Arch, Windows Multiboot with Grub - overwrites Windows MBR

Hi,
I'm not sure, if I understand the way it works right.
Each partition has a boot record. Windows is at /dev/sda1, so there is a boot record at the beginning of this partition. /dev/sda2 is System reserverd for Windows.
And my archlinux is at /dev/sda3 (yes only one partition, so its easier for the installation ).
I installed grub with:
# modprobe dm-mod
# grub-install --recheck /dev/sda
# grub-mkconfig -o /boot/grub/grub.cfg
(the way its descripted in the wiki)
So far I know it writes a master boot record at the beginning of /dev/sda.
But the disk starts with the windows partition so it overwrites the boot record on /dev/sda1 (the windows boot record).
Is that true so far?
Its the way I did it last time I tried to install Grub. The result: I couldnt start Windows anymore (Grub only showed arch).
As solution I have to provide space at the beginning of the disk? So the master boot record will be installed at that space?
Best regards Helmsen

You could simply create a persistent entry with one of the /etc/grub.d/*custom files. Then you could avoid installing os-prober. But it sounds like in your case, the automation of grub is soemthing you are after. So go ahead and install os-prober, and let it do its thing.
As a new Arch user I thought that grub2's automagic configuration was pretty cool. But at the time I was still distro-hopping, so it took about a week before I realized how not cool it really was.

Similar Messages

Trying to add Arch to GRUB2 with GRUB Customizer

Ok, I have GRUB2 and I installed Arch and now I'm inside my Mint 14 environment using GRUB Customizer trying to add Arch to Grub. How do I do that?

clfarron4 wrote:
Last time I tried doing this in ANY Ubuntu-based distribution, os-prober wouldn't pick up ArchLinux at all, regardless of whether Arch was mounted or not (rendering shulamy's question pointless). I do note that os-prober in Ubuntu would pick up Windows, regardless of whether the Windows partitions were mounted or not.
For these situations, the options I would say to you are EITHER:
1) Write the Arch entry manually into /etc/grub.d/40_custom on Mint; OR
2) Install Mint's grub onto the Mint partition, not the disk, install Arch's grub to the MBR/disk and chainload from Arch's grub into Mint's.
[As a side note, this seems to be a bug with Ubuntu's implementation of os-prober. In Fedora, Arch, Gentoo and so on, os-prober will quite happily find any and all installations of Arch.]
Wouldn't it be better in this case not to install Ubuntu's version at all and to just use Arch's? Why use one grub to load another, especially when grub really does not like being installed to a partition?

[solved] Arch kernel panic with grub 2 (another instance)

Hey all,
I read through this thread: http://bbs.archlinux.org/viewtopic.php?pid=663976 which is somewhat similar to my problem, but not the same.
I successfully installed Arch with a VMware VM, got gnome, openbox, and lxde installed... mucked around a bit. All looked good so I wanted to try it with an actual install.
Background:
I am new to Arch and relatively new to Linux... although not afraid of the terminal.
I am running a Lenovo SL500 laptop.
The laptop has one drive (sda) and is divided as following:
sda1: service partition (required for this machine)
sda2: ntfs containing Windows 7
sda3: extended partition containing:
sda5: linux swap
sda6: ntfs data storage
sda7: ext4 ubuntu 9.10
sda8: ext4 arch
Here is what I did:
I installed arch to sda8, and when it came time for me to set the boot partition I selected 'none' as I wanted to use grub2 which is already installed via the ubuntu installation.
When the installation of arch finished, I rebooted into my ubuntu system and ran update-grub. The output verified that Arch was located at sda8, and the grub.cfg file shows:
menuentry "Arch (on /dev/sda8)" {
insmod ext2
set root=(hd0,8)
search --no-floppy --fs-uuid --set 5ee916d1-5051-4e27-9c1f-a74f04693337
linux /boot/vmlinuz26 root=/dev/sda8
When I attempt to boot into arch, as it is above, I get:
Unable to mount filesystem
not syncing : VFS : Unable to mount root fs on unknown block (0,0)
Now... when I installed arch I formated the partition to ext4, I have verified that it is ext4, and the fstab in the arch partition lists it as ext4. When I altered the above grub2 boot parameters and changed ext2 to ext4, it returned 'error - file not found'.
Any idea where I went wrong or what I should try to fix this?
Should I have installed a bootloader with the arch install?
Thanks for any help
Last edited by visser (2009-12-09 18:48:27)

