Boot Windows 8.1 in MBR mode from UEFI GRUB

Hi,
i installed Windows 8.1 in BIOS/MBR mode to my second hardisk /dev/sdb.
On my first disk /dev/sda is Archlinux with GRUB 2.0 in UEFI mode.
Is it possible to boot Windows 8.1 from the UEFI GRUB?
The description in the wiki is only for MBR systems...
https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/Gr … S-MBR_mode
Thank you

Actually, rEFInd can switch from EFI-mode to BIOS-mode booting; however, on PCs it's usually restricted to booting the BIOS-mode boot loader in the MBR of the first disk. Thus, you might need to physically swap your disk cables to get it to work. You'll also need to uncomment the "scanfor" line in refind.conf and add "hdbios" to its boot options list.
Oh, you also need a version of rEFInd compiled with Tianocore, not GNU-EFI. My own main binaries are so compiled (I'm rEFInd's author), and I believe that Arch's are, too, but some others are built with GNU-EFI.
Last edited by srs5694 (2014-03-15 20:10:29)

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How can I dual boot Windows 7 on a MBR disk and Windows 8 on GPT Disk with UEFI BIOS

I have recently build a computer. I bought a Seagate 3TB HDD which I planned to install Windows 8.1 Pro on and I also bought another Seagate 1TB HDD which I planned to install Windows 7 Ultimate 64 bit. I wanted to dual boot the two systems.
However, I want to format the 3TB HDD into GPT and format the 1TB HDD into MBR mode.
Can this be done in a UEFI BIOS environment?
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Does these help?
http://www.pagestart.com/win7win81db01171401.html
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Dual boot , windows 7 keep restart after select from grub section

Hello everyone, i am new here.
I want to make a dual boot in my computer.
I am using a same hardisk to install both OS.
1st, I install arch linux , after install working well from grub.
2nd, I install windows 7, after install , it skip the grub section , directly load windows 7.
I boot my archlinux live cd.
Go to grub .
type root (hd0, and press tab to make sure my partition.
setup (hd0).
The grub section was recover and success to login arch linux.
but fail to login windows 7 , then i modify /boot/grub/menu.lst . modify the windows (hd0, 1).
My trouble probem is here, after i select the windows section , my com just like restart computer.
Even i try change to (hd0, 2 or 3 ) also same problem, windows 7 restart computer.

I have try to install dual boot for more than 5 time, first i install windows then only come to arch linux, but always fail to boot up windows.
Thank for helping me ^^
This is my fdisk -l
I have 2 hardisk, but i install both Os in the same hardisk.
Device Boot Start End Block ID System
/dev/sdb1 1 24 192742+ 83 Linux
/dev/sdb2 25 37 102400 7 HPFS/NTFS
Partition 2 does not end on cylinder boundry
/dev/sdb3 37 8243 65939456 7 HPFS/NTFS
/dev/sdb4 8247 14593 50982277+ 5 Extended
/dev/sdb5 8247 8368 979933+ 83 Linux
/dev/sdb6 8364 10858 20000893+ 83 Linux
/dev/sdb7 10859 14593 20001356 82 Linux Swap / Solaris
# (0) Arch Linux
title Arch Linux
root (hd0,0)
kernel /vmlinuz26 root=/dev/sd5 ro
initrd /kernel26.img
# (1) Arch Linux
title Arch Linux fallback
root (hd0,0)
kernel /vmlinuz26 root=/dev/sd5 ro
initrd /kernel26_fallback.img
# (2) windows
title windows 7
rootnoverify (hd0, 1)
makeactive
chainloader +1

