EFI partition deleted after removal of dual boot of OSX10.8 and Ubuntu/Linux Mint - using rEFIt

so, i recently installed ubuntu to check out the advances in the linux world since i last looked into them 10+ years ago... very impressed, but when i tried to delete ubuntu and remove the various partitions (which i was able to do just fine using gparted) reFIT still displayed the **** linux logo from the install i deleted....
OSX still boots fine... a install of Linux Mint i have on another partition(s) still boots fine ... everything appears to work... but i want to know what the possible issues are so i can be prepared...
this is frustrating...
so i went in and looked around with the remaining partitions and noticed the EFI partition which hadn't shown before i mistakenly tried to install another distro over ubuntu after wiping the partition it was on...
so i erased the EFI partition hoping that this would remove the g-damned hold out linux boot logo in reFIT... it didn't... now i suppose i can go back in and create a new EFI partition through gparted but that stupid linux logo will still be there... and i'll have another problem of getting the proper information back onto the EFI partition, which i am unsure of how to do, or where to even dig up the proper information...
i want to edit my boot mbr or grub or whatever the eff apple comps use as a boot record so that (or i am using as a boot record since i'm using reFIT) to get rid of this **** logo, so i can install another distro of linux and probably windows without having the **** supernumerary logo...
i would rather not wipe the whole drive (aka the primary partition the recovery partition) and do a fresh new install of os x (mountain lion) because i have OSX set up just the way i want it for personal use and work use... all my various tools and so on...
i don't use time machine and can't do a "restore" from a previous back up...
some one please help me out here, what are my options? am i going to have to bite the bullet and do a wipe of the entire drive and all its partitions to get my MBP back to 'normal'???
PS - using a macbook pro late 2011, standard specs, 13"...

stqn wrote:
Expi1 wrote:Thanks, I'm mostly struggling with how to partition for Arch and then how to do the bootloader. I'm using Win8 64-bit and from what I understand a Legacy BIOS bootloader. I'm not entirely sure what I should be partitioning the C: into, I've done partitions before, just not for Arch and then I'm not sure whether to use GRUB or syslinux, or if I even need those. Or if I need to use GPT or MBR?
Your disk is already partitionned so you don’t have to choose between GPT or MBR, the choice is already made.
You don’t partition “C:”, that is the name of a Windows partition. You partition a drive.
Grub or syslinux, use whatever the beginners guide tells you to. Personally I think syslinux is simpler which is why I’m using it (but I’m not dual-booting, if that matters).
You’re not saying what your problem is with partitionning, so it’s hard to help.
Thanks for getting back to me, I'm not sure if I just create one large partition for Archlinux or if I have to create multiple? Where I'm also confused is with the Creating Filesystems part of the guide. I don't understand how I'd do this in Windows, or what /dev/sda1 is referring to.
As for the bootloader part, the Beginner's Guide gives you a choice between syslinux and grub, what I'm not sure about is which to use considering I'm dualbooting. How it will affect my windows bootloader, do I disregard that and use GRUB now? I'm unclear on how that works.
I'm also aware I need to disable Secure Boot, I just searched my BIOS options and couldn't find anything remotely relating to that, so I'm assuming it's not an issue since this computer was originally on Windows 7 anyway?
Thanks again, Expi.
Last edited by Expi1 (2014-03-06 19:54:30)

Similar Messages

Dual booting Windows 8 and Arch Linux with UEFI

Hi all!
I'm trying to install Arch Linux on my computer where I already have Windows 8, and I'm getting a little stuck when it comes to the partitioning.
Following the beginner's guide and the method here: https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/Un … n_in_Linux for setting up the partitions properly, regarding UEFI. My problem is that when using cgdisk to set up a new EFI system partition (ef00), I get an error message when trying to write the partition table (just saying that something went wrong). I figure the problem is that I already have a partition like this (correct me if I'm wrong), but it really looks like it succeded (see info below). So my question is: How do I preceed to keep my Windows 8 installation happy, but installing Arch? Do I remove the old EFI system partition and create a new one, or is there some method that allows me to edit the already existing one, to allow me to dual boot Windows 8 and Arch?
My partition table now looks like this:
Part. # Size Partition Type Partition Name
1007KB free space
1 500MB Windows RE Basic data partition
2 300MB EFI System EFI system partition (this one was already present on my system)
3 128MB Microsoft reserved Microsoft reserved partition
4 63.5GB Microsoft basic data Basic data partition
8 512MB EFI System EFI System partition (this is the one I tried to create when I got the error message)
5 29.5GB Linux filesystem Arch (this is where I was going to put my Arch installation)
6 22GB Windows RE Basic data partition
7 1024MB Windows RE Basic data partition
615KB free space
Just for the record; I only created partition #8 and #5.
Any help is appreciated! And sorry for beeing a total noob, but I really suck at this.