My grub2 installation was also via Ubuntu and the auto-detected entry didn't work, so in /etc/grub.d/40_custom (Ubuntu) I have this...
#!/bin/sh
exec tail -n +3 $0
# This file provides an easy way to add custom menu entries. Simply type the
# menu entries you want to add after this comment. Be careful not to change
# the 'exec tail' line above.
menuentry "Arch Linux (on /dev/sda5)" {
set root=(hd0,5)
linux /boot/vmlinuz26 root=/dev/disk/by-uuid/80db2d73-6dea-465c-a9a2-b14624badc57 ro
initrd /boot/kernel26.img
menuentry "Arch Linux (fallback)" {
set root=(hd0,5)
linux /boot/vmlinuz26 root=/dev/disk/by-uuid/80db2d73-6dea-465c-a9a2-b14624badc57 ro
initrd /boot/kernel26-fallback.img
menuentry "Windows XP" {
set root=(hd0,1)
chainloader +1
I believe you can disable os_prober by adding
GRUB_DISABLE_OS_PROBER="true"
to /etc/default/grub. I disabled it myself by the other method, removing it's executable flag...
sudo chmod -x /etc/grub.d/30_os-prober
I should point out that I haven't installed grub2 in Arch yet as I'm still in the transitional (and undecided) stage.

Multiboot with LINUX and Windows

Does solaris support multiboot with UNIX, LINUX and Windows.
All of them in the same disk on primary hdd.
thanks

Hello pradyut. It is not possible to boot Solaris 10 from Linux GRUB since Sun uses a modified GRUB which can deal with SUN partition 'slices'. The opposite (Sun grub booting Linux), however, is really easy to do. If you installed Solaris last you can edit Solaris /boot/grub/menu.lst and just add another entry the same as the Windows menu entry, except for the changed name and partition number.
So, for example, with a Windows entry similar as follows:
title Windows
     rootnoverify (hd0,0)
     chainloader +1
just copy/paste it where you want it to go and edit as follows:
title Linux xx.. <- you put whatever title you wish here
     rootnoverify (hd0,X)
     chainloader +1
..where X = the correct partition number of the Linux /boot code. If your Linux /boot directory is installed in the second physical partition (directly after Windows), for example, X would be 1 if a primary partition, or 4 if the first logical partition.
If you are not really sure what partition number to use (this can be confusing and difficult to even describe), you could easily discover the correct partition number by trial and error, or run (in a Linux console) df -h. A wrong partition number entry will produce a harmless GRUB error and return you to the Solaris boot menu to try again.
If you look at the Grub documentation, you will find that it is really even easier to make these changes on the fly (while actually booting). Highlight the Grub menu item via the down-arrow, press ESC, then E. This will allow you to edit that line, and quickly change the 'X' number and try it. Type <Enter> once your edit is done, and then highlight the menu entry to boot, and type B.
Either way, you can return to Solaris /boot/grub.menu.lst and put in the correct number and it will always boot the Linux loader even after updates, reinstalls, and kernel upgrades.
Also remember that if you are using logical partitioning in one of the physical partitions, the first logical partition is always HD0,4 (assuming hard disk 0) whether there are 4, or less than 4 physical partitions.
I hope this helps!
pm..