Prepare an usb thumb drive, to boot windows 7 or 8 in UEFI mode

Purpose of this post:
Prepare an usb thumb drive, to boot windows 7 in UEFI mode and install the system in pure UEFI mode.
Why am I writing this:
I had a hard time finding out how to make a custom installation of windows 7 in pure UEFI mode, and avoid using the factory restore disks. After hours of research, experiments etc I finally got the point and found a solution. And I'm happy to share my research with you. I hope this will be of help. If something is not clear, or more information is needed, I will be glad to explain things further.
History:
As most of you already know, BIOS was developed for PC in early eighties and has remained unchanged in recent years. But, since 2000, Intel started working on a new firmware interface, called Extensible Firmware Interface, abbreviated EFI. And since 2005 United EFI Forum has been handling the responsibility for development, management and promotion of UEFI specifications. Bigger companies like Intel, AMD, Microsoft and Dell have already started to bring out their products in accordance to UEFI standards which has more stable, secure and easier to use interface.
How does UEFI works (in a nutshell):
Once you power on the UEFI based PC, the Pre-EFI is executed which initializes only the CPU, memory and the chipset. This followed by Driver Execution Environment (DEX) where other hardware is initialized.
Advantages of UEFI:
    It can integrate various drivers this will not require to load during booting so saves time.
   PC can connect to network without OS.
   Also integrated drivers allow rendering GUI based control panel which out dates the old school bluish BIOS screen.
   Not all the installed hard drives are scanned as boot drive is set during the installation of OS in UFFI.
   Applications like anti-virus and diagnostic tools can be stored on virtually any non-volatile storage devices attached to a PC.
For a system to boot and install in UEFI the partition table of the HDD should be GPT (GUID Partition Table), not the old school MBR (master boot record). GPT has many advantages, can have virtually an unlimited number of partitions (windows will allow only 128) and impressively big partitions.
Since UEFI has a lot of advantages why not having a system install and boot in UEFI mode? AFAIK new Lenovo notebooks/netbooks are UEFI capable and OS’s are already installed in pure UEFI mode.
So, let’s go now to the point. Do you want to have more control over your HDD? Let say, you have a 320GB HDD and you have divided it in two partitions, one of 50GB, for your Windows 7, and the remaining for your data. If something goes wrong and you need to restore your system to factory default, with the recovery disks, it will wipe your partition scheme, set the system to default and this way your data will be lost.
You may want to make a “vanilla” installation of windows from a USB thumb drive and avoid using factory recovery disks. Now here things get complicated. A standard preparation of the USB with Microsoft’s software (Windows 7 USB/DVD Download Tool), or other tools, will give you a bios installation, not a UEFI one. So for the system to boot, you will need to change some settings in bios, and changing it from UEFI to legacy bios. The installation will prepare the HDD in MBR partition table, and you will lose all the advantages of UEFI, described above.
Now this can be avoided, by properly preparing an USB to boot and install in UEFI mode. Here are the steps:
Step by step tutorial:
1.   In a windows computer, download a legal copy (although trial) of the windows 7 os. You can do this from here: http://www.mydigitallife.info/official-windows-7-sp1-iso-from-digital-river/
Be sure to download the same version that came preinstalled in your computer. For example, if you have a Lenovo x120e, with a Windows 7 professional, 64bit, download an iso image of the Windows 7 professional 64bit.
2.   Once downloaded burn the iso to a USB thumb (at least 4GB) using Windows 7 USB/DVD Download Tool.
3.   After preparing this, create a folder on your computer, name it whatever (i.e. W7pro64bit). Go to the root of your USB
and select all the files and folders there (9 in total) copy, and paste to your folder you created, W7pro64bit.
4.   Using windows format the usb again in FAT32. Windows 7 USB/DVD Download tool, formats it in NTFS. We need a FAT32 formatted disk to achieve our goal. Formating again the USB in FAT32 will not touch the MBR of the USB thumbdrive. And after copying back the files (see step 6) the USB will still be bootable. (nice, and simple, isn't it?)
5.   Now go to the folder W7pro64bit and do the following:
a.   Browse to W7pro64bit\sources\ and open install.wim file. It’s a big file, and can be opened as an archive with 7zip (free software). Do not extract it, do not modify it, just browse the file with 7zip. Just to be sure you do not mess with that file, you can copy it somewhere else in your computer, and than procede.
b.   Browse this file (install.wim) to \1\Windows\Boot\EFI\ and locate the file bootmgfw.efi. Do not move, delete it, but just drag that file to the desktop. (if you have copied the file install.wim to another place in your computer, than you are safely do whatever you want with that file ) Close the 7zip program to release the install.wim file.
c.   Rename the file you just copied to the desktop from bootmgfw.efi to bootx64.efi.
d.   Now go back to w7pro64bit folder and browse \efi\Microsoft. Form there copy the folder boot and paste it one level up, on the folder: \efi. It will look like this: \efi\boot.
e.   Now copy the file you saved on your desktop and renamed (bootx64.efi) to \efi\boot (inside the boot folder you copied on step 5d
6.   Now go to the root of the folder W7pro64bit and select all folders and files (9 in total) copy, and paste all those files back to your USB thumb drive. (see step 4 for more info)
7.   Go to the computer that you are going to reinstall, and before restarting it, use the program ABR (activation backup and restore) to backup the license of your windows os. (use google to find ABR). Advanced Tokens Manager (ATM ) is great too. This link may be of help: Backup and restore W7 activation. After the program finishes its magic, it will create a few files inside the folder where the program itself reside. Copy these files to a new folder in your usb. Rename it to ABR so you will quickly find it later. (if you decide to use ATM, the procedure may be a little different. But you are smart enough to figure out how to use it)
8.   Backup to an external storage all your data before continuing.(reminder: are you sure you saved the license as explained in step 7, to a safe place? To a external drive, to another computer? If you are sure, than go on with step 9)
9.   Now restart your laptop, and enter your bios settings. Go to the boot settings, and set the computer to boot in UEFI only. Not both, not UEFI first, or legacy, BUT UEFI only. Save and restart.
10.   Press f12 (or the corresponding key for your machine) to choose the boot device and chose to start from the USB thumb drive with your windows 7 pro 64 bit.
11.   If everything is done correctly, your computer will boot from the USB.
12.   Follow the wizard and choose a custom install, not upgrade. At the disk partition window delete all the partition you see there until you have only one unallocated space.
13.   Select it, and click next to install windows, without making partition in this point. The installer will create a GPT partition table not a MBR since the USB booted in UEFI mode.
14.   Immediately after the first restart remove your USB thumb, and the installation will continue from the HDD. Wait until installation finishes.
15.   When you will be finally on your desktop, on the installed OS plug your USB go to the ABR folder and click on restore.exe. It will restore your license and your copy of windows will be activated.
16.   Now you can go in computer management/disk management and shrink the HDD to create your partitioning scheme. Make sure to leave enough space to your windows os. (30gb or more for extra programs you will install at your choice)
17.      Download from lenovo.com thinkvantage system update and update your system. Windows update too can install all the necessary drivers, if you need only basic drivers support.
Note: if tvsu will fail to work, see this:
http://forums.lenovo.com/t5/ThinkVantage-Technologies/ThinkVantage-System-Update-Servers-down-the-wh...
It may look a looong tutorial, but once you do this for the first time, it will look a piece of cake.
Final words:
From now on, you can install windows 7 in UEFI mode with your special USB without changing your partition scheme anymore. If you have a data partition beside your os partition (see the example above), when you reinstall the system using your USB thumb drive, at the disk partition window chose the partition where windows is installed, delete it, and reinstall windows to the unformatted area. Your partition with your data will be intact and the installation will automatically mount your data partition to the system. And, all the scope of this procedure, you will always have a pure UEFI installation of the system, with all its benefits.
Have fun!
abvasili
Moderator note: changed subject to match new content. Was: Prepare an usb thumb drive, to boot windows 7 in UEFI mode
I'm just a volunteer. I like to help others where I can. Do my ideas work? I hope so. o_O
Who helped you today? Do not forget to thank him.
My hardware: TP x120e 0596-2ru. Windows 7, sp1, 64Bit, English, installed in UEFI mode.

seanare wrote:
Thank you, as I noted here, your post was the key to my getting a Windows 8 SecureBooting setup on a W530.
In the case of Windows 8, I needed to copy the files away, reformat my USB key as FAT32 and copy the files back, and viola I was able to boot from my USB install media with the BIOS set to only boot UEFI. From there, there rest was easy (for Windows 8, the copying and renaming is not necessary, the key is having a FAT32 partition on the USB media, rather than an NTFS one; the EFI files are already in the right location).
Thank you again good sir.
You are welcome... and I'm happy that the change of the file system helps with windows 8 too. Thanks for confirming that.
abvasili
I'm just a volunteer. I like to help others where I can. Do my ideas work? I hope so. o_O
Who helped you today? Do not forget to thank him.
My hardware: TP x120e 0596-2ru. Windows 7, sp1, 64Bit, English, installed in UEFI mode.

Dual boot Windows 7 and Arch from 2 seperate drives (UEFI)

Hello everyone, I've been working on installing Arch to a secondary hard drive for the past few hours, but I am trying to make sure I won't mess up my Windows 7 install. I have found several topics talking about dual booting Windows 7 and Arch, but not a whole lot on booting them from separate drives. My drives are currently setup as follows.
sda (120GB SSD for Windows 7)
sda1 (100MB System Reserved NTFS partition)
sda2 (Windows 7 install)
sdb (1TB HDD for Windows programs, files, etc)
sdb1 (1TB NTFS partition)
sdc (1TB HDD)
sdc1 (boot 512MB FAT32)
sdc2 (root 500MB ext4)
sdc3 (home 300GB ext4)
sdc4 (swap 10GB)
rest unallocated "free space"
I used Gparted to create the partitions. I ended up getting hung up on the "Create Filesystems" sections, specifically this line"
# mkfs.fat -F32 /dev/sdXY
Now that I am looking at it, I'm thinking the "Create Filesystems" section maybe isn't necessary because I've used Gparted?
If it isn't necessary, when I get to the "mount the EFI System Partition to /boot" section, would I simply use
# mount /dev/sdc1 /mnt/boot
instead of
# mount /dev/sdXY /mnt/boot ?
The way I had this setup with Ubuntu was 3 partitions on sdc (/, home, swap) and I set my PC to boot to the sdc drive on startup. The boot loader would then give me the option to boot into Ubuntu or Windows 7, and I never had to alter the sda or sdb drives at all. Is this possible through Arch? My thinking is that even if it isn't, I should still be able to enter the BIOS boot menu and select which drive to boot manually correct? That wouldn't be too big of a deal for me because I spend 90% of my time in Linux, and only use Windows for Photoshop and gaming occasionally.
Thanks for taking the time to read this. I would have just tested this out, but I am afraid of messing up my Windows install.

