Dual boot Linux - Windows on Satellite U940

Hello to everyone.
I'm quite new on this forum and I have a brand new Toshiba Satellite U940-10N? Using Linux for 2 years, I'd like to install a debian wheezy distribution on it.
On my former computer, only Debian was installed so I'm net really comfortable with dual boot especially with the ssd.
I don't really like windows but I keep it to work sometimes on it.
Do you think it would be better to install the linux system on the system like I've seen it on most of threads, with only the /home on the HDD ? Or do you think it would be interesting to build another raid like it is now for windows ? Would I have better perfomances and speed that way ?
Another question : is it possible to have an ext4 data partition and make windows to see it or do I have to write it in ntfs ? I have noticed that fat32 and ntfs written on linux with gparted are not reconized by windows 8.
Those are my questions for now.
Thank you for your help.

Hi there
First let's look at your situation - the U940-10N will most likely be a Win8 unit, right?
If YES - then the BIOS has to be set up to boot UEFI.
Secure Boot can be disabled.
It seems Debian is not so far in supporting UEFI / EFI boot modes.
Look at this announcement from back in October:
http://www.debian.org/devel/debian-installer/News/2012/20121018
So, you will need to make sure your debian flavor can boot in UEFI boot mode.
If not, You will have issues getting both OS'es (Debian and Win8) to live side by side and boot without issues.
Next, You'll need to make sure Debian is able to install a boot loader that takes Windows 8 into account and is able to start that OS.
Looking at storage, I tried to install Fedora on a dual-storage system (SSD + HDD).
I installed the OS on the SSD and my Home structure was placed on the HDD.
This worked very very well.
I think this also provides the best performance, however I have no real statistics to back it up.
Ext4 is not supported by Windows out of the box, but there is a driver existing which implements ext2,3,4 support for Windows: http://www.ext2fsd.com/
If You ask me, I would rather have Linux accessing an NTFS partition than have Windows trying to write to an Ext2/3/4 partition. I am fully confident in the NTFS support from Linux but not the other way around.
If the Fat and NTFS partitions are not recognised by Windows, please check that the partitions are Fat32 or NTFS.
It may be that the file systems are NTFS / Fat but the partitions have Linux signatures.
Hope this helps
BR Tom

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Oracle on dual boot Linux/Windows

Can you install Oracle on WindowsNT and Linux
and have both work on the same database?
Has anyone tried this?
null

Some years ago I had tried Oracle software under DOS/Win 3.11 and OS/2 to access the same datafiles, it was not supported from Oracle, bit it was OK, because of the same filesystem and same partitions names.
You asked for WIN NT and Linux. I believe it will not be possible to access the same datafiles - even with same FAT filesystem - because - as a simple difference - the pathnames of the tablespaces are stored in the database (see view DBA_DATA_FILES) and FAT and Linux-filesystem use different characters to separate directories ("\" in FAT and "/" in Linux) !
Heinz

When dual-booting with Windows 7, Mac OSX time settings reset every reboot.

I have recently installed Windows 7 Professional on my mid 2010 MacBook Pro via BootCamp (Running Mavericks BTW). Everything runs grean and have not experienced any problems on the Windows side, but I have a problem with Mac OSX now. When I am using Windows 7, and I reboot into Mac OSX, I find that my time settings are wrong. It seems like my time zone has changed, because the date is correct, as well as the minutes, but the hour is always wrong. When I go to Date & Time in System Preferences, and my time zone is correct, but I still have to chage the hour in the time. Any ideas as to why this is happening and how to stop it would be greatly appreciated.