Installing Multiple Operating Systems with grub and Arch Linux

NOTE: Please keep in mind that there are many different ways to achieve this same result using various loop and ramdisk methods, read this with a separate window to jot down your comments and suggestions... this is ongoing for me so any help would be appreciated!
Read the full article at Install Multiple Os without cds
This is my first post and I plan on making this topic an official HOWTO with www.tldp.org.
I have been into the computer security scene since 1990, but I realized that I had very little experience with the various LInux, Unix, and alternative Operating systems out there.
I have a CD-RW drive but being a struggling computer security researcher I had no money for blank cd-recordables. What follows is how I managed to install various operating systems on my computer (1 hard drive) without having to burn to a CD the ISO and then boot from that.
I first partitioned my 120GB harddrive into 10 partitions, the 2nd partition is a small swap and the last partition is extra large because it holds all the ISO images..
I then wrote a small shell script to automatically download (I love wget!) the following.
OpenBSD
IpCOP
Libranet
Arch-Linux
Fire
Local Area Security
Packet Master
Devil-Linux
FreeBSD
Knoppix
Helix
Gentoo
Yoper-Linux
NetBSD
RedHat
Slackware
The script also downloaded Installation manuals and md5 checksums.. (let me know if I should post... its pretty unsophisticated
I installed Slackware (personal favorite) on hda1 using my last blank CD-R, note that I do not have a separate boot partitino. (Should I?). I also installed grub on the MBR. I love grub, if you read through the man pages and all info you can find about grub, you can learn a whole lot. Grub has much more features and capability than lilo, even though lilo comes installed by default with slack.
I organize my kernel situation as follows... In my /boot directory, I mkdir KERNEL, CONFIG, MAP, INITRD and that is a good way for me to keep my kernels and everything organized.. Another good way is a separate dir for each new kernel.
Since Arch-Linux is a solid distro, I'll use that as a first example.
Here is the Arch-Linux section of my shell script
goge Arch-Linux
$w http://puzzle.dl.sourceforge.net/sourceforge/archlinux/arch-0.6.iso
$w http://unc.dl.sourceforge.net/sourceforge/archlinux/arch-0.6.md5sum
$w http://www.archlinux.org/docs/en/guide/install/arch-install-guide.html
md55
cat arch-0.6.md5sum
md5sum arch-0.6.iso
md55
The first thing to do is to mount the downloaded ISO image so we can use it as if it were an actual CD.
mount -t iso9660 -o ro,loop=/dev/loop0 cdimage /mnt/cdrom
Where cdimage= the ISO image. EX. /usr/local/src/ISO/Linux/Arch-Linux/arch-0.6.iso
This mounts the iso as /mnt/cdrom.
Next you need to copy /mnt/cdrom to a separate partition for the booting process. So mkfs.ext2 /dev/hda9. ( I prefer reiserfs or even XFS to ext but if you use something other than ext2 you could run into some problems because some of the installation kernels and initrds don't include support for reiserfs and so can't recognize the files. Although you could use mkinitrd to create a new initrd with reiserfs support, that might be pushin it IMO... I use the 9th partition consistently for this. I know there is a "right" way to copy the /mnt/cdrom files so everything stays the way it is supposed too, using tar or cpio, but I'm lazy so I just do cp -rp.
(What is the tar or cpio commands to copy with correct permissions etc??)
So you mount the 9th partition as whatever, say /mnt/hd and then copy the files. Now what?
Now edit your /boot/grub/menu.lst file to include the specific options to boot arch-linux installation.
A good idea is to find the isolinux.cfg file somewhere on the distro cd, this will tell you what to include in the menu.lst.
Here is the section in my menu.lst
title Arch Install
root (hd0,8)
kernel /isolinux/vmlinuz load_ramdisk=1 prompt_ramdisk=0 root=/dev/rd/0
initrd=/isolinux/initrd.img
This should be self-explanatory. The root (hd0,8) is pointing to partition 9. So the rest of the commands start from partition 9.
When you experience problems, remember you can always edit the grub boot options by typing 'e' and then edit the section. Also, a good idea is to include several variations in your menu.lst so you can easily try other ways to boot efficiently. And, remember to read up on all the installation guides that come with your distro, specifically, hard-disk installs.
There are special cases, Gentoo, has a semi-new compressed filesystem called squashfs. BTW, this is AWESOME, so check it out. It has to be compiled into the kernel, so some work is in order, but use this recompile to optimize your kernel. You can get the squashfs patch for almost any kernel. I use the latest stable 2.6 kernel. Squashfs is incredible and although I don't think you need it to install from ISO, you do need it to expand the livecd.squashfs filesystem that comes with the cd.
Heres a sample Gentoo section from my menu.lst
title Gentoo Install
root (hd0,8)
kernel /isolinux/gentoo root=/dev/ram0
initrd=/isolinux/gentoo.igz init=/linuxrc acpi=off looptype=squashfs loop=/livecd.squashfs cdroot vga=791 splash=silent
A nother' tip is the shell that is provided if you experience problems, typically busybox or ash. The key tools to get you going from here is mount and chroot. Sometimes you will need to manually create a simulated file system and then chroot into it. For instance, you might have to create boot, etc, bin, directories on the target partition.
I generally install each OS onto the next partition (careful of the logical partition) and add it to my menu.lst after install. A good idea is after installation, copy the kernel and initrd(if there is one) to the slackware(or whatever) boot partition on hda1. I copy kernels to /boot/KERNEL/ and initrd's to /boot/INITRD, then menu.lst is more organized...
You then need to add an updated section to your menu.lst (just comment out the install section for later)
Here is the finished arch-linux section from menu.lst
title Arch Linux 6
root (hd0,2)
kernel /boot/vmlinuz26 ro root=/dev/hdc3
This doesn't use my convenient boot/KERNEL/vmlinuz26 as you can tell by setting the root to partition 3.
***NOTE: Make a backup of MBR using dd and save to floppy, also backup the partition table to floppy, using cfdisk or parted. And boot disks (I use 1 with grub, and 1 with slack, and tomsbootdisk) will invariably come in handy. Tomsbootdisk is recommended, and make the grub boot disk when you install grub. install to floppy.
++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
The final result after some fun experimenting, is when I boot, I have a cool grub boot screen come up with the option to boot into whatever OS I want, this is handy for multiple reasons. One good thing to do after this is to port scan and vuln scan each OS, after you update of course. Write this stuff down and you will know the weaknesses/strengths of the various OS's.
I can boot a custom Firewall, snort, or multiple honeypots using this procedure, as well as a graphical kde environment with a kernel optimized for graphics and my processor/architecture, or an environment devoted to forensics or even an environment suitable for programming.
++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
P.S. Some of the cooler alternative operating systems are BeOS 5, EOS, ER_OS, V2_OS, and my personal favorite Menuet. Menuet is 100% assembly graphical operating system that fits on a floppy. Its f'in money!
This should be a good enough example to get you started, this kind of thing should be learned and not just copied... Knowing how to do this stuff could prove to be exceptionally useful...