After several sleepless hours I had to give up and go to bed about 5 hours ago. The installation process went smoothly (or so I thought). I followed the tutorial closely and upon rebooting I was met with a blinking cursor. After some googling I found others who said I should press TAB, but nothing seemed to work.
I rebooted to the iso disk and found the "boot installed OS" option and noticed it said "Press TAB to edit". I then found the boot parameters and tried everything from hd0 0 to hd4 4. I believe I have Grub setup correctly because every option besides hd0 0 either says "Booting..." and then gets stuck, or says "That disk and partition combination does not exist". So yea, I think hd0 0 is the correct boot path, it just gets stuck with the blinking cursor.
silverhammermba wrote:
You have the right idea. You want to install a bootloader on sdc1 which will be able to boot both Arch and Windows.
Your best bet would be to use something like rEFInd. It has a "scanfor" option that should automatically detect your BIOS-configured Windows installation and add a boot option for it. Note that depending on your motherboard, you may have to switch to UEFI-only mode and Windows will be unbootable without the assistance of a UEFI program which is backwards compatible with BIOS (like rEFInd).
Thank you for the link. Considering I can't get into my install and the actual install only took about 30 minutes, I think I am going to just start from the beginning again with REFIndr. It seems much simpler. I only used Grub because I've used it before with Ubuntu, but my very limited knowledge is telling me Grub is probably the problem.
MoonSwan wrote:Just an idea: My bios has a "Boot-up Prompt" which I can invoke when it's POSTing by hitting F11. This brings me to a menu that allows me to choose which drive I want to boot up that day. I use it when Syslinux isn't working properly (Which is right now as a matter of fact ...) in order to boot Windows so I can do some SCII, for example. I, too, dual-boot but I have both OSes on different SSDs. So my 120GB Crucial SSD has Arch on it and the 240GB Kingston has Windows, SCII, Portable Apps, etc and nary the two shall meet. It makes dual-booting easier in the case of a corrupt OS or MBR or what-have-you. You may want to give your Bios a better look to see if you can do the F11 trick. It probably can and will usually tell you so at POST by printing that information on-screen along with your drives-detected and other messages (I hit Pause sometimes to read all the POST messages).
This is exactly what I was talking about doing when I mentioned:
My thinking is that even if it isn't, I should still be able to enter the BIOS boot menu and select which drive to boot manually correct?
That's good to know, because even if this next install doesn't work I think if I pull the other drives I should be able to get it working fairly easily.
Thanks again everyone.

[SOLVED] UEFI system booting from MBR partition table and GRUB legacy

I'm trying to understand once and for all the process by which Arch can be booted from a system with UEFI firmware and an MBR partition table. Some of the information on the wiki seems conflictual / non-nonsensical at times. Apologies in advance if this has been answered time and time again, but I did search around and all I found was fixes to get Arch to boot rather than comprehensive explanations of the boot process.
Now, the way I would imagine it works is that it's just completely identical to the way it would work with a BIOS firmware. The UEFI firmware detects an MBR partitioning scheme (or is configured to know it's an MBR partitioning scheme), activates some "legacy" mode and executes the MBR boot code, just like a BIOS firmware would.
The wiki however, says different. From the Macbook article: "Do not install GRUB onto /dev/sda !!! Doing so is likely to lead to an unstable post-environment."?
So what is there in the MBR boot sector? Nothing?
How does the firmware know what to boot if there's no 0xEF BIOS boot partition and no Grub stage 1 in the MBR boot sector?
Also, how does installing Grub stage 1 to a partition work? Does it have to be at the beginning of the partition? Wouldn't that overwrite some existing data?
I'm especially puzzled since many guides to installing Vista on a macbook recommend simply formatting as MBR, and installing as normal, which I suppose entails having the Windows installation process write its boot code to the MBR, ie the equivalent of installing grub stage 1 to /dev/sda rather than to the /boot partition, as the Macbook article suggests.
Any input is appreciated.
P.S. I realize it's probably simpler, if I just want to dual boot Windows and Arch, to install Windows 7 in UEFI-GPT mode, let it create the EFI System Partition, and then install GRUB 2 to that partition, but I'm still curious about the UEFI-MBR boot process.
Last edited by padavoine (2012-06-06 09:35:10)