If you dual boot your Windows PC with OS X or Linux, you may have experienced a problem in which your clocks reset themselves incorrectly every time you boot into Windows. Here's a simple registry edit to fix that.
Essentially, the incorrect clock setting happens because OS X and Linux use GMT time while Windows tries to synchronize with your local time zone, getting confused when you reboot between the two. Apple's own Boot Camp drivers for Windows are supposed to fix this problem, though some users have noticed that it still happens even with the drivers installed, and some Linux users are left out in the cold. Furthermore, if you have a Hackintosh, you can't install the Boot Camp drivers, so you'll need to find another way around the problem.
To fix it, just hit Start and type regedit.exe in the search box. Hit Enter and navigate to HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Control\TimeZoneInformation. Right click anywhere in the right pane and hit New > DWORD (32-bit) Value. Name it RealTimeIsUniversal, then double click on it and give it a value of 1.
Lastly, reboot into OS X, then reboot back into Windows. You should now notice that your clock actually displays the correct time.

Arch does not show up in Grub when dual booting with windows 8

I just installed Arch linux, dual booting with windows 8 using the beginners guide[https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/Beginners'_Guide] itself. Now Grub is installed and i can only find Windows 8 and I cannot find Arch. Is there a way I can find if arch linux has been installed and show up in Grub.
Sorry, I am a newbie, but i chose to post this topic here and not newbie corner as it is installation related.
My windows 8 is installed on /dev/sda1 with ntfs partition type. Arch Linux is installed on /dev/sda6 and it is ext4 partition. I dont know if this info helps. I am using Thinkpad R61
Last edited by sutro_droid (2013-03-06 00:30:48)

ivokosir wrote:It may be that you didn't install os-prober before running grub-mkconfig. This happened to me once, I hope I'm not too late to warn you.
I am sorry, yes you are too late. I have wiped windows 8 and performed clean install. No regrets. And as a matter of fact, I did grub-config and then installed os-prober. That could be the problem. Thanks. I will try this again another time.

Separately encrypt dual-boot system: Windows+Arch

Hey guys, I want to use a dual-boot system: Windows 7 + Arch (windows being first on hdd). I would also want to encrypt them, but make it so I could access them with different passwords, like if I enter arch, i woudn't be able to see contents of windows, and vice-versa. I need arch to be on LVM, ext4 filesystem(the latter not so important, if it's trouble).
I've come accross this guide: https://aprescott.com/posts/dual-bootin … encryption which describes windows 7 encrypted with truecrypt + arch(on lvm) encrypted with dm-crypt+luks, grub legacy is put inside MBR, truecrypt bootloader resides on linux /boot, copied from MBR after truecrypt installed it there and then replaced with GRUB. With described approach there is windows boot partition and linux boot partition which remain unencrypted.
1) The question is, is it possible to do something similar but make those boot partitions encrypted too? so the only thing unencrypted would be MBR? I've read that people used Disc cryptor and with it easily encrypted windows boot partition with no trouble. What about linux boot partition? Maybe there is a way not to make separate /boot for linux, and encrypt the whole lvm partition with truecrypt(so truecrypt would install it's bootloader into MBR and i could save it and use just like in the link i gave above)?
2)Another question is for people using truecrypt for whole disk encryption. When you do full disk encryption or system encryption(for example Windows), the only thing left unencrypted is MBR? Is the boot sector of windows partition encrypted too? So in this case it maybe possible to keep MBR(at least the bootloader, without partition table) on separate media.
3)Also, in case of full disk encryption, is partition table encrypted too?
and please, I don't want questions as "Why do you need it this way?". I just want to have full disk encryption, so if the MBR is the only thing unencrypted I could keep it on separate media and boot from it(Disc Cryptor allows such feature), but I also need the system to be split into windows and linux parts, accessible by different passwords. And I dont think the idea of using truecrypt hidden partition and hidden os is good in here.
Thanks in advance.
Last edited by Kape (2013-01-24 13:58:41)

