uninstall the previous Windows 7), for Windows 8/10 failed to identify the filesystem that created by Windows 7. So, even you have formatted ESP as fat32, it keeps saying:

   Windows detected that the EFI system partition was formatted as NTFS. Format the EFI system partition as FAT32, and restart the installation.

So here's some basic suggestions:

1. Use UEFI than Legacy BIOS for general users. ( For it's quite simpler and scalable, especially for multiple operating system users )
2. Use Windows 8 or higher, Windows 7 is on the way out.
3. Use GPT than MBR. ( For GPT's design is better, and it works best with UEFI )
4. Avoid stupid combinations for gerneral users. ( As for me, Legacy * GPT * Ubuntu + UEFI * MBR * Windows 7 is crazy enough!! )