padavoine wrote:
CSM in UEFI firmwares do the exact same job as normal BIOS firmware.
So it's something specific to the Mac that it's able to boot from a partition's VBR while ignoring the MBR?
The reason that warning is given is because grub-legacy modifies more than just the MBR boot code region. It can overwrite some parts of GPT header.
Not true, the instruction is given in the context of an MBR format, not in the context of a GPT format, so there's nothing to overwrite and Stage 1.5 should be safely embeddable in the post-MBR gap.
In BIOS boot (normal case in non-UEFI firmwares or CSM in UEFI firmwares) does not read the partitition table (atleast it is supposed to be dumb in this regard), it simply launches whatever boot code exists in the 1st 440-byte of the MBR region.
So again, you're saying it's specific to the Mac UEFI that it lets you choose a partition whose VBR to load, regardless of what's in the MBR?
I haven't used Macs so I can't comment on Mac firmware behaviour. But normal BIOS firmwares (legacy and CSM) launch only the MBR boot code and not the partition boot code. We need some chainload capable boot manager in the MBR to launch the partition VBR.
grub-legacy does not know anything about GPT. So when you install grub-legacy to /dev/sda, it install the MBR boot code (stage1) and stage 1.5 code to the (supposed) post MBR gap. Since there is no actual post MBR gap in GPT (which has been taken over by the header and partition table), grub-legacy does not check for GPT and it assumes the post MBR gap actually exists which is invalid in case of GPT. grub-legacy embeds the stage 1.5 code in GPT header and table region (which grub assumes to be unused post MBR gap) and thus corrupts it.
0xEF is the MBR type code for UEFISYS partition. grub stage 1 (used in grub-legacy, not in grub2) is the 440-byte boot code stored in MBR for use in BIOS boot.
That's precisely my point: with neither proper executable code in the MBR (since grub was installed to a partition, not to the MBR) nor a UEFI system partition, what does the firmware default to, and how does it know what partition to boot from?
In that case it might fallback to UEFI Shell (if it exists) or give an error similar to the case where BIOS does not find any bootable code in 440-byte MBR region.
So even with bootcamp/CSM, the disk also needs to be MBR partitioned. So Macs use something called "Hybrid GPT/MBR" ( http://rodsbooks.com/gdisk/hybrid.html ) where the MBR table is synced to match the first 3 partitions in the GPT table.
I know what Bootcamp does, and that's not what I was referring to. I was referring to standalone Vista installs. I wasn't puzzled at the fact that they were using MBR, I was puzzled at the fact that contrary to the recommendations for the standalone Arch install on the wiki (with MBR partitioning, not GPT), they didn't do anything to try and prevent Windows from writing to the MBR.
You can't prevent Windows from overwriting the MBR region. You have to re-install the bootloader (grub2/syslinux etc.) after installing Windows. That is the reason why it is recommended to install Windows first and linux later.
Thats not true. I actually find it is much easier to install Windows UEFI-GPT using USB rather than a DVD.
I haven't done it since the only UEFI system I own has no DVD drive, but I was under the impression that it was simply a matter of choosing DVD UEFI boot in the firmware's boot menu.
format the USB as FAT32 and extract the iso to it. That it.
No, thats not it, precisely, it doesn't work out of the box with a standard Windows install USB, you need to fiddle around:
2.3 Extract bootmgfw.efi from [WINDOWS_x86_64_ISO]/sources/install.wim => [INSTALL.WIM]/1/Windows/Boot/EFI/bootmgfw.efi (using 7-zip aka p7zip for both the files), or copy it from C:\Windows\Boot\EFI\bootmgfw.efi from a working Windows x86_64 installation.
2.4 Copy the extracted bootmgfw.efi file to [MOUNTPOINT]/efi/microsoft/boot/bootmgfw.efi .
Most of the Windows isos already have /EFI/BOOT/BOOTX64.EFI file, so no need to extract the bootmgfw.efi file.
There is no difference between in BIOS booting in UEFI firmwares and BIOS booting with legacy firmware.
There has to be a difference, at least in the Mac firmware (sorry, I keep switching), since legacy firmware, AFAIK, cannot chainload a bootloader in a partition's VBR without there being some sort of "stage1" code in the MBR.
No idea about Mac EFI. Apple made a spagetti out of UEFI Spec. To actually understand how Mac firmwares work, read the blog posts by Matthew Garrett of Redhat, about his efforts in getting Fedora to boot in Macs.

W1-810 Acer Iconia 8W (W1-810) - Boot Windows Installation from USB

Hi everyone!
Yesterday I have succesfully updgraded my w1-810 from "Windows 8.1 with Bing" to "Windows 10 Home"... but looking in the System Info, I've seen that even though I have a 64-bit machine, my Windows is x32 (I noticed that the same was for Windows 8.1 before, but I hoped that during the upgrade the installation would've asked me if I wanted to install the x32 or x64 version of Windows 10... somehow). I've downloaded the Windows 10 Home x64 ISO via the Media Creation Tool offered by Microsoft and installed it on a USB Drive firstly using Windows 7 USB/DVD Download Tool (it worked with Windows 8/8.1, but this time it gave me an error like "I copied the ISO but couldn't make it bootable"), and then with Rufus (FAT32 and "MBR Partition for UEFI")... but after restarting the Tablet, it went straight to Windows, ignoring the USB. Reading around I discovered something about the BIOS, so I entered in it, selected "Erase all Secure Boot Setting", disabled Secure Boot, and lastlysetting the boot order so that it would begin with USB devices. Still nothing. Starting while pressing F2 (the Boot Menu) I see only "Windows Boot Manager", that brings me to the ususal Windows 10 login screen. Using the Advanced Startup from the OS and selecting "EFI USB", after the tablet restarts I get this error: "system doesn't have any usb boot option. please select other boot option in boot manager menu", and it kicks me back to the F2 Boot Menu, that looks just like before. Last thing I've done is today: with the Media Creation Tool I've re-downloaded Windows 10 Home x64 again, but this time I selected not to download an ISO, but to install it directly in the USB Drive... but nothing has changed. I've also updated the BIOS to 1.06: same as before. So... any suggestions? Unfortunately I can't find much informations regarding this issue for THIS model... I've found only this discussion, and read something about "rEFIt" for EFI boot menu and stuff... but since I know nothing about it, I don't want to, I don't know, force an installation I can't do and mess things up. Somewhere else I've read that I should switch from UEFI to Legacy mode... but from the BIOS of this model, I can't do it... Thanks for your help!

Por lo que sé necesitas un mínimo de 2Gb de ram para usar W10 x64, aunque los procesadores de tú máquina trabajen a 64 bits. La Iconia W1 810 trae 1 Gb en placa. Saludos

How To Boot Windows 7 from Windows 7 DOS Prompt?

I got hit by the GVU virus. Spent a week poking around and made some interesting discoveries!
The GVU virus appears to lock you out of your computer always going to a page in german demanding 100 euros to restore it.
If you reboot while pressing F8 you can get to the debug page which lists several options including boot to DOS prompt.
Select this option.
Windows 7 will boot and ask you to login. Do this.
Your computer will now go to the DOS prompt.
On a second computer I installed an up to date copy of Spybot. Using explorer I found the Spybot directory tree under Program files and copied it to a jump drive.
Remove the jump drive from the second computer and insert it in your sick computer.
On the sick computer you are at the DOS Prompt. Type explorer and press enter.
A window will open similar to windows 7 explorer. Right clicks will not work, but you will find all the usual right click menu items under Files and Edit on the menu bar.
Click View then Refresh to display your jump drive. You may have to do this a couple of times, but your jump drive will appear in the usual spot.
Select the spybot directory on your jump drive and launch spybot. Run a systems scan and delete every thing it finds. Do this step Several times.
Reboot your computer.
Select Boot windows as normal.
It will ask you to login in. Do so.
Your computer will boot to explorer, the version that you saw in step 9.
Press CTL + ALT + Delete then select Task Manager
Task Manager will launch. If you click the process tab you will see only ten or so processes are running.
Click on the applications tab, then in the bottom right corner click on the button New Task.
Type win and press enter.
You will notice that the number of processes will jump to 90 give or take. When CPU use drops to 5% again or there abouts click new task again.
You are now in windows 7 minus the task bar but with networking etc.
Enter a windows program such as Outlook and press enter. Outlook will boot and run perfectly. I suspect that most windows programs will also run perfectly.
I know if you boot from your windows 7 DVD you can repair your system to normal. My question is can I do this without the disk? At this point I can do all my usual tasks, just without the convenience of the task bar and start button. I
am in the middle of unpacking from a move, cannn't find my Windows 7 install disk. I am so close to getting this computer back to running normally but I am not sure what to do next. Can someone help?
Bob Jones

