Dual Boot Windows 7 and Arch with Shared NTFS partition.

Hi everyone,
I want to dual boot windows 7 and Arch Linux.
Here's the problem... my hard drive isn't the biggest. I want to store all my music, movies, pictures, and documents on partition that both linux and windows can access seamlessly.
I want the partition to be NTFS. -- (the programs that map an ext4 drive to Windows are trash).
Here's what I think I need.
30GB NTFS to Windows.
30GB ext4 to Arch Linux
The remainder (190ish GB) to Shared Data.
I don't want the swap partition because I have a SSD and 4GB of RAM.
What is the best way to setup my partitions? And is this even possible?
Thanks!

Not a problem. I would create:
First of four primary partitions for windows.
Second of four primary partitions for /boot
Third of four partitions is an extended partition encompassing all the space not used by the first two partitions.
Put everything else inside the extended partition.
Mine is a bit more complicated, but this should give you an idea:
ewaller@odin:~ 1005 %sudo fdisk -l /dev/sda
Password:
Disk /dev/sda: 320.1 GB, 320072933376 bytes
255 heads, 63 sectors/track, 38913 cylinders, total 625142448 sectors
Units = sectors of 1 * 512 = 512 bytes
Sector size (logical/physical): 512 bytes / 512 bytes
I/O size (minimum/optimal): 512 bytes / 512 bytes
Disk identifier: 0x87b33479
Device Boot Start End Blocks Id System
/dev/sda1 * 2048 121778159 60888056 7 HPFS/NTFS/exFAT
/dev/sda2 597366784 625135615 13884416 83 Linux
/dev/sda3 121778160 597366783 237794312 5 Extended
/dev/sda5 * 121778223 123770219 995998+ 83 Linux
/dev/sda6 123770283 131770589 4000153+ 82 Linux swap / Solaris
/dev/sda7 193213818 597360959 202073571 83 Linux
/dev/sda8 131781258 193213754 30716248+ 83 Linux
/dev/sda9 131770591 131781194 5302 1 FAT12
Partition table entries are not in disk order
ewaller@odin:~ 1006 %
Partitions 1 and 2 are Primary partitions. Partition 3 is an extended partition. All the others live in partition 3

Similar Messages

[SOLVE] Dual Boot Windows and ArchLinux with Syslinux

Ok, i installed ArchLinux on my laptop with Windows XP (syslinux) and I cannot find get Windows to boot or mount it. I have tried to do what i can to do this but cannot. I Installed XP first like a should and something i think might be needed to know is after i created the partitions scheme (10Gb (boot partition), 50GB (XP), 80GB(was unallocated)). The installation disk formated both 2 partitions in NTFS but i installed XP on the second and Windows reported them as C and D drives. Windows being D. Thought that was bit werid thinking Windows installed the mbr on that partition. When I installed ArchLinux, it did have the boot flag set on 10GB (or C drive).
Since I installed ArchLinux, I have been unable to find a solution to mounting/booting to Windows. Installed NTFS-3G and that didn't work when i tried mount /dev/sda3 windows and i did created a folder named windows but got ...
mount: wrong fs type, bad option, bad superblock on /dev/sda3,
missing codepage or helper program, or other error
In some cases useful info is found in syslog - try
dmesg | tail or so.
Tried dmesg | tail and got
[ 76.524133] SGI XFS with ACLs, security attributes, realtime, large block/inode numbers, no debug enabled
[ 179.468499] ACPI: \_SB_.PCI0.LPC0.ACAD: ACPI_NOTIFY_DEVICE_CHECK event: unsupported
[ 705.472330] 8139too 0000:02:03.0 enp2s3: link down
[ 717.380879] 8139too 0000:02:03.0 enp2s3: link up, 100Mbps, full-duplex, lpa 0x41E1
[ 726.447184] 8139too 0000:02:03.0 enp2s3: link down
[ 727.596128] ACPI: \_SB_.PCI0.LPC0.ACAD: ACPI_NOTIFY_BUS_CHECK event: unsupported
[ 732.616138] 8139too 0000:02:03.0 enp2s3: link up, 100Mbps, full-duplex, lpa 0x41E1
[ 733.848832] 8139too 0000:02:03.0 enp2s3: link down
[ 834.062062] 8139too 0000:02:03.0 enp2s3: link up, 100Mbps, full-duplex, lpa 0x41E1
[ 2131.449211] perf samples too long (2534 > 2500), lowering kernel.perf_event_max_sample_rate to 50100
This is when i run sudo lsblk
NAME MAJ:MIN RM SIZE RO TYPE MOUNTPOINT
sda 8:0 0 149.1G 0 disk
|-sda1 8:1 0 9.8G 0 part /boot
|-sda2 8:2 0 1K 0 part
|-sda3 8:3 0 53.6G 0 part
`-sda5 8:5 0 85.7G 0 part /
sr0 11:0 1 1024M 0 rom
My syslinux is
LABEL arch
MENU LABEL Arch Linux
LINUX ../vmlinuz-linux
APPEND root=/dev/sda5 rw
INITRD ../initramfs-linux.img
LABEL windows
MENU LABEL Windows
COM32 chain.c32
APPEND hd0 3
NOTE: chain is in the same directory with syslinux
I really think Windows got corrupted but not sure. Thought about repairing the mbr on windows and booting to it then reinstall syslinux but really don't want too.
Thanks in advance
Last edited by jag-ster (2014-11-27 02:12:12)