sudo make sandwich wrote:If it is possible to share ESP between OSes, how do I do this (would it be sufficent to follow this section: https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/Beginners'_Guide#For_UEFI_motherboards)?
There's really very little to do to share an ESP between OSes. Most OS installers will auto-detect the ESP and use it. Problem solved. For Arch it may be a bit more effort just because Arch uses a more hands-on installation process, but I've only done a couple of Arch installations, and the last one was several months ago, so I don't recall the details clearly enough to comment.
And how big will the partition need to be? The beginner's guide says 512MB or higher.
I don't know what was in the mind of the author, but my guess is that's because that's roughly the cutoff point where mkdosfs starts creating FAT32 by default rather than FAT16. The ESP is officially supposed to be FAT32, not FAT16, although FAT16 usually works OK. It's also possible to create FAT32 on smaller partitions by using an explicit option to mkdosfs ("-F 32").
The optimal size of the ESP depends on the files stored on it. If you don't store your Linux kernels, something as small as 100MiB is usually adequate; but a few Linux kernels and their initrd files can consume twice that amount. My own recommendation is for the ESP to be 200-500MiB.
The only error message I got from cgdisk is "Problem saving data! Your partition table may be damaged!", however booting Windows again works fine. Parted did not complain about antything.
Use the "verify" function in cgdisk. That will reveal any problems with the data structures. If a verify turns up OK, then that means that cgdisk ran into some sort of disk problem. Running gdisk rather than cgdisk and using the gdisk "w" option (without making any changes) may produce a more helpful error message.

[SOLVED] Dual boot windows 7 and arch Linux with seperate hard drives

Ok so I'm stuck trying to get my computer to dual boot windows 7 and arch. They are installed on different hard drives and I have grub 2 as the boot loader. I can't find any tutorials on how to do it with seperate hard drives I know how to do it if they are on the same hard drive. Also I want windows on the "first" hard drive how do I check to see which one it considers the first?
Last edited by bdawg (2012-09-21 23:15:37)

DSpider wrote:
drobole wrote:If you want to change it so that sda becomes sdb and sdb becomes sda, you should be able to do that in BIOS.
Not from the BIOS. He would need to physically open up the computer and switch the cables between them (or add another drive).
There's no actual performance increase in changing this order. Performance increase is when you have the partitions as close to the beginning of a HDD as possible, where the platters spin faster (basic mechanics, not to be confused with CD/DVD, which are being written from the inside-out to prevent errors after extended usage), and it especially doesn't apply to SSDs whatsoever.
You may be right about that. I remember I had to do this a while back but I probably switched the cables. It also messed up the drive mapping in Windows 98 if I remember correctly.

Is there a way to dual-boot OS X and Ubuntu on a PC?

Recently, my MacBook Pro was stolen along with my book bag while I was at school. The laptop and bookbag have failed to show up and I don't have the money to replace the Mac with a less expensive used or refurbished Mac. So I'm thinking about getting a Lenovo laptop to replace my MacBook Pro. I was wondering is there any way to dual-boot OS X Snow Leopard and Ubuntu on a PC? The Lenovo laptop has Windows 7 installed by default but I will replace it with Linux to dual-boot OS X alongside Ubuntu.
I was wondering is it possible to run OS X on a non-Mac computer and how would I do this?
I love using Apple products but it stinks when something like this happens and then I have to rethink the situation and try to find a solution. I'm not abandoning Apple because I'd rather run OS X on a linux computer than Windows, but that's just me.

OSX is legal only on Apple hardware. In addition, several who have tried to to load OSX on PC-hardware find the result buggy, or cannot find hardware drivers for the "alien" devices.

Changing Boot Order on Dual Boot Windows 8 and Ubuntu

Hi there,
Recently got a HP Pavilion g6 2213sa which came with Windows 8 (spit!) and this disgusting UEFI BIOS replacement (double spit!).
Anyway, I need to dual boot Ubuntu on my system, so I installed Ubuntu. Normally, on a non UEFI system, a "Grub" bootloader installed by Linux would take over the startup process, and allow you to choose between either Windows 8 or Ubuntu on startup.
However, on this computer, startup is just booting straight to Windows