Start by reading all the articles built-in on your Mac - Help > Mac Help, search "printer sharing."
http://desk.stinkpot.org:8080/tricks/index.php/2008/04/how-to-print-to-a-cups-se rver-from-mac-os-x/
http://www.macosxhints.com/article.php?story=20080324224027152&query=share%2Bpri nter
http://members.cox.net/18james/osxprintersharing.html
http://ubuntuforums.org/archive/index.php/t-56940.html

Trouble With Grub - Setting up Triple Boot

Before I had Arch running on my desktop, I was using Ubuntu with Vista on the same disk and XP on another one. When I moved to Arch, I backed up menu.lst to preserve the entries, and installed Arch over the same partition that Ubuntu was on.
However, after I restored the entries for Vista and XP, I wasn't able to boot to them. A few weeks ago I absolutely had to do some work under windows, so I swapped out my XP disk and installed Vista on it, which got rid of the grub install in MBR and I used vista for about a week. I reinstalled Grab after that, and wasn't able to configure grub to boot to the new disk that had vista on it, only to Arch.
I'm more or less at a loss as to what may be wrong with my entries, the locations are correct but it just doesn't boot them for some reason.
Here is the output of fdisk -l:
Disk1:
sda1 is The original Vista install
sda4 is Arch Linux
sda3 is /boot for Arch linux
sdb1 is the new Vista install
Disk /dev/sda: 80.0 GB, 80026361856 bytes
255 heads, 63 sectors/track, 9729 cylinders
Units = cylinders of 16065 * 512 = 8225280 bytes
Disk identifier: 0x1f0b226a
Device Boot Start End Blocks Id System
/dev/sda1 * 1 7359 59111136 7 HPFS/NTFS
/dev/sda2 9245 9729 3895762+ 82 Linux swap / Solaris
/dev/sda3 9184 9244 489982+ 83 Linux
/dev/sda4 7360 9183 14651280 83 Linux
Partition table entries are not in disk order
Disk /dev/sdb: 250.0 GB, 250059350016 bytes
255 heads, 63 sectors/track, 30401 cylinders
Units = cylinders of 16065 * 512 = 8225280 bytes
Disk identifier: 0x2edf2ede
Device Boot Start End Blocks Id System
/dev/sdb1 * 1 30400 244187968+ 7 HPFS/NTFS
Disk /dev/sdc: 300.0 GB, 300069052416 bytes
255 heads, 63 sectors/track, 36481 cylinders
Units = cylinders of 16065 * 512 = 8225280 bytes
Disk identifier: 0x889d889d
Device Boot Start End Blocks Id System
/dev/sdc2 * 1 36481 293033598+ 83 Linux
Disk /dev/sdd: 1000.2 GB, 1000204886016 bytes
255 heads, 63 sectors/track, 121601 cylinders
Units = cylinders of 16065 * 512 = 8225280 bytes
Disk identifier: 0x000efff1
Device Boot Start End Blocks Id System
/dev/sdd1 1 121601 976760001 83 Linux
Here are the boot entries in grub:
# (0) Arch Linux
title Arch Linux
root (hd0,2)
kernel /vmlinuz26 root=/dev/disk/by-uuid/28e57cc7-2ae6-423c-b2ba-18a48b79433b ro vga=331
initrd /kernel26.img
# (1) Arch Linux
title Arch Linux Fallback
root (hd0,2)
kernel /vmlinuz26 root=/dev/disk/by-uuid/28e57cc7-2ae6-423c-b2ba-18a48b79433b ro
initrd /kernel26-fallback.img
title Windows Systems
root
title Windows Vista 64-bit
rootnoverify (hd0,0)
chainloader +1
savedefault
makeactive
title Windows XP Professional
rootnoverify (hd1,0)
map (hd0) (hd1)
map (hd1) (hd0)
chainloader +1
savedefault
makeactive
Any help or insight into what may be the issue is greatly appreciated.
Edit: I should mention I did some fiddling around trying to get the second vista install to boot by changing the location of the vista entry to (hd1,0) with no luck.
Last edited by Ashex (2009-02-28 22:02:27)