Here is the partition table:
/dev/sda1 one HUGE linux /boot primary partition (assuming ext4)
/dev/sda2 "name" of the extended partition
/dev/sda3 primary Windows partition (assuming NTFS)
/dev/sda5 logical Linux root partition (assuming ext4)
/dev/sda1 to /dev/sda4 are either all primary, or three primary and one extended. After /dev/sda4 all partitions are logical. If you're still wondering why is there no /dev/sda4, it's because you have 2 primary and one extended, so /dev/sda4 is reserved for another primary partition.
Windows problem:
The /dev/sda1 which Windows named C: is Windows equivalent of linux /boot. When you told linux to place its /boot on /dev/sda1 it formated boot files of Windows. Now you have Windows OS with no kernel. In other words there is no way to boot Windows if you don't reinstall it. Actually there is a way, but you would than screw up Arch.
Mounting problem:
You can never mount extended partition, only logical (an extended partition is made of logical partitions). You want to do:
sudo mount /dev/sda3 -t NTFS-3g -o rw,uid=YourUserName /path/where/you/want/this/partition/mounted
EDIT:
Try it this way:
- Backup all your data
- Delete every partition
- Start Windows installation
- Make only one partition (c:/ for Windows)
- Let Windows make another partition
- Make one more so you could have a data partition, which does not need to be formated to reinstall Windows
- Start Arch installation
- Get to partitioning
=Partitioning=
- /dev/sda4 extended (take the rest of the drive)
- /dev/sda5 logical /boot 512MiB
- /dev/sda6 logical / 20GiB
- /dev/sda7 logical /home (the rest)
Making a separate /home partition will come in handy when reinstalling Arch (any linux distribution), or switching between distros, because it is the equivalent of D:/ in Windows. Also consider LVM.
Last edited by bstaletic (2014-02-28 23:25:33)

Dual Booting Windows and Arch (SOLVED!)

Hello all, I'm having trouble getting a windows partition activated again. (Windows was on here for many years, then I installed arch on a separate partition.)
Here is the layout of fdisk -l:
Disk /dev/sda: 100.0 GB, 100030242816 bytes
255 heads, 63 sectors/track, 12161 cylinders
Units = cylinders of 16065 * 512 = 8225280 bytes
Disk identifier: 0x00000000
Device Boot Start End Blocks Id System
/dev/sda1 * 1 7833 62918541 7 HPFS/NTFS
/dev/sda2 7834 12039 33784695 83 Linux
/dev/sda3 12040 12161 979965 82 Linux swap / Solaris
sda1 is the windows partition, and sda2 is the arch partition. The linux partition SHOULD be primary bootable (have the * next to it),but all my attempts to do this have failed. (I've used "testdisk" to change the flags, but for some reason it keeps reverting back to setting sda 1 as primary bootable after a reboot or 2).
This is the pertinent section of /boot/grub/menu.lst:
title Arch Linux
root (hd0,1)
kernel /boot/vmlinuz26 root=/dev/disk/by-uuid/f3be3baa-3b62-460c-8801-64b0b1cca$
initrd /boot/kernel26.img
# (1) Arch Linux
title Arch Linux Fallback
root (hd0,1)
kernel /boot/vmlinuz26 root=/dev/disk/by-uuid/f3be3baa-3b62-460c-8801-64b0b1cca$
initrd /boot/kernel26-fallback.img
# (1) Windows
title Windows XP
rootnoverify (hd0,0)
makeactive
chainloader +1
I have a . . . modified . . . copy of XP Professional, which comes with a recovery console to reinstall the MBR if it's necessary.
From what I've researched, I somehow need to reinstall grub to the second partition, make the second partition primary bootable, then rewrite the MBR on the first partition, and correct any command errors in menu.lst, but I haven't really figure out a way to do it.
Thanks in advance for your help!
Last edited by mongoose088 (2008-12-20 21:48:18)

I read up on some documentation of installing GRUB to the MBR.
So far, I went into ArchLive (from the cd) and did the following
grub> root (hd0,1)
grub> setup (hd0)
The installation reports success with no errors, but the problem persists. Arch linux will boot fine, but when I select XP it flashes my configuration, like so:
title Windows XP
rootnoverify (hd0,0)
makeactive
chainloader +1
then kicks me back to the OS select GRUB screen. Did I install it to the wrong place?
EDIT:
I decided to issue this command:
grub> setup(hd0,1)
It reported some errors, then arch couldn't mount the ntfs partition because of possible MFT cluster errors.
Using testdisk, I repaired the boot sector and MFT clusters, then using ArchLive reinstalled grub with grub>(hd0)
Arch and Arch Fallback will boot correctly, but now the windows side shows an error:
rootnoverify (hd0,0)
makeactive
chainloader +1
Loading stage2Read Error (or something to this extent)
I wonder if this error brings me closer or farther to a solution?
Thanks for the replies so far!
Last edited by mongoose088 (2008-12-20 05:41:43)