Hi,
If you system files are corrupted, we can use SFC to fix missing and corrupted system file:
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/929833/en-us
this could be performed in command prompt mode.
If you have any feedback on our support, please click
here
Alex Zhao
TechNet Community Support

[SOLVED] Unable to Boot Windows 7 from GRUB

I recently reinstalled Arch onto my laptop (Lenovo Thinkpad t520) and have been having problems with Grub. For the last week I've been having trouble getting it to run grub at boot at all, only being able to run windows 7 by flagging it as the bootable drive. The other day I finally got it to boot into grub, and from grub I can boot into Arch. However, I can not boot into windows 7 through grub. When I attempt to, it throws an error:
Invalid EFI file path
I'm somewhat new to arch, and especially new to efi bootloading and such. Right now the only way I can get into windows is either booting from the arch install disk > boot other os and specifying partition 2 (where I have windows installed) or by pressing f12 at boot. When I do this (not sure what the term is, if anyone knows please tell me), it brings up a menu asking where I want to boot with "arch_efi" "cd drive" "Hard drive" etc. I choose hard drive and it will then boot to windows by default. Booting normally takes me to grub where I can boot into arch but not windows. If there's any more info you need please let me know and I'll try to provide it. Thanks in advance.
Also, here is my current partition setup
/dev/sda1 /boot/efi
/dev/sda2 Windows7
/dev/sda3 Extended partition containing sda 5,6, & 7
/dev/sda4 swap
/dev/sda5 /boot
/dev/sda6 /
/dev/sda7 /home
UPDATE
Terminator seems to be right (still on a roll!), so I wiped the partition I had grub on, removed grub, and installed syslinux. Now I have another problem that I'm hoping can be solved in the same thread to avoid another. It boots to syslinux no problem, and I can boot to windows from there all good, but when I select arch I get:
Root device mounted successfully but /sbin/init does not exist
I haven't been able to look for solutions too much on my own, but any help would be appreciated, thank you.
Last edited by IamFuzzles (2012-08-22 04:20:56)

Terminator wrote:If I understand it correctly, what you are trying is impossible: you are trying to boot windows using UEFI on a disk with MBR partitioning. Windows 7 only supports UEFI on discs with GPT partitioning but AFAIK, extended partitions only exist in MBR partitioning.
i also saw this in the arch wiki, but i have a brand new lenovo ideapad y570 running windows 7 64-bit that i'm in the process of setting up for someone, and it has what i think is an efi system partition but the disk uses mbr partitioning. does anyone know why this might be, or is there a way i can verify that the system is actually being booted via bios-mbr?
Last edited by e_tank (2012-08-21 11:56:15)

Help: Windows XP on MacBook Pro Boot Camp Partition via Target Disk Mode

Firstly, let me lay out my situation. I have an old MacBook Pro (2,2) with a broken disk drive. It was dropped in its youth and can no longer read from or write to CDs or DVDs of any kind. I have just recently bought a new MacBook Pro to replace it (6,2) and am currently trying to convert the old computer into an XP machine through Boot Camp. I'd like to be able to do so without having to buy an external disk drive.
After a clean install of OS X (10.6.3) onto the old machine, I successfully partition 85GB of space (although I previously attempted the same with a 32GB file system to no avail as well) for XP to be installed upon. Because I cannot boot my XP install disk directly from the broken disk drive, I then close Boot Camp Assistant and shut down the computer. I start it up in Target Disk Mode to be accessed from the new MacBook (6,2).
Once the old MacBook is connected, I insert my XP install disk into the new MacBook (6,2) and boot from the disk. After allowing the XP (Professional) boot to load the install files, I arrow-key down to my 85GB partition (FAT32, named standard as "BOOTCAMP") on the old MacBook (2,2)'s hard drive and select it as the partition I would like to install to. This is where I am directed to a new boot window that tells me in a series of paragraphs that the XP installer cannot reach the selected partition for what seems to be a number of reasons. What it seems to be trying to say to me is that it cannot do a remote install of XP on a Target Disk Mode-connected machine, while not "knowing" that I am trying to do so. It's a similar message to the one that Boot Camp Assistant shows when one tries to create a Boot Camp partition on a machine that is being accessed via Target Disk Mode (Apple puts it much more clearly than Microsoft).
I'd be perfectly content, albiet slightly vexed, to conclude here that it is not possible, shuttle over to the nearest Best Buy, and purchase an external disk drive if it weren't for one thing: I tried the same thing two weeks ago with Ubuntu 10.10 and it installed perfectly on the Boot Camp partition I had created then (I have since wiped all and installed OS X cleanly on the laptop).
Here comes the point/questions:
If the Ubuntu boot disk can access the partition, why can't the XP boot disk?
Is there some way to convince the boot system that the drive is local, rather than being accessed via Target Disk Mode?
Is there an easy solution that doesn't even require that, and will allow me to install to the disk over a firewire connection?
If anyone's knowledgeable and/or brave enough to tackle this one, I'll be eternally grateful. Heck, I'll be grateful if anyone even attempts to tackle it.
Thanks,
-Alec Page

Windows XP will only install from the optical drive. Target Disk Mode does not work with Windows volumes. Windows will not install from any external device.

Upgrading Windows 7 (Legacy BIOS/MBR Disk) to Windows 8 (UEFI/GPT/Secure Boot)

Hi there,
I've recently purchased a W530 with Windows 7 pre-installed. Ultimately, I'd like to replace this with Window 8 + Secure Boot. I believe I can get Windows 8 via the Microsoft Upgrade offer for a reasonable price, since this was a recent purchase.
What's the best way to reach my goal?
The Windows 7 install uses Legacy BIOS to boot with an MBR disk.
I had a quick look at Acronis, and I can see that it's possible that the "OS will be automatically converted to support UEFI booting" (http://www.acronis.com/support/documentation/ABR11/index.html#14021.html) when using it's tool.
If I don't use this approach, what can I do? Can I:
1. Use Rescue and Recovery in Windows 7 (Legacy BIOS/MBR disk)
2. Wipe the drive and reformat it with GPT?
3. Install Windows 7 with UEFI enabled using the Rescue and Recovery made in step 1?
4. At this point, I would now have UEFI and GPT.
5. Perform an Upgrade from Windows 7 to Windows 8 and enable Secure Boot?
Any thoughts as to whether this would work?
Richard.