hiciu wrote:
/dev/sda
+--------------------------------------+
|(mbr and partition table) |
| +----------------------------------+ |
| |(truecrypt) windows boot partition| |
| |----------------------------------| |
| |(truecrypt) windows 7 | |
| |----------------------------------| |
| |linux boot partition | |
| |----------------------------------| |
| |(lvm on luks) | |
| | +------------------------------+ | |
| | |rootfs | | |
| | |------------------------------| | |
| | |home | | |
| | |------------------------------| | |
| | |swap | | |
| | +------------------------------+ | |
| +----------------------------------+ |
+--------------------------------------+
3)Also, in case of full disk encryption, is partition table encrypted too?
Take a look at diagram #1 . Mbr and partition table will be not encrypted. You don't want that: there are no sensitive data in there; both windows and linux need to access partition table to know where are partitions on disk; mbr must contain some not encrypted code that will be loaded by bios, since that code can't be encrypted it can be modified (potentially in such a way to hide the modifications from the system), as long as you boot from this device there is no way around it without "secure boot" and mbr singing.
I believe windows boot partition and windows partition can be encrypted with truecrypt (you need to check that, I don't know truecrypt). There still will be some minimal not encrypted bootloader in order to ask you for for key / passphrase, so it is not 100% secure (someone could replace it; search for "evil maid" attack by Joanna Rutkowska).
Linux bootloader (I forgot about it on diagram) and linux boot partition can't be encrypted (again, unless you do: truecrypt -> grub2 / syslinux -> linux, and there still will be not encrypted minimal bootloader).
You see, the problem is always the same: you can't boot from encrypted device. You need something that will decrypt it first.
I just want to have full disk encryption, so if the MBR is the only thing unencrypted I could keep it on separate media and boot from it(Disc Cryptor allows such feature), but I also need the system to be split into windows and linux parts, accessible by different passwords.
In order to secure boot partitions / bootloaders one could separate encryption and bootloaders, keep data on encrypted disk and keep bootloaders code at secure location (i.e. on pen drive attached to key chain). Take a look at diagram #2:
/dev/sda /dev/usb-stick
+--------------------------------------+ +--------------------------+
|(mbr and partitions table) | |(mbr and partitions table)|
| +----------------------------------+ | | +----------------------+ |
| |other data / partitions | | | |linux boot partition | |
| +----------------------------------+ | | | +------------------+ | |
| |(lvm on luks) | | | | |grub / syslinux | | |
| | +------------------------------+ | | | | |kernel | | |
| | |rootfs | | | | | |initramfs | | |
| | |------------------------------| | | | | +------------------+ | |
| | |home | | | | +----------------------+ |
| | |------------------------------| | | +--------------------------+
| | |swap | | |
| | +------------------------------+ | |
| +----------------------------------+ |
+--------------------------------------+
In this setup you boot your system from usb stick. Bios will load and execute mbr and bootloader from usb stick (and you know its good since you have it physically secured), it should decrypt luks and boot system. You still can run windows with truecrypt using /dev/sda as boot device. I know I didn't exactly answered your questions.
1)so this way i can leave mbr(including partition table) empty on hdd, while having them on usb stick? good. I can put copy of mbr with truecrypt loader on that usb stick too along with /boot partition just like in the link i gave above? So there would be NOTHING left unencrypted on my hdd? i like it.
2)My main goal is that hdd would look like blank if someone would want to check its contents. I've heard using Luks leaves some traces in the volume header?(it's not possible to use truecrypt for full linux system encryption too, right?)
3)How do i properly put /boot on usb stick? Also will there be any troubles updating arch with /boot being on separate media?
thanks!

[SOLVED] RTC and dual booting with Windows 8/8.1

I am planning ahead of installing Arch on a windows 8.1 laptop, and need to understand whether or not the known Windows registry hack to get windows to use UTC for the RTC is still valid for Windows 8/8.1? I have been searching via google and the usual sources of information, but it is not clear to me if there are problems doing this, specifically if arch is dual booted with Windows 8/8.1 rather than older versions of the MS OS. Certainly I have used the technique without any problem in the past when dual booting Windows XP with Arch on several different machines.
Does anyone have personal experience with doing this on a Windows 8 or 8.1 machine and can report here on whether it works successfully or not?
Thanks for any advice.
Last edited by mcloaked (2014-02-11 21:16:21)