Dual Boot Vista and Arch

Hey, I am attempting to set up my laptop to dual boot Windows Vista and Arch Linux.
The problem I'm having is after installing Arch my laptop still boots windows w/o going to the grub
I started with having Windows Vista installed on the laptop, and then shrank down the partition with vista by 30 gigs for Arch.
I was following the Arch setup guide in the wiki along with the Dual Boot Windows and Arch guide in the wiki [wiki]Windows_and_Arch_Dual_Boot[/wiki].
My partitioning Scheme is:
/dev/sda1 1.46 gb (some sort of toshiba recovery partition I believe)
/dev/sda2 117.8 gb (Vista Partition)
/dev/sda3 1 gb (Swap partition)
/dev/sda4 29 gb /root partition
According to the Dual Boot wiki article, I should install the grub to /boot, which in my case is in /root which I did.
The thing that confuses me about this is if I install the grub to /boot how do I get the grub to boot before the windows MBR?
Thanks in advanced

Mclarenf1905 wrote:
Hey, I am attempting to set up my laptop to dual boot Windows Vista and Arch Linux.
The problem I'm having is after installing Arch my laptop still boots windows w/o going to the grub
I started with having Windows Vista installed on the laptop, and then shrank down the partition with vista by 30 gigs for Arch.
I was following the Arch setup guide in the wiki along with the Dual Boot Windows and Arch guide in the wiki [wiki]Windows_and_Arch_Dual_Boot[/wiki].
My partitioning Scheme is:
/dev/sda1 1.46 gb (some sort of toshiba recovery partition I believe)
/dev/sda2 117.8 gb (Vista Partition)
/dev/sda3 1 gb (Swap partition)
/dev/sda4 29 gb /root partition
According to the Dual Boot wiki article, I should install the grub to /boot, which in my case is in /root which I did.
The thing that confuses me about this is if I install the grub to /boot how do I get the grub to boot before the windows MBR?
Thanks in advanced
It still works fine. It doesn't matter if its not in root directory. Others linux OSes have their bootloaders in the same directory and it manages to boot just fine.

Dual Booting Windows and Solaris

Hi
how do i dual boot windows and solaris
Do i install windows first and then solaris or do it the other way around..?
how do i make sure that Windows and Solaris appear in my boot options..?
Is their a guide on doing this...?
Thanks
Liam

Hey I did a quick google search for you. So I havent tried this method myself but it sounds reasonable.
The text below is from the following link:
http://www.hccfl.edu/pollock/AUnix1/DualBoot.htm
"Solaris boot loader
Partition the drive to leave at least 2GB of space available for Solaris;
more drive space is desirable.
As with Linux, install Windows first then Solaris.
Do not use the Installation CD but boot and install
from Software CD 1.
If you accept the default partitioning scheme which
the installer provides you will soon run out of space in
your / and /usr partitions since only enough space is
allocated to install the system.
All extra space is allocated to /export/home.
A typical installation on a 4.5GB partition might look
something like this:
Filesystem Size Used Avail Use% Mounted on
/dev/dsk/c0d0s0 900M 536M 310M 64% /
/dev/dsk/c0d0s1 334M 109M 192M 36% /var
swap 671M 8.0k 671M 1% /var/run
swap 671M 8.0k 671M 1% /tmp
/dev/dsk/c0d0s5 845M 222M 565M 29% /opt
# (FAT32 partition):
/dev/dsk/c0d0p0:1 5.0G 3.3G 1.6G 66% /c
/dev/dsk/c0d0s7 1.1G 92M 954M 9% /export/home
/dev/dsk/c0d0s4 752M 225M 474M 33% /usr/local
The Solaris boot selector enables you to choose either
Solaris or Windows with Solaris as the default.
(I prefer grub or lilo!)
To mount FAT under Solaris:
# mount -F pcfs /dev/dsk/c0d0p0:c /dos (or �:1�?)
And the vfstab file:
/dev/dsk/c0d0p0:c - /dos pcfs - yes -
To create a GRUB boot floppy, follow these steps:
$ mkfs -t ext2 /dev/fd0
$ mount /dev/fd0 /mnt/fd0
$ mkdir /mnt/fd0/boot /mnt/fd0/boot/grub
$ cp /boot/grub/stage[12] /boot/grub/grub.conf \
> /mnt/fd0/boot/grub
$ /sbin/grub --batch <
Hope this helps!
/Oscar

Dual boot Windows and Linux?