Hi richii,
The Acronis approach ends up in failure. Didn't give it a second look at the reason, since the tool it's not necessary. I also tried several other "automatic" tools without success.
The recovery approach will fail because it's tied up to BIOS boot.
But I've performed the conversion from BIOS to UEFI two times successfully. After some digging, is not SO hard. It's just... "undocumented". Very, very undocumented, hehe. I made a step-by-step guide: http://social.technet.microsoft.com/wiki/contents/articles/14286.converting-windows-bios-installatio...
Let me know if it helps you...
Anyway, if you don't have data/software, I would go for the clean install approach.
Cheers.
If I helped you, please give me some kudos! ^^

HT4818 I have installed bootcamp that worked properly. Then I have partitioned the OS X 10.8.2 and installed another OS X 10.8.2 and I have got two MAC boot options and Bootcamp disappeared from the Option menu. How can I boot Windows again and keep both

I have installed bootcamp by the bootcamp assistant and worked properly.
Then I have partitioned the OS X 10.8.2 and installed another Mountain Lion System and I have got two MAC boot options and Bootcamp disappeared from the Option menu. However, Bootcamp still remained in the Startup Disk in the System Preferences. When I tried to boot Bootcamp using the Startup Disk it did not boot and received a message that there is no bootable device. I have not lost any data and can read Bootcamp partition from both OS X systems. Please advise how can I boot Windows / Bootcamp again? Thank you.

Recommendation 1: Use a VM for this. It's essentially a giant C.F. to do this with native booting, and is potentially fragile.
But if you're going to ignore that and do this anyway, realizing that it can break anytime in particular with OS upgrades, and that it's very difficult to impossible to resize the three volumes once you've installed the systems:
1. create three partitions, setting each to be the size for OS X copy 1, copy 2, and Windows respectively. The Windows partition needs to be set to MS-DOS format (actually FAT32) which later in the Windows installer you'll reformat as NTFS. Do not use Boot Camp Assistant to resize/partition the disk, it simply won't work for this use case.
2. install OS X copy 1
3. install OS X copy 3
4. Use gdisk (available at sourceforge) which is a command line only application, to create a new hybrid MBR adding only the last partition (Windows) to the hybrid MBR and setting it to be bootable. As a concequence you will not be able to see/share either OS X volume from within Windows. The Windows NTFS volume will be visible from within OS X.
5. Install Windows to the only partition its installer should see (confirm size), you'll need to format it NTFS first, and I suggest using the fast format option if available.