Since there were no replies at this point I thought I would just go ahead and implement the registry hack on the Windows 8.1 O/S in the laptop and see if Windows behaves. It appears to be OK, with the displayed time being correct after reboot, and time synchronisation remaining fine with no problems seen in the displayed time, although I won't be able to read the RTC directly until I have completed the Arch install in the coming week or two. I now don't foresee any issues with the time synchronisation between booting Arch and Windows 8.1 so I will mark this as solved.
Since the RTC is now in UTC then normal clock config in Arch using chrony should perform normally once the install is done and the new system set up.
Last edited by mcloaked (2014-02-11 21:17:11)

HT3986 i made a dual boot of windows 7 and mac os x lion in my macbook pro .i installed microsoft support software also. now, can i install windows updates? do i turn on the automatic updating of updates?

i made a dual boot of windows 7 and mac os x lion in my macbook pro .i installed m icrosoft support software also. now, can i install windows updates? do i turn on the automatic updating of updates?

yes you need the updates and patches.
Only some of the drivers that Windows will automatically install at times
and always make sure to insure it is using restore points
do all the maintenance andsuch as normal
use MS Security Essentials for AV is really top notch
Clean disk space
Use WinClone new program to inisure you have a restore image

I kept a dual boot of windows 7 and mac os x lion in macbook pro. so, should i keep antivirus for windows 7? which is prescribable between bit defender(bd) and microsoft security essentials(mse)?does bd and mse un-installs easily?

i kept a dual boot of windows 7 and mac os x lion in macbook pro. so, should i keep antivirus for windows 7? which is prescribable between bit defender(bd) and microsoft security essentials(mse)?does bd and mse un-installs easily?

lower your font size unless you have difficulty
MS Security Essentials is excellent
Then again maybe time to investigate Windows 8 RP (which uses Defender)

I made a dual boot of windows 7 and mac os x lion in my macbook pro .i installed m icrosoft support software also. now, can i install windows updates? do i turn on the automatic updating of updates? does hot fix of microsoft helps in stop freezing?

i made a dual boot of windows 7 and mac os x lion in my macbook pro .i installed m icrosoft support software also. now, can i install windows updates? do i turn on the automatic updating of updates? does hot fix of microsoft i.e, " support.microsoft.com/kb/979491" helps in stop freezing in dual boot mechanism?

Windows has a software updater built into Windows and when you install the Boot Camp drivers then it will install an Apple software updater also. I believe Windows is set to automatically download and install your updates as does the Apple software Updater. They both will update the individual files it needs to periodically.
"Microsoft updates" and "Windows updates" are basically the same thing in Windows. Are you talking about the "Windows support software" when downloading from Boot Camp Assistant? Apple installs a software updater for it's Boot Camp drivers in Windows 7 so you can do it manually or automatically.
The "Hot Fix" your referring to is only for certain motherboards built from other Windows only computer manufacturers and does NOT pertain to any Apple computers.
If you have a problem with your computer then it's best to ask a specific question so we can help better.

Dual Boot on Windows 8 Embedded Handheld

Hello,
Not sure if this is the right forum or not. If not, can someone on this forum help divert the question to the correct forum?
We are trying to achieve dual booting on Windows 8 embedded Handheld on a Bluebird device. We have not been able to achieve it so far. Thought of asking for help from the community. Has any one been able to achieve this on a Bluebird device? http://www.mypidion.com/product/product_tab.asp?bmenu=1&t_idx=496
If it is possible, can someone please guide us through the process?
Appreciate any help provided.
Thank you.
-Hetan.

and it was moved to the wrong forum... try on of these:
https://social.msdn.microsoft.com/Forums/en-US/home?category=windowsembeddedcompact
https://social.msdn.microsoft.com/Forums/en-US/home?forum=windowsmobiledev
www.annabooks.com / www.seanliming.com / Book Author - Pro Guide to WE8S, Pro Guide to WES 7, Pro Guide to POS for .NET