I recently bought a T61, and will be taking a programming course. One prof I spoke with said they ask us to use Unix tools, so one option is to dual boot linux and Windows. I haven't decided yet whether I will keep Windows Ultimate, or go to XP for this. But I was wondering how easy/hard is it to make this work, and what kind of steps need to be taken? If you could point me towards any good tutorials/guides that would be appreciated too.
Also, I have never really used linux, so which version is best? I will be needing it for programming, but also still want to do the basics like web surfing, music, dvd's, burning discs, etc. I have an old copy of Ubuntu that I never used, but its probably about 4 years old. Is this still acceptable or will I need something newer?
Message Edited by amace on 05-29-2008 01:28 PM
T61 15.4" T9300 (2.5GHz 6MB L2) Windows 7 Professional x64 4GB Memory, NVidia Quadro NVS 140M

Hi,
If it's just a couple of programming courses that you are going to take I suggest you'd try out VMware player:
http://www.vmware.com/products/player/
You can get this software for free and since your system packs a lot of punch it will be able to run it smoothly without any hassle. I'm an engineering grad student and I have to do alot of programming. I've used VMware player before to do some software developement in Ubuntu when I didn't have enough HD to install dual boot but still couldn't do all my other stuff without XP.
VMware Ubuntu will need a bit of fiddling to get it work just right (USB devices, etc) but it shouldn't be harder than installing a dual boot (actually it is alot easier for my opinion). The only down side is that file sharing between VMware and Windows can be somewhat difficult. I used an external USB drive to share my files but you could always set up Samba to handle file sharing.
I hope this helps out with your decision.

Dual booting S540 and linux with Secure Boot?

At some point I intend to install archlinux with dual boot on my Thinkpad S540 which currently runs Windows 8.1.
All the current advice about dual boot on UEFI machines seems to indicate that the way to go is to disable Secure Boot (and Fastboot) for Windows, and then do the linux install choosing a linux bootloader to allow booting either O/S. I believe I know the steps needed to do that.
Does anyone have any experience with dual booting Windows 8.1 and ArchLinux on the S540? I would like to retain Secure Boot for Windows, and in the ideal world have Secure Boot running for ArchLinux also. However Secure Boot is fraught with problems for Linux. There are a few distributions such as Ubuntu which will in principle support Secure Boot but I only use ArchLinux and want to install that particular flavour of linux on my machine. It is of course possible to keep switching Secure Boot on and off in the BIOS before booting either of the two installed operating systems but it would be neater and cleaner to have it all with Secure Boot on, or all with it off.
This is all very new stuff so there may well be a lot of problems, but it is worth exploring. I use rEFInd as my bootloader on another UEFI desktop computer to boot ArchLinux so I am familiar with that bootloader, but dual boot is another thing, and Secure Boot with the fast moving developments in that area is something that until now very few people have tinkered with.
Any replies and guidance/suggestions appreciated.

I'm guessing /boot can run from ntfs, however probably not as efficiently as if it were running on ext3/4. Mine runs on Ext4.
To add confusion, you only create one Extended partition, all partitions you create within the Extended partition are called Logical partitions. You should be able to create enough Logical partitions for your needs.
Primary/Extended partitions are normally sda1-4 and Logical partitions will usually start from sda5 on modern Sata HDD systems.
For /boot I would create a small 100mb Ext4 Logical partition. This partition cannot be inside LVM nor encrypted when using Grub1. I'm not familiar with Grub2.

Dual-boot Kubuntu and XP with RnR

Hi
I'm trying to dual-boot windows XP and kubuntu 9.10 and I think it makes sense to separate the so called boot and system partition in windows' term (i.e. having \Windows on one partition and the boot.ini, ntldr stuff on another)... But I can't figure out how to separate them...
Since I'm dual-boot I am aware XP should be installed first...what I did was installed it onto the second partition while at the partition screen in the XP install and left a smaller NTFS partition as the first one on the list. Not sure if that would cause the boot and the system to separate...(it seem so since the boot-related file is on C:\ while the Windows directory is on D:\)
However I install RnR on this Windows and tried to boot into the RnR workspace through the Think button but it notes NTLDR is missing...Windows still boot normally on startup (to me the workspace was probably not installed to the right place perhaps? ; shouldn't it be in like a new service partition called S:\ or something? maybe it got installed into C:\) I read somewhere that RnR workspace has it's own bootloader and write into the MBR or something...
since I'll also be installing kubuntu the bootloader will surely get messed up again by Grub...so that might completely screw up everything on Windows side...
I have no idea what to do to make kubuntu, windows, and RnR all compatible with each other...
I'm not very familiar with booting and disk management but any help would be appreciated...

sry i did not meant to emphasize on installation of kubuntu...my thread got moved here becuase the mod thought I was talking about how to install kubuntu....
i really don't want to complicate thing by installing kubuntu inside windows... because my windows frequently die on me...i prefer them to be separate and interact only at the boot level in a separate "boot partition (windows' term: system partition)
this is really about RnR and Windows...the kubuntu install was only a byproduct that I thought might mess thing up even more since it replace the boot loader upon install
so first thing first: my RnR cannot boot into its own service partition (think button f11); say something about ntldr is missing, however XP still boot fine....it seem like when I install XP it split the boot and the other file into two partition because I chose the second partition on the list during the install, and the boot files got put into the first partition (C:\) and when I install RnR it seem to used C:\ as the service partition (i assume that the service partition is related to RnR?). But since file such is ntldr in C:\ is XP'sm I guess it didn't get overwritten by RnR?
Basically the main issue at the moment is I can't get the service partition to work with Windows...i guess kubuntu can come later...