You need to change your menu.lst. I have windows 7 on my first partition, ie sda1. Arch linux is on the second partition, ie sda2:
# (0) Arch Linux
title Arch Linux
root (hd0,1)
kernel /boot/vmlinuz26 root=/dev/disk/by-uuid/01c08dbe-bfc1-4b41-95d6-3abd118b42a1 ro
initrd /boot/kernel26.img
# (1) Arch Linux
title Arch Linux Fallback
root (hd0,1)
kernel /boot/vmlinuz26 root=/dev/disk/by-uuid/01c08dbe-bfc1-4b41-95d6-3abd118b42a1 ro
initrd /boot/kernel26-fallback.img
# (1) Windows
title Windows 7
rootnoverify (hd0,0)
makeactive
chainloader +1
Make sure that you use (hd0,0), which is the first partition. Change the harddisk boot order in your BIOS. If you want to boot the second harddisk, this is the way to do it I suppose:
title Windows Vista 64
map (hd0) (hd1)
map (hd1) (hd0)
makeactive
rootnoverify (hd0,0)
chainloader (hd1,0)+1
Read more about it here:
http://forums.opensuse.org/install-boot … d-hdd.html
Last edited by ahcaliskan (2009-02-28 23:04:38)

Remove/replace Gummiboot with GRUB?

Are their any how-tos / wiki on the best way to remove and replace gummiboot with GRUB. This is the closest discussion I could find (the opposite of what I'd like to do):
https://bbs.archlinux.org/viewtopic.php?id=183210
I have Window 7 installed using bios to boot. Cannot change Windows 7 to UEFI to match Arch as Win7 uefi isn't supported on this laptop. (already tried as well)
http://na.alienwarearena.com/forums/thr … -boot-mode
I need boot menu where Arch GPT UEFI and Win7 MBR BIOS can coexist.
Thanks!
Last edited by hydn (2014-10-14 21:22:48)

Grub won't offer you to boot alternatively from UEFI and BIOS. Only the boot manager of your firmware can do that, if it supports it (my ASUS motherboard do) (to access it, I need to press F8 while the machine boot but this depends of your firmware) and you will have to choose the way you want to boot from your UEFI/BIOS. You will then need two bootloaders, one for BIOS, one for UEFI (you can use your Windows 7 bootloader to boot Windows). The reason of this is that is your firmware which decides to put your system in BIOS or UEFI mode and once it has decided in which system your computer should boot, a bootloader can't revert the decision. There are versions of grub for BIOS and for UEFI but there can't exist a single version allowing you to choose between the two systems.
If your firmware allow easily to switch between the two, you could:
1) Partition your hard disk with an MBR (required for BIOS booting Windows 7), mark the Windows partitions bootable and install a standard MBR to the boot sector of your hard disk.
2) Have an EFI partition (type ef00) with a UEFI bootloader (which may be gummiboot or grub, but it will necessarily be UEFI aware only, unable to start Windows 7) configured to boot archlinux.
This way a BIOS boot should boot windows 7 and an UEFI boot should boot archlinux. Now the feasibility of that depends of your motherboard (could you easily switch from UEFI/BIOS, does the firmware accepts to boot an UEFI system from an MBR partition?).
You could also boot archlinux in BIOS mode. You will not loose anything, given the fact that Linux don't currently really use UEFI or Bios once it is booted and both system can then be seen by the same bootloader (for example grub).
Note: to remove gummiboot, simply remove the package. Use efibootmgr (efibootmgr -b xxxx -B, where xxxx is the number shown by efibootmgr) to remove the boot entry. But read what I tell you before, no bootloader except the one of your firmware could allow you to choose between BIOS and UEFI booting.
Last edited by olive (2014-10-15 04:17:19)