Dual Boot with Windows ME

i am very new to all this stuff. Can someone please guide me on how to go about installing Unix so that it also dual boots with windows ME.
i am planning on doing some unix work..and installing oracle and learning oracle in the bargain at home. do u think this is the best way to go. any suggestions/guidance is appreciated.
many many thanks

I'd consider buying a second, inexpensive PC for Solaris. You can get a $20 mechanical switch that will let you share a single monitor. If two keyboards and mice are inconvenient, you can buy a KVM (keyboard-video-mouse) switch. If you just want to hack around, it's much more convenient to have two PCs. (IMHO)

Dual boot with Windows 7 and LINUX - Tecra A11 (PTSE1A-00L005)

Hi,
I bought a new Tecra A11 Laptop which runs WIN7 Pro. I want to install LINUX also. That means, I want to run my laptop in dual boot Win7 Pro/LINUX (any distributor). Please tell me how to do that.
There are 5 partitions on the HDD:
1. Active, Recovery partiton 1.46 Gb (no drive letter)
2. Active Primary C: Boot 145.04 Gb (NTFS)
3. Active Logical E: 78.13 Gb (NTFS)
4. Active Logical F: 64.25 Gb (NTFS)
5. Primary Partition 9.2 Gb (no drive letter, application unknown)
Hey, I need it badly, because I have admitted to a course of RHCE (Red Hat Certified Engineer)
Please help me

Hi
I may not be able to give You a step-by-step explanation but most distros today offer a possibility to co-exist with Windows.
During the installation the unused free space will be taken by Linux (with the consent of the user of course!!)
What exact setup is needed by You is impossible for anyone else to say, but I would suggest to make the space occupied by the F drive available for Linux.
You seem to have space enough for Windows and the Linux OS does not need much.
Some thoughts concerning your partition setup:
I would NOT touch 1,2 and 5 no matter what. They are your system and some system internal partitions (recovery environment and data) and would not be fun to lose.
1. Active, Recovery partiton 1.46 Gb (no drive letter)
2. Active Primary C: Boot 145.04 Gb (NTFS)
3. Active Logical E: 78.13 Gb (NTFS)
4. Active Logical F: 64.25 Gb (NTFS)
5. Primary Partition 9.2 Gb (no drive letter, application unknown)
So pick a Distro (my suggestion Ubuntu, Mint, Fedora, OpenSuse - Fedora will be the one closest related to RedHat) which will guide You through the steps to allocate space for Linux.
I would suggest however to remove the drive F in Windows so Linux does not start resizing all partitions.
I am sure that will work fine, but will just take time and the pretty unnecessary F drive will most surely be kept.
If You already have valuable data on your unit, make sure to back it up!! No software comes with warranties :)
Last but not least - make 100% sure to create a recovery set with the help of Toshiba Recovery media creator BEFORE you start installing Linux.
If something goes wrong You might want to have the possibility to put the unit back into factory state.
Good luck and keep asking if You need additional help!
Tom

Imaging a dual boot system - Windows and Linux

Using Zenworks 7, I have tried several experiments and all of them seem to
fail. If I do any kind of Windows install, then make a image, then restore
the image, it works just fine. However, if I also install Linux, and use the
Linux multiboot menu, and save an image, when I restore the image, only
Windows can be accessed, the boot menu is gone. I also noticed that if I
try to make an image of Suse 10.2, when I re-image the system back to Suse
10.2, it constantly reboots or only gives me a GRUB prompt and nothing else.
Is there a parameter or switch someplace in Zenworks to make sure it
includes Sector 0, 1 ,5 ,6, etc. etc.?
Also, I noticed something else. If it is a windows only system, and I have a
second partition which is hidden that I keep a ghost image in, and I have a
ZEN image of this system; If I re-image via ZEN, all the data is there, but
for some reason, the second hidden partition is no longer hidden. Other
than that, it works fine.