Dual boot Windows 8.1 with Yosemite

I'm attempting to dual boot Windows 8.1 on my parents iMac. I downloaded and successfully used Boot Camp 5 to partition the drive, giving the new section 50GB. I successfully installed Windows 8.1. Unfortunate now I cannot access the Yosemite partition. Boot Camp is not available in the Windows 8.1 I just installed, so the obvious option to use Boot Camp to reboot into OS X is not available. I tried downloading Boot Camp in Windows, but it won't install - error message indicates there is no location to install it to. I tried to restarting and holding the option key 12 separate times, it always boots into Windows without bringing up the any other option. I tried booting into safe mode and resting the PRAM several times, same outcome of booting into Windows; although Windows did not always boot it froze half the time. The idea was just be able to run some Windows games without purchasing another computer. Any ideas on what went wrong and how to fix it?

You do not need the Boot Camp drivers on Windows in order to start up in OS X. However, note that the option to start up with the Option (Alt) key is more tricky in those computers with a Bluetooth keyboard, such as the iMac.
In order to start up in OS X, you have to press the Option key since the startup sound has finished (if you do it before, your Mac will not recognize it) and hold it until you see all bootable partitions in the screen. Then, choose your OS X volume.
If you could not install the Boot Camp drivers in Windows, open Boot Camp Assistant after starting up in OS X and follow its steps (you will need a USB drive to save your drivers). Finally, start up in Windows, access to your USB drive through Windows Explorer and run the installer.

Dual booting Windows 7 & Arch...

I have 2 SATA hard drives on my system...
320gb & 500gb
I have 6 gigs ram, triple core 2.1ghz w/256mb HD 2400 ATI pciE
Im reading the wiki page https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/Wi … _Dual_Boot
and I have some questions and am seeking some advice..
I was thinking about putting (in the bios) the 320 as primary w/ windows 7
and using the 500 for linux.. 300 ( /boot=100mb, /=20gigs /swap=2gigs /home= approx 275gigs) and 200gb FAT32 to share music,pics,documents, et al with both OS's
maybe using a gparted cd to make the 320 ntfs, /boot ext2, /root & /home ext4 /swap as swap and 200gigs as fat32
then installing windows on the 320, then using the arch ftp install to install arch on sdb (second sata drive) using the partitions I've explained about.
now for Grub.. where I get lost is.. i read on one of the many forum posts i read, if you install 7 first, then arch, everythign will work fine and when you reboot you'll have a choice.. now this answer/comment goes against the wiki that says you have to set up grub to do the dual boot.. or am i wrong, will it just "work" (it does with other distros, but I know arch doesnt hold hands like the others, and I really dont want to leave arch jsut to dualboot for the few windows needs i have , photoshop, a good printer, office 2010, and afew other windows programs i still enjoy using for work and play)
does anyone have any "easier" to follow directions then the wiki to dualboot win 7 and arch? I'm reading and re-reading and re-reading the wiki again, and it seems like greek to me..
anyone have any other suggestions.. i have win7 in a virtualbox machine, but the usb hub isnt working.. (started happening since 4.x.x.x came out) thought 4.0.0.2 would "fix" this issue, so i made a new vm of win7 and same usb hub isssues in device manager.. so it MUST be a virtual box issue.. and from what I've read, its not being "fixed" anytime soon.. and I cant use my printer on arch no matter what I've done..
so any advice would be appreciated.. don't want to start something I cant finish.. ( i can install arch with my eyes closed i've been through enougth trial and screwups)
thanks in advance

Heres how I do it:
1. Split my drive into one primary partition and an extended partition with logical partitions for Linux.
2. Install Windows 7 (first) to the primary partition and Arch Linux inside the extended partition.
3. Install grub to the drive and just uncomment the lines for Windows. Remember to leave "makeactive" commented out.
4. Thats it.
https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/Gr … th_Windows
Last edited by anonymous_user (2011-01-19 18:00:53)

[SOLVED] Dual Boot Window 7 & Arch on a Uefi system.