[SOLVED] Having trouble dual booting Windows: normal.mod not found

Hello every one, I'm a Gentoo user who wants to try something different. So I thought I'd install Arch on my new laptop.
Anyhow, this is my first proper UEFI install on real hardware. So I might be doing something stupid here, but I've searched all over the forums and the internet and can't seem to find anything similar about it. So please excuse me if there is already a similar or very similar topic
Since I'm new to Arch I followed the Beginner's guide. Everything went fine, install was very quick compared to Gentoo phew... anyhow there came the tricky part, the bootloader install, as I am a real total noob with EFI. I followed the instructions carefully.
The result is: I now have 4 entries in my GRUB menu, 2 are Arch and its fallback, one is Windows 8 detected by osprober, and one is my custom Windows 8 with the usual chain loading setup that i've always used (with some fixes found on the 'net). Arch boots fine, but Windows doesn't; I get booted down to the recovery console, with an error that GRUB cannot find /boot/grub/x86_64-efi/normal.mod. Even though the file is of course existing. I tried to "insmod part_gpt" and others, and it couldn't find any of them, except part_msdos. Yeah I know, it's weird. Unfortunately I need to use Windows sometimes for some programs like Guitar Rig which need a good native audio connection.
My opinion is that there must be some place where the paths are not correct. But I keep looking at the config files and I can't find anything wrong with them...
The system had a Linux Mint 14 install on it previously but it bricked itself while updating to Mint 15. And I only really had Mint on there because of the automatic bootloader setup. Which worked well up to when I got rid of Mint (it was on /dev/sda8, where Arch is now). I hope it doesn't complicate the matter.
My EFI system partition is /dev/sda2. There are so many partitions because it's a Samsung laptop and there's a partition for samsung recovery, one for windows 8 recovery, and so on... The only "real" partitions are /dev/sda2 for EFI, /dev/sda4 for Windows, and /dev/sda8 for Arch.
Here are some command outputs to show you what my system is like. I hope they are helpful. If there's anything missing I shall supplement it of course!
Thanks in advance
sudo efibootmgr -v
BootCurrent: 0002
Timeout: 0 seconds
BootOrder: 0002,0001,0006,0003,0000
Boot0000* Windows Boot Manager Vendor(99e275e7-75a0-4b37-a2e6-c5385e6c00cb,)WINDOWS.........x...B.C.D.O.B.J.E.C.T.=.{.9.d.e.a.8.6.2.c.-.5.c.d.d.-.4.e.7.0.-.a.c.c.1.-.f.3.2.b.3.4.4.d.4.7.9.5.}....................
Boot0001* linuxmint HD(2,fa000,96000,f718c38a-c1d8-4c72-9b59-e098594840a2)File(\EFI\linuxmint\grubx64.efi)
Boot0002* arch_grub HD(2,fa000,96000,f718c38a-c1d8-4c72-9b59-e098594840a2)File(\EFI\arch_grub\grubx64.efi)
Boot0003* Windows Boot Manager HD(2,fa000,96000,f718c38a-c1d8-4c72-9b59-e098594840a2)File(\EFI\Microsoft\Boot\bootmgfw.efi)
Boot0006* Windows Boot Manager HD(6,3a186001,200000,d41549d3-0b93-40ef-4173-636c65706975)File(\EFI\Microsoft\Boot\bootmgfw.efi)
mount
proc on /proc type proc (rw,nosuid,nodev,noexec,relatime)
sys on /sys type sysfs (rw,nosuid,nodev,noexec,relatime)
dev on /dev type devtmpfs (rw,nosuid,relatime,size=2997764k,nr_inodes=749441,mode=755)
run on /run type tmpfs (rw,nosuid,nodev,relatime,mode=755)
/dev/sda8 on / type ext4 (rw,relatime,data=ordered)
securityfs on /sys/kernel/security type securityfs (rw,nosuid,nodev,noexec,relatime)
tmpfs on /dev/shm type tmpfs (rw,nosuid,nodev)
devpts on /dev/pts type devpts (rw,nosuid,noexec,relatime,gid=5,mode=620,ptmxmode=000)
tmpfs on /sys/fs/cgroup type tmpfs (rw,nosuid,nodev,noexec,mode=755)
cgroup on /sys/fs/cgroup/systemd type cgroup (rw,nosuid,nodev,noexec,relatime,xattr,release_agent=/usr/lib/systemd/systemd-cgroups-agent,name=systemd)
pstore on /sys/fs/pstore type pstore (rw,nosuid,nodev,noexec,relatime)
efivarfs on /sys/firmware/efi/efivars type efivarfs (rw,nosuid,nodev,noexec,relatime)
cgroup on /sys/fs/cgroup/cpuset type cgroup (rw,nosuid,nodev,noexec,relatime,cpuset)
cgroup on /sys/fs/cgroup/cpu,cpuacct type cgroup (rw,nosuid,nodev,noexec,relatime,cpuacct,cpu)
cgroup on /sys/fs/cgroup/memory type cgroup (rw,nosuid,nodev,noexec,relatime,memory)
cgroup on /sys/fs/cgroup/devices type cgroup (rw,nosuid,nodev,noexec,relatime,devices)
cgroup on /sys/fs/cgroup/freezer type cgroup (rw,nosuid,nodev,noexec,relatime,freezer)
cgroup on /sys/fs/cgroup/net_cls type cgroup (rw,nosuid,nodev,noexec,relatime,net_cls)
cgroup on /sys/fs/cgroup/blkio type cgroup (rw,nosuid,nodev,noexec,relatime,blkio)
systemd-1 on /proc/sys/fs/binfmt_misc type autofs (rw,relatime,fd=35,pgrp=1,timeout=300,minproto=5,maxproto=5,direct)
hugetlbfs on /dev/hugepages type hugetlbfs (rw,relatime)
binfmt_misc on /proc/sys/fs/binfmt_misc type binfmt_misc (rw,relatime)
tmpfs on /tmp type tmpfs (rw)
mqueue on /dev/mqueue type mqueue (rw,relatime)
configfs on /sys/kernel/config type configfs (rw,relatime)
debugfs on /sys/kernel/debug type debugfs (rw,relatime)
/dev/sda2 on /boot type vfat (rw,relatime,fmask=0022,dmask=0022,codepage=437,iocharset=iso8859-1,shortname=mixed,errors=remount-ro)
fusectl on /sys/fs/fuse/connections type fusectl (rw,relatime)
gvfsd-fuse on /run/user/1000/gvfs type fuse.gvfsd-fuse (rw,nosuid,nodev,relatime,user_id=1000,group_id=100)
[james@James-Laptop ~]$ lsblk
NAME MAJ:MIN RM SIZE RO TYPE MOUNTPOINT
sda 8:0 0 465.8G 0 disk
├─sda1 8:1 0 499M 0 part
├─sda2 8:2 0 300M 0 part /boot
├─sda3 8:3 0 128M 0 part
├─sda4 8:4 0 342.4G 0 part
├─sda5 8:5 0 23.8G 0 part
├─sda6 8:6 0 1G 0 part
├─sda7 8:7 0 977K 0 part
├─sda8 8:8 0 91.8G 0 part /
└─sda9 8:9 0 5.9G 0 part [SWAP]
[james@James-Laptop ~]$ cat /boot/grub/grub.cfg
# DO NOT EDIT THIS FILE
# It is automatically generated by grub-mkconfig using templates
# from /etc/grub.d and settings from /etc/default/grub
### BEGIN /etc/grub.d/00_header ###
insmod part_gpt
insmod part_msdos
if [ -s $prefix/grubenv ]; then
load_env
fi
if [ "${next_entry}" ] ; then
set default="${next_entry}"
set next_entry=
save_env next_entry
set boot_once=true
else
set default="0"
fi
if [ x"${feature_menuentry_id}" = xy ]; then
menuentry_id_option="--id"
else
menuentry_id_option=""
fi
export menuentry_id_option
if [ "${prev_saved_entry}" ]; then
set saved_entry="${prev_saved_entry}"
save_env saved_entry
set prev_saved_entry=
save_env prev_saved_entry
set boot_once=true
fi
function savedefault {
if [ -z "${boot_once}" ]; then
saved_entry="${chosen}"
save_env saved_entry
fi
function load_video {
if [ x$feature_all_video_module = xy ]; then
insmod all_video
else
insmod efi_gop
insmod efi_uga
insmod ieee1275_fb
insmod vbe
insmod vga
insmod video_bochs
insmod video_cirrus
fi
if [ x$feature_default_font_path = xy ] ; then
font=unicode
else
insmod part_gpt
insmod ext2
set root='hd0,gpt8'
if [ x$feature_platform_search_hint = xy ]; then
search --no-floppy --fs-uuid --set=root --hint-bios=hd0,gpt8 --hint-efi=hd0,gpt8 --hint-baremetal=ahci0,gpt8 7e2ee467-3fd3-41b3-8c1f-62cc45f2d098
else
search --no-floppy --fs-uuid --set=root 7e2ee467-3fd3-41b3-8c1f-62cc45f2d098
fi
font="/usr/share/grub/unicode.pf2"
fi
if loadfont $font ; then
set gfxmode=auto
load_video
insmod gfxterm
set locale_dir=$prefix/locale
set lang=en_GB
insmod gettext
fi
terminal_input console
terminal_output gfxterm
set timeout=5
### END /etc/grub.d/00_header ###
### BEGIN /etc/grub.d/10_linux ###
menuentry 'Arch Linux, with Linux core repo kernel' --class arch --class gnu-linux --class gnu --class os $menuentry_id_option 'gnulinux-core repo kernel-true-7e2ee467-3fd3-41b3-8c1f-62cc45f2d098' {
load_video
set gfxpayload=keep
insmod gzio
insmod part_gpt
insmod fat
set root='hd0,gpt2'
if [ x$feature_platform_search_hint = xy ]; then
search --no-floppy --fs-uuid --set=root --hint-bios=hd0,gpt2 --hint-efi=hd0,gpt2 --hint-baremetal=ahci0,gpt2 ECB7-2436
else
search --no-floppy --fs-uuid --set=root ECB7-2436
fi
echo 'Loading Linux core repo kernel ...'
linux /vmlinuz-linux root=UUID=7e2ee467-3fd3-41b3-8c1f-62cc45f2d098 rw quiet
echo 'Loading initial ramdisk ...'
initrd /initramfs-linux.img
menuentry 'Arch Linux, with Linux core repo kernel (Fallback initramfs)' --class arch --class gnu-linux --class gnu --class os $menuentry_id_option 'gnulinux-core repo kernel-fallback-7e2ee467-3fd3-41b3-8c1f-62cc45f2d098' {
load_video
set gfxpayload=keep
insmod gzio
insmod part_gpt
insmod fat
set root='hd0,gpt2'
if [ x$feature_platform_search_hint = xy ]; then
search --no-floppy --fs-uuid --set=root --hint-bios=hd0,gpt2 --hint-efi=hd0,gpt2 --hint-baremetal=ahci0,gpt2 ECB7-2436
else
search --no-floppy --fs-uuid --set=root ECB7-2436
fi
echo 'Loading Linux core repo kernel ...'
linux /vmlinuz-linux root=UUID=7e2ee467-3fd3-41b3-8c1f-62cc45f2d098 rw quiet
echo 'Loading initial ramdisk ...'
initrd /initramfs-linux-fallback.img
### END /etc/grub.d/10_linux ###
### BEGIN /etc/grub.d/20_linux_xen ###
### END /etc/grub.d/20_linux_xen ###
### BEGIN /etc/grub.d/30_os-prober ###
menuentry 'Windows Boot Manager (on /dev/sda2)' --class windows --class os $menuentry_id_option 'osprober-efi-ECB7-2436' {
insmod part_gpt
insmod fat
set root='hd0,gpt2'
if [ x$feature_platform_search_hint = xy ]; then
search --no-floppy --fs-uuid --set=root --hint-bios=hd0,gpt2 --hint-efi=hd0,gpt2 --hint-baremetal=ahci0,gpt2 ECB7-2436
else
search --no-floppy --fs-uuid --set=root ECB7-2436
fi
chainloader /EFI/Microsoft/Boot/bootmgfw.efi
### END /etc/grub.d/30_os-prober ###
### BEGIN /etc/grub.d/40_custom ###
# 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 "Windows 8" {
insmod part_gpt
insmod fat
insmod search_fs_uuid
insmod chain
search --fs-uuid --set=root --hint-bios=hd0,gpt2 --hint-efi=hd0,gpt2 --hint-baremetal=ahci0,gpt2 ECB7-2436
chainloader /EFI/Microsoft/Boot/bootmgfw.efi
### END /etc/grub.d/40_custom ###
### BEGIN /etc/grub.d/41_custom ###
if [ -f ${config_directory}/custom.cfg ]; then
source ${config_directory}/custom.cfg
elif [ -z "${config_directory}" -a -f $prefix/custom.cfg ]; then
source $prefix/custom.cfg;
fi
### END /etc/grub.d/41_custom ###
### BEGIN /etc/grub.d/60_memtest86+ ###
### END /etc/grub.d/60_memtest86+ ###
Last edited by jabonz2048 (2013-09-19 15:07:34)