It is ZFD. I'll take it over there..Thanks
"brunold" <[email protected]> wrote in message
news:[email protected]..
>
> Eric,
>
> do you use zen for desktops or zen linux management for imaging that
> dual boot machine ? It sounds like zfd so this topic might be covered
> better in that forum.
>
> Rainer
>
>
> --
> brunold
> ------------------------------------------------------------------------
> brunold's Profile: http://forums.novell.com/member.php?userid=562
> View this thread: http://forums.novell.com/showthread.php?t=323281
>

Dual booting in Windows and Linux, but only Linux has calendar, TB 31.0

I'm dual booting using Linux Mint and Windows 7. I have TB 31.0 installed in each OS. TB in Linux has calendar capability; in Windows, there's nothing (by nothing, I mean no calendars - I can't see their properties, for instance, nor access them in any way).
I should add that both Windows and Linux TB programs are sharing the same profile folder (located on a separate partition), hence, all the same add-ons, passwords, etc.
The error console logs the following:
Timestamp: 14/08/2014 6:41:33 PM
Error: Components.classes[cid] is undefined
Source File: resource://calendar/modules/calUtils.jsm -> file:///P:/PortableApps/ThunderbirdPortable/Data/profile/extensions/%7Be2fda1a4-762b-4020-b5ad-a41df1933103%7D/calendar-js/calUtils.js
Line: 17
There are a variety of flow on errors, related to this.
My apologies for posting this in this way; I had intended to submit this via the crashreporter, but I'm having trouble getting the program to crash with this error just now.

A reply to my own question: it turns out that while sharing a profile works pretty well for most purposes, with Lightning it does not, as the extension has different Linux and Windows versions. The problem is solved quite simply: by not using the same profile for each version.
Glad to see that no one wasted time on this one (except me, of course).

Dual-booting with Windows 8, Arch Linux first?

I initially had Windows 7, then Arch. Now, I have a key for Windows 8. I can just upgrade the previous Windows 7 partition, but I only allocated 37 GB originally, so I want to expand it - I would therefore need to delete the partition and make a new one. However, dual-booting guides say that Windows should be first. What is the best way to go about this?

srs5694 wrote:
x33a wrote:Thanks, that's interesting. I always thought that it didn't run without secure boot.
Note that Secure Boot is NOT synonymous with EFI. Secure Boot is one optional feature of EFI. In fact, of five computers I've got that use EFI, only one supports Secure Boot.
I did know that
Microsoft requires manufacturers to ship their computers with Secure Boot enabled in order to get a Windows 8-compatible sticker. Because most manufacturers consider the lack of such a sticker to be the kiss of death for their products, this means that nearly all computers that ship with Windows 8 ship with Secure Boot enabled. Because Secure Boot is an EFI feature, this means that these computers also use EFI.
This does not mean that Windows 8 itself requires either EFI or Secure Boot; the requirement is a marketing requirement for new computers. If you buy a Windows 8 package at the store, it will install on an older BIOS-only computer (assuming it's not too old), on an EFI computer that lacks Secure Boot support, on an EFI computer with Secure Boot support but with that feature disabled, or on an EFI computer with Secure Boot and Microsoft's keys enabled. (It is possible to replace your firmware's Secure Boot keys, which would prevent the installation of Windows unless you re-signed the Windows boot loader yourself.)
Note also that it's possible to switch Secure Boot on and off, at least on x86-64 systems. (Microsoft's Windows 8 sticker requirements specify that users must be able to do this on x86-64 systems; but on ARM computers, Microsoft's sticker requirements say that users must not be able to disable Secure Boot.) Windows 8 should continue to boot when you turn Secure Boot on or off; however, some versions of GRUB have problems chainloading to other EFI boot loaders (including the Windows boot loader) when Secure Boot is enabled.
Thanks, that's very informative.

Dual boot Linux - Windows on Satellite U940

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