From the Wiki
Windows 7 x86_64 versions support booting in x86_64 UEFI mode from GPT disk only, OR in BIOS mode from MBR/msdos disk only. They do not support IA32 (x86 32-bit) UEFI boot from GPT/MBR disk, x86_64 UEFI boot from MBR/msdos disk, or BIOS boot from GPT disk.
I don't understand this. As stated in the title I have a ueif system so that means I have to create a GPT disk ? I already have a gpt disk which I confirmed by running Arch Live USB. Under type it said GPT. I don't understand this at all
However if Arch is installed in BIOS-GPT in one disk and Windows is installed in BIOS-MBR mode in another disk, then the BIOS bootloader used by Arch CAN boot the Windows in the other disk, if the bootloader itself has the ability to chainload from another disk.
Note: If Arch and Windows are dual-booting from same disk, then Arch SHOULD follow the same firmware boot mode and partitioning combination used by the installed Windows in the disk.
In the Note above it says both Arch and Windows follow the same boot mode if they are dual booting from same disk. I DO NOT want to do this. I have already decided to partition my drive with 200 Gb going to Windows and 500 Gb going to Arch. Does this mean that I should install both in different modes i.e. Arch in Bios-GPT and Windows in Bios-MBR.
The recommended way to setup a Linux/Windows dual booting system is to first install Windows, only using part of the disk for its partitions. When you have finished the Windows setup, boot into the Linux install environment where you can create additional partitions for Linux while leaving the existing Windows partitions untouched.
UEFI systems
Both Gummiboot and rEFInd autodetect Windows Boot Manager \EFI\Microsoft\Boot\bootmgfw.efi and show it in their boot menu, so there is no manual config required.
For GRUB(2) follow GRUB#Windows_Installed_in_UEFI-GPT_Mode_menu_entry.
Syslinux (as of version 6.02 and 6.03-pre9) and ELILO do not support chainloading other EFI applications, so they cannot be used to chainload \EFI\Microsoft\Boot\bootmgfw.efi .
Computers that come with newer versions of Windows often have secure boot enabled. You will need to take extra steps to either disable secure boot or to make your installation media compatible with secure boot.
Being a beginner should I go with Gummiboot then. GRUB made a mess last time.
Also my secure boot is NOT enabled so is that good.
I have read the FAQs, Beginner's guide, Installation Guide, Dual Boot wiki entry but I just don't understand the above concepts. But it looks this this is the main thing in dual booting. Almost everything else is doable but this I have to get right on account of what happened the last time I installed Arch without getting the above right.
Last edited by Some Arch Lovin (2014-06-14 08:53:14)

A few issues with the dual boot setup
Hello again, I lost my dual factor authentication grid from lastpass. Opensuse was acutally overwriting new pdf files over my old pdf files so now that grid pdf is actually an Arch cheat cheet with the name last_pass_grid.pdf. And the gmail account I used to register to Arch forums is also in last pass.
This is why I created another account. I am some arch lovin.
The installation went smoothly but I could not dual boot Windows7 with Arch because my Win7 image is not UEFI bootable so had to dual boot win8(not a fan at all) and arch.
Almost everything is working correctly. I have a few issues that aren't affecting how the system is working but they still need sorting out.
I'll do them one at a time but I want to know from the admins if I should start a new thread? Because in a way this thread accomplished it job i.e. win7 and arch dual booting in uefi system.
If the answer is yes I should create a new thread depending upon the issue then I will do that but in case its a no since I have only 2-3 problems I am going to ask help for the first one.
My gummiboot is not working on startup. I have to press f12 and use bios booting menu to boot. The problem with that is if I put Windows at the top of the boot priority the bios does not show F12 and F2 at the time of booting up so I can't access the boot menu. I have to boot into Windows and crash it by holding the power button and then the F12 options shows up and I am able to boot into Arch. If I put Arch at the top then Windows keeps restoring back to an earlier version due to start up options.
NOTE : I can't be sure but one it did work(only once). I checked the images online to compare with what I saw and its very similar. An all black screen with three bootloading options
Windows
Arch
Opensuse(don't know why I created a completely new GPT partition table)
This is what I did while installing Gummiboot
# mount -t efivarfs efivarfs /sys/firmware/efi/efivars
# pacman -S gummiboot
# gummiboot install
I tried going through the gummiboot to see if I can do something but it very difficult to comprehend as a beginner. All I get is the characters gummiboot understands but thats all.
Last edited by Archer61 (2014-06-11 13:48:56)

Dual-Booting Windows and Android on Yoga Tablet 2 13?

So I am a big fan of the lenovo yoga tablet so I started looking into the new versions of the tablet and I came upon something curious. both the yoga tablet 2 pro and the yoga tablet 2 13 (windows) have the same processor (a 64-bit processor) as well as very similar technical specs(the main difference being the windows edition has 4GB of ram instead of 2GB and a larger battery no doubt due to the removal of the integrted pico projector). as well Lenovo has the source code for the android build in the pro available on the website.
So my question is if both are running off the same 64-bit processor is there anything stopping someone from compiling the yoga 2 pro source code and installing the yoga 2 pro android OS onto the Windows version of the tablet (dual-booting both) aside from secure boot needing to be disabled?
after scouring the internet and asking a few lenovo representatives I have found absolutely no information on this (the lenovo reps I spoke to couldn't even confirm the specs of the processors but I found that data from the intel ark database) and it is something I really would like to do if possible (especially with android 5.0 having x86 support integrated in the vanila build)
So anyone have any information on anyone trying this or something similar being attempted?

so, lenovo putted a really bad bios on thoses tablets.
http://forums.lenovo.com/t5/Windows-based-Tablets/Alternatives-OSes-and-CMS-under-Yoga-1051/td-p/190...
To make it short, the uefi bios used on yoga tablets support only x86 so, the x86-64 instruction set can't be used, on windows. Without CSM (compatibility support module) you can't even try to boot some oses. For linux you need to mod it, i'll try later but, i can't build a new bios and lenovo is not present on this board

Stream 7, dual boot, windows and android

Given that the HP Stream 7 can be equipped with lots of storage, why not dual boot it with Window and Andoid so I can have the best of both worlds
can this tablet be configured to do that?