Hello cfr,
Thanks for your reply!
Yes, I had /dev/sda2, my EFI partition, mounted at /boot when I did grub-install and grub-mkconfig. I also had the efivars filesystem unmounted, and ran rmmod plus modprobe on efivars as written.
umount /sys/firmware/efi/efivars
# modprobe -r efivars
# modprobe efivars
My command was exactly the same as the beginner's guide, and it was
grub-install --efi-directory=/boot --bootloader-id=arch_grub --recheck
Now looking at that command, I am wondering, should it have been "--efi-directory=/boot/EFI" or something similar like that? But the fact that Arch boots and runs fine kind of shows the bootloader did indeed install correctly... Or partially at least.
Maybe an ls -l of some of my /boot directories might be useful. Thanks!
ls -l /boot
total 16352
drwxr-xr-x 39 root root 4096 Nov 17 2012 Boot
-r-xr-xr-x 1 root root 398156 Jul 25 2012 bootmgr
-rwxr-xr-x 1 root root 1 Jun 2 2012 BOOTNXT
drwxr-xr-x 6 root root 4096 Aug 26 15:28 EFI
drwxr-xr-x 6 root root 4096 Aug 26 17:39 grub
-rwxr-xr-x 1 root root 10351180 Aug 26 14:19 initramfs-linux-fallback.img
-rwxr-xr-x 1 root root 2185900 Aug 26 14:18 initramfs-linux.img
-rwxr-xr-x 1 root root 3782368 Aug 21 11:53 vmlinuz-linux
[james@James-Laptop teamviewer]$ ls -l /boot/EFI
total 16
drwxr-xr-x 2 root root 4096 Aug 26 15:28 arch_grub
drwxr-xr-x 2 root root 4096 May 22 20:53 Boot
drwxr-xr-x 2 root root 4096 May 22 20:53 linuxmint
drwxr-xr-x 3 root root 4096 Nov 17 2012 Microsoft
[james@James-Laptop teamviewer]$ ls -l /boot/grub/
total 48
drwxr-xr-x 2 root root 4096 Aug 26 15:28 fonts
-rwxr-xr-x 1 root root 4767 Aug 26 17:39 grub.cfg
-rwxr-xr-x 1 root root 4063 Aug 26 14:22 grub.cfg.example
-rwxr-xr-x 1 root root 1024 Aug 26 15:28 grubenv
drwxr-xr-x 2 root root 4096 Aug 26 15:28 locale
drwxr-xr-x 3 root root 4096 Aug 26 15:28 themes
drwxr-xr-x 2 root root 20480 Aug 26 15:28 x86_64-efi

Boot Windows from VHD

Hey.
I have to work with Windows Server 2012 for a university project but my laptop doesn't have Intel VT-x. I know that it's possible to boot Windows from a VHD file, in Windows I just need to add the file.vhd to MBR.
Can I boot a VHD file with Windows on it from syslinux? If yes how I install Windows on the file using Linux?
Thanks in advance,
Hugo Rodrigues.

GloW_on_dub wrote:Not sure to understand, why not use virtualbox ?
Because my laptop doesn't support Intel VT-x and Windows Server 2012 it's only available in x86_64 and I only can virtualize x86 systems
ayekat wrote:
It's very unlikely that you can simply boot directly from a VHD file without some sort of hypervisor (since there is a non-negligible amount of virtualisation going on here).
According to this, you are not really "adding the file to the MBR", but rather adding an entry to the Windows-bootloader to take the file into account. I suppose that behind the scenes it's loading some kind of Microsoft Virtual blabla to launch the system that's on the VHD.
This was just to clarify; I cannot tell you whether it is possible from syslinux or GRUB, but it will probably invole a lot of hacking, since you need to load some hypervisor like VirtualBox, VMWare or at least qemu/KVM.
I know it's possible to do it with a VHD with a Linux OS. Look up in here
ayekat wrote:The fact that your hardware does not support hardware virtualisation (Intel VT-x), is annoying...
Yeah it kinda sucks
Last edited by Hugao (2014-05-07 14:53:44)

Lenovo G510, i5 - Problems with booting Windows 8.1 from media disk

Hello,
I know that some of you got into this little trouble too, so please help me out.
Yesterday I got a brand new Lenovo G510, i5, with free dos and tried to install the Windows 8.1 from a media disk.
The problem is that it won't boot from CD.
I got in Bios using the Novo button, changed the boot mode from legagcy support to UEFI and nothing happend.
I tried the boot mode to legacy; boot priority to dvd and still won't do it.
It is still trying to boot from the network...is this posible?
How can I get it to boot from CD/DVD?
Some help, tips, indications would be great!
Pretty please
Thanks a lot,
Irina

hi Rurulinda,
Welcome to Lenovo Community Forums!
Boot again inside BIOS
Try setting these
Under Exit TAB
OS Optimization or OS Optimized Should be set as Disabled or Other OS
Under Boot Tab / Start up Tab
Boot Mode Should be set to Legacy
Boot Priority Should be set to Legacy First
UEFI Boot should be set to Disabled
Quick Boot Should be Disabled
Secure boot Should be Disabled
Now press F10 to save everything and Exit
Computer will Restart now inster your CD / DVD Disc in and Turn Off the Computer.
Now on OFF state
Turn it back on and Start tapping F12
This will give you a boot selection with your DVD / CD as an option to boot from.
Hope this helps
Cheers!
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Boot Windows 8.1 in MBR mode from UEFI GRUB

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