Arch Install - Stuck in GRUB

I downloaded the latest arch iso and burned it to a cd. When trying to boot off of the cd however I'm left in grub and it doesn't go ahead and load up the arch kernel. I'm not too familiar with grub so I have no idea what to do to actually get the cd to boot into bash allowing me to go ahead with setup. I havn't had this problem before.
I am installing arch over another installation; I just got a new motherboard and processor so technically I think grub is still in the MBR and maybe that's where I'm encountering problems? Although my primary harddisk is/always has been Windows and I've already reinstalled windows (theoretically replacing grub with the windows alternative).
Any help? The old cd (I burned it in May) still loads up fine but I'd rather install with the latest core packages. Thanks.

For me it sounds like this issue:
http://bbs.archlinux.org/viewtopic.php?id=51348
If it is the same problem (which seems to be a problem with grub and certain optical drives) you can just use an older installation cd.
Hope this solves your problem.

Help with GRUB[ok]- kernel panic[ok]- filesystem check failed[&nuked]

So todays story
1.My windows partition was overruned by viruses...
2. I reinstaled windows XP
3. I tried to repair grub but without sucess
So result: unbootable system.
plz help me fix that.
Last edited by ProzacR (2007-06-27 22:43:12)

Thank you, exactly what I needed.
Can be two things:
Grub specified the wrong root file system in menu.lst.
Try appending root=/dev/sda? to the grub boot command for arch (Replace ? with your arch root partition) If that fixes it, it was menu.lst in Ubuntu that broke it.
Second posibility: Grub did not specify the correct initrd image for arch.
Try specifying initrd as /boot/kernel26.img to the Grub boot configuration for arch.
It can also be both, then specify both, I doubt it and suspect the second scenario.
This should get you booted after fiddling a bit. Please re-run grub-install from the arch instance.
This site gives detailed instructions on how to make grub fly:
http://www.linuxforums.org/forum/linux- … -grub.html
Good luck. I hope this fixes it for you.

Best Way to Configure Multi-boot System With GRUB/GRUB2

Hello again,
Sorry for posting so much, but I'm really enjoying Arch so far! I had been reading a lot about Cinnamon so I wanted to try it (without installing the dependencies on my Arch installation), so I decided to install Mint, that went fine, and then I was hoping to add the entry to GRUB. I couldn't figure out how to do this, so I decided to try and install GRUB2 because it can autodetect other OS'. Well it didn't work and then I found myself without a bootloader. I couldn't figure out how to reinstall grub to the MBR (I tried the solution in the wiki and a couple of other places). I decided to reinstall Mint, and now I am booting into Arch through Mint's GRUB2. Two questions:
1) How can I fix grub through Arch to have that as my bootloader again? Nothing seems to work that I've tried.
2) What is the best way to configure grub or grub2 from Arch to allow myself options to multiboot other OS's in the future? I want to learn as much about UNIX as possible so I was planning on installing some other Linux distros and some other non-Linux UNIX OS's. I know this is a really newbie question, but I'm at a loss, I thought it was easier than it turned out.
PS. I didn't really like Cinnamon that much. I've been using Xfce and Openbox since I started using Linux (about a month ago), and it just seems too complicated! I don't like how little options you are given for customization. But that's just my opinion, everyone is different, I can see how it would be an improvement over GNOME3.
Thank You!

I have Arch Linux and Debian Testing installed side by side on my laptop.
Arch uses Grub (legacy) and Debian uses Grub2. The way I have set it up is to have Arch's Grub on the MBR and then chainload Debian's Grub2 from there.
Debian's Grub2 is installed on its own partition rather than on the MBR
This is the line I use to chainload Grub2 from Grub (legacy)
# (4) Debian chainload
title Debian chainload
root (hdX,X)
chainloader +1
Additionally just for kicks, I also have an entry in Grub2 to get back to Grub.
menuentry "Arch Linux chainload" {
insmod part_msdos
insmod ext2
set root='(hd0)'
chainloader +1
boot
Note that the (hd0) above always points to the MBR.
I do not have to bother with one bootloader interfering with the other and the OS entries on each are handled separately on their own.
This setup has worked well for me for quite a while now. Before I started with Arch, I used a similar setup when I tried out various distros (Fedora,opensuse,etc.) alongside Ubuntu
Hope it helps !