Before going to a lot of trouble, I'd get a boot disk on USB with Android X86 on it. Then boot off the USB.
I'd also suggest using 4.22 or 4.4, not 5.0. "Everyone" is still working on 5.0.x.
I've not had much luck on a few devices and Android x86 - hence my suggestion. I have NOT tried it on the Stream 7

Dual boot gentoo and arch

Can someone help me with a grub entry I'll need for my Gentoo grub.conf to boot Arch?
I want to skip the arch bootloader section on install, so I won't know what kernel is and stuff they use. (well, I guess I could mount the arch partition from gentoo to find out ).
I'll be using the latest cdrom I guess.
Ignore what partitions I'll use. I'm just not familiar how arch boots the kernel.
Thx
My current /boot/grub/grub.conf is:
cat /boot/grub/grub.conf
default 0
timeout 10
splashimage=(hd0,2)/boot/grub/splash.xpm.gz
title=Gentoo Linux 2.6.20-r6
root (hd0,2)
kernel /boot/kernel-genkernel-x86-2.6.20-gentoo-r6 root=/dev/ram0 init=/linuxrc ramdisk=8192 real_root=/dev/sda6 udev
initrd /boot/initramfs-genkernel-x86-2.6.20-gentoo-r6
title=Windows Vista
rootnoverify (hd0,0)
makeactive
chainloader +1

I also have Arch and Gentoo, but I use the grub of Arch to boot. However the following is the menu.lst
parts regarding Arch.
# (0) Arch Linux
title Arch Linux
root (hd0,2)
kernel /vmlinuz26 root=/dev/sda1 ro vga=773
initrd /kernel26.img
# (1) Arch Linux
title Arch Linux Fallback
root (hd0,2)
kernel /vmlinuz26 root=/dev/sda1 ro
initrd /kernel26-fallback.img

Advice on dual-booting Windows 7 with UEFI motherboard

I'm going to build a desktop PC tomorrow, having finally purchased all the parts for it. I'll be installing Arch as my main OS, and Windows for gaming. However I'm not really versed in UEFI and its uses, advantages/disadvantages; since my laptop just uses BIOS.
My plan is to have 3 drives: 32GB SSD for the / partition, 1TB HDD for /home, and 500GB for Windows 7 x64 Ultimate.
Being unused to UEFI I was thinking about trying to just run everything in BIOS/Legacy mode, but that doesn't seem very sensible to me, especially since I have the hardware so I might as well use it.
So, reading the wiki and forums have led me to conclude that having a 1GB EFI System Partition on the SSD should be sufficient, and use gummiboot for my bootloader.
Other reading about setting up dual boots suggests to me that installing Windows 7 on its own HDD with MBR partitioning and Arch on a separate (set of) drive(s) with GPT partitioning will be sufficient. The reason being that if the BIOS is set up to boot sda, which has GRUB as its bootloader, using GRUB I can choose to boot into Windows despite it being on a separate hard drive.
My questions are (and it occurs to me that I am in the most part just looking to have my ideas confirmed):
1. Have I gotten this all completely wrong?
2. If I'm correct, can the above system of using GRUB on one drive to boot up an OS on another drive be applied to UEFI?
3. Has anybody tried/succeeded/failed to dual-boot in this fashion before me, and if so what did they do?
Thanks one and all! Hopefully I've made myself clear enough here

billodwyer wrote:Being unused to UEFI I was thinking about trying to just run everything in BIOS/Legacy mode, but that doesn't seem very sensible to me, especially since I have the hardware so I might as well use it.
Using BIOS/CSM/legacy mode can work fine; however, it will probably slow down the boot process by a few seconds, and it will close off some possible future (and even current) advantages, as EFI support in Linux is improved.
So, reading the wiki and forums have led me to conclude that having a 1GB EFI System Partition on the SSD should be sufficient, and use gummiboot for my bootloader.
A 1GB ESP is more than sufficient. In terms of space requirements, 100-500MB is enough, depending on how you use the ESP; but various bugs and default settings make me recommend 550MiB as a good size. Bigger is OK, but wastes some disk space.
A bigger issue is that the ESP won't really benefit much from being on your SSD, since it's read once at boot time. The biggest advantage to putting the ESP on the SSD in your setup is that if you use gummiboot, you'll also have to put the Linux kernel and initrd file on the ESP, so having them on an SSD will speed up the boot process by about 1-5 seconds. Overall, I'd probably put the ESP on one of the spinning disks.
One more comment: gummiboot can launch boot loaders from its own partition but not from other partitions. This can work fine if you plan things carefully, but with three disks and two OSes, you must be absolutely positive that Windows uses the ESP on which gummiboot is installed. I'm not an expert on Windows installation, so I can't offer any specific pointers or caveats on this. If you need something with more flexibility, both rEFInd and GRUB can redirect the boot process to other partitions or physical disks. rEFInd can also redirect from an EFI-mode boot to a BIOS/CSM/legacy-mode boot. (See below.) Overall, rEFInd's flexibility on this score is a plus compared to gummiboot; but gummiboot is covered in the Arch wiki's beginner's guide, which is a plus. You'll have to pick which advantage you prefer. (Note that I'm rEFInd's maintainer, so I'm not unbiased.)
Other reading about setting up dual boots suggests to me that installing Windows 7 on its own HDD with MBR partitioning and Arch on a separate (set of) drive(s) with GPT partitioning will be sufficient. The reason being that if the BIOS is set up to boot sda, which has GRUB as its bootloader, using GRUB I can choose to boot into Windows despite it being on a separate hard drive.
This is an unworkable idea, at least as stated and if you want to do an EFI-mode boot. Windows ties the partition table type to the boot mode: Windows boots from MBR disks only in BIOS mode, and from GPT disks only in EFI mode. Thus, using MBR for the Windows disk will require a BIOS/CSM/legacy-mode installation of Windows. Furthermore, neither gummiboot nor GRUB can redirect from EFI mode to BIOS mode (or vice-versa), so if you do it this way, you'll be forcing yourself to boot Linux in BIOS mode, to switch between BIOS-mode and EFI-mode boots at the firmware level (which isn't always easily controlled), or to use rEFInd to redirect from an EFI-mode boot to a BIOS-mode Windows boot.
Overall, you're best off either using GPT for all your disks and booting all your OSes in EFI mode or using MBR for Windows (and perhaps all your disks) and using BIOS-mode booting for all your OSes.
Under EFI, the boot process is controlled by settings in the NVRAM, which you can adjust with "efibootmgr" in Linux, "bcfg" in an EFI shell, or "bcdedit" in Windows. (The Arch wiki covers the basics at least efibootmgr and bcfg.) In a typical dual-boot setup, you tell the computer to launch your preferred boot manager (EFI-mode GRUB, rEFInd, or gummiboot, most commonly), which then controls the boot process. You set up boot loaders for all your OSes on one or more ESPs. (Note: A boot manager lets you choose which boot loader to run, and a boot loader loads the kernel into memory. GRUB is both a boot manager and a boot loader. rEFInd and gummiboot are both boot managers. The EFI stub loader, ELILO, and the EFI version of SYSLINUX are all boot loaders but not boot managers. Most EFIs include their own boot manager, but it's usually primitive and awkward to use. It's also not standardized, so my computer's built-in boot manager is likely to be different from yours. Thus, I recommend against relying on the built-in boot manager for anything but launching your preferred boot manager.) Thus, the lowest-common-denominator type of setup is to put your preferred boot manager, the Windows boot loader, and a Linux boot loader (which could mean your Linux kernel) on a single ESP. If you want to use multiple ESPs or otherwise split things up, you cannot use gummiboot as the boot manager, since it can't redirect the boot process from one partition to another. (Many EFIs can do this with their own built-in boot managers, but this isn't guaranteed, and it's usually more awkward than using rEFInd or GRUB.)
I know this can be a lot to absorb. The official rules aren't really all that complex, but different EFIs interpret the rules differently, and the different capabilities of the various boot managers and boot loaders creates a lot of subtle implications for how you set everything up.
1. Have I gotten this all completely wrong?
Significant parts of it, I'm afraid; see above. You're working under BIOS assumptions, which don't apply to EFI.
2. If I'm correct, can the above system of using GRUB on one drive to boot up an OS on another drive be applied to UEFI?
GRUB can do this, but gummiboot can't. You set one of those (or something else, like rEFInd) as your primary boot manager. Using both GRUB and gummiboot adds unnecessary complexity, IMHO. OTOH, setting up multiple boot managers or boot loaders is possible, and can give you a fallback in case one fails. For instance, there's a known bug that affects 3.7 and later kernels, mostly on Lenovo computers, that causes the EFI stub loader to fail sometimes. Thus, if you use rEFInd, gummiboot, or the EFI's own boot manager to launch the kernel via the EFI stub loader, having GRUB, ELILO, or SYSLINUX set up as a fallback can provide helpful insurance in case a kernel upgrade causes your normal boot process to fail.
3. Has anybody tried/succeeded/failed to dual-boot in this fashion before me, and if so what did they do?
Many people dual-boot Windows and Linux under EFI. There are a huge number of possible solutions. My own Windows/Linux dual-boot system uses:
rEFInd
rEFInd's EFI filesystem drivers
Linux kernels on Linux-native /boot partitions (two partitions, one for each of the two distributions installed on that computer)
The Windows boot loader on the ESP
This works well for me, but it wouldn't work with gummiboot instead of rEFInd, since gummiboot can't redirect the boot process to another partition. (gummiboot also can't automatically load filesystem drivers.) Arch Linux users who use gummiboot often mount the ESP at /boot, which enables gummiboot to easily launch the Linux kernel. Doing this with multiple Linux distributions would be awkward, though, since you'd end up with two distributions' kernels in the same directory.

Dual Boot Windows 7 and Arch with Shared NTFS partition.

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