Trouble with grub...

Hi,
I tryed to install solaris 10 in a virtalbox under my Linux... but the problem is that grub load only stage 1 but not stage 2 (It breaks in the grub console.)
I have downloaded the developer version on 2 DVDs...
How can I load the solaris-installer with grub in my Virtalbox? Im not realy experienced with grub :-( If I try to boot my whole Computer with the first DVD, it happens the same...
In the offical installationhowto.pdf stays nothing to this, and I cant find someone who have the same problem. What do I wrong?

You need to change your menu.lst. I have windows 7 on my first partition, ie sda1. Arch linux is on the second partition, ie sda2:
# (0) Arch Linux
title Arch Linux
root (hd0,1)
kernel /boot/vmlinuz26 root=/dev/disk/by-uuid/01c08dbe-bfc1-4b41-95d6-3abd118b42a1 ro
initrd /boot/kernel26.img
# (1) Arch Linux
title Arch Linux Fallback
root (hd0,1)
kernel /boot/vmlinuz26 root=/dev/disk/by-uuid/01c08dbe-bfc1-4b41-95d6-3abd118b42a1 ro
initrd /boot/kernel26-fallback.img
# (1) Windows
title Windows 7
rootnoverify (hd0,0)
makeactive
chainloader +1
Make sure that you use (hd0,0), which is the first partition. Change the harddisk boot order in your BIOS. If you want to boot the second harddisk, this is the way to do it I suppose:
title Windows Vista 64
map (hd0) (hd1)
map (hd1) (hd0)
makeactive
rootnoverify (hd0,0)
chainloader (hd1,0)+1
Read more about it here:
http://forums.opensuse.org/install-boot … d-hdd.html
Last edited by ahcaliskan (2009-02-28 23:04:38)

[SOLVED] Dualboot w7 + Arch ( where to install grub )

Hello,
I have win 7 already installed,
now i want to install Archlinux on same disk, but on other partitions.
My currently partiotion schema ( MBR ) looks like:
/dev/sda1 win7
/dev/sda2 reserverd for linux boot part
/dev/sda3 reserverd for linux root
I readed beginners guide, and the only one thing is not clear for me,
beginners guide advises not to install grub on any partiorion only on disk's mbr /dev/sda
I can not do that, because it will destroy my win7's mbr( partion table and so on )
Earlier with this configuration i had sabayon linux installed,
with grub on /dev/sda2, both systems booted with bcdedit and all worked fine.
How can I solve this ( grub2 can not be installed in /dev/sdaX )
Thanks for any help.
Last edited by tangram (2013-11-18 09:55:29)

tangram wrote:
henk wrote:... Why do you personally think grub will update to /dev/sda? Do you know how grub works that well? ...
I do not know, I felt it so, earlier linux experiences, maybe better I should write "I suppose".
It is not a question of knowing grub. It is a question of knowing Arch. When pacman updates grub, it does not reinstall to disk, it does not generate a new configuration file and it does not, therefore, touch either the MBR or the BIOS boot partition or any installation to a partition or anything else. The most pacman will do is remind you to do these things, as necessary. And sometimes it does not even do that.
This is why, for example, it is possible to maintain grub.cfg manually in Arch but not in most other distros. Because the system will never, ever run grub-mkconfig unless you tell it to. So a manually maintained configuration file will never be overwritten unless you overwrite it.
The only boot manager/loader I know of where this is not the case is gummiboot and IMNSHO, that makes the gummiboot package a badly behaved one which fails to properly respect the local customs. (And I won't install gummiboot for essentially this reason.)
That said, installing grub to a partition is not recommended because it is very easily broken. So I don't think you should do that. I'm just saying that if you did do it, no pacman upgrade would ever write to the MBR. Nor, for that matter, would it update the installation on the partition. It would do zilch to upgrade the actual installation of the boot loader - it would just update the package files in your system.
Last edited by cfr (2013-11-03 03:15:34)

Problems with GRUB

I tried to install archlinux and almost everything went fine , until the moment i rebooted and was unable to access the new installation. Actually grub didn't install at all, during the installation i was presented with the grub configuration file, which i edited, but when i closed it threw me back to the install screen without any more questions. So i tried again, but the same thing happened it did not ask where to install it (mbr or elsewhere) so i had no other option but to reboot. Apparantely grub was not installed, so i booted from the CD and tried the arch root=/dev/sdb7 but at the end of the boot process it gives an error message: Kernel panic: not syncing or something like that. And just a few lines before that bash reported that root=/dev/sb7 is an unknown command. The strange thing is that during booting i saw a message saying that the partition i installed arch on was successfully mounted. I'm a bit confused, why grub refuses to install , and beyond that why i'm unable to boot even from the CD. With the old releases (7, 7.2) arch detected my hdd's as hda and hdb, now they are sda and sdb is this related to the problem ( i have ide drives) ? Theres is something more, when i try to setup the root pass from the install menu, i get stuck in an endless loop, and the screen is flooded with the message "there is no such user" (smth like that) .

Well, i thought about installing an older release of Arch (Ark ), but i would be trading one problem for another, because i had some problems with grub, which installed , but i was unable to boot because of the change between the booting images from kernel 2.4 to 2.6. Anyway i'm not giving up Noriko, thanks for your advice

Hard Disk Installation, from other OS with Grub 2

Hi all.
I'm quite new to Arch, but not very new to Linux / Unix / BSD.
Currently - on my laptop (not a very new one ... ) - I have other distro (One of the Canonical distro's ).
But I have few gigabytes left - and really want to try Arch.
Now I want - just for the fun of learning - to install from Hard Drive. (why waste a CD?)
The Arch Wiki has the page [wiki]Hard Disk Installation[/wiki], with the section "Chainload Grub from your Existing Bootloader".
This section explains about GRUB, not about GRUB 2. And my current other distro uses Grub 2 .
So ... my question is:
How to do it with GRUB 2?
Thanks in advance.

In a word, No.
THIS IS WHAT I REALLY NEEDED TO KNOW.
1. Opening the iMac and installing your own HDD will immediately void the warranty.
THIS IS A GOOD ENOUGH REASON ALONE FOR ME NOT TO FIDDLE UNTIL THE WARRANTY HAS RUN OUT
2. The two systems use completely different partitioning schemes for the drive, you cannot run a PPC version of Mac OS X on an Intel Mac, and you should not run a version of Mac OS X on a Mac that predates or is older than the version with which it was shipped (All new Macs ship with 10.5.6 or newer and cannot run 10.4).
UNDERSTOOD.
For good advice on transferring from PPC to Intel I recommend Kappy's;
A Basic Guide for Migrating to Intel-Macs
THANKS FOR THIS TIP. I WILL LOOK AS AND WHEN.

How to replace grub-bios with grub-efi.

Hello Everybody. I have been booting with bios, and using Grub as my bootloader. Now I want to switch to UEFI, but still use Grub. Is it possible to switch from bios to UEFI without using a live usb? Thanks

One caveat to keep in mind is that keeping both BIOS and EFI versions of GRUB installed can result in conflicts, since the two versions need subtly different configuration files. If you set it up right, the grub.cfg files needn't conflict, since they'd be in different locations (/boot/grub/grub.cfg for BIOS, /boot/efi/EFI/grub/grub.cfg or /boot/efi/EFI/arch/grub.cfg for EFI, probably). Some distributions (like Ubuntu) don't set it up right, though. I'm not sure what Arch does in this respect. There may be conflicts in deeper-level configuration files (/etc/grub.d/* files, for instance), too, but I'm not sure of that. If there are deeper-level conflicts, though, you're setting yourself up for pain in one or the other boot mode if you try to maintain both versions of GRUB from standard packages.
Overall, if you want to do both BIOS-mode and EFI-mode booting, I recommend using different boot loaders, such as GRUB for BIOS and the kernel's EFI stub loader (with gummiboot or rEFInd as a boot manager atop that, if you like) for EFI. This will avoid any risk of conflict between BIOS-mode and EFI-mode GRUB. OTOH, if somebody who's more familiar with GRUB's zoo of configuration files and the similarities and differences between BIOS-mode and EFI-mode GRUB can say with certainty that there's no conflict, you can ignore this recommendation. Also, I'm not a fan of GRUB 2; IMHO it's a bloated pig of a program that tries to do too much and so ends up doing much of it poorly. Thus, setting up something else on EFI will help you transition away to something saner.

Arch, Windows Multiboot with Grub - overwrites Windows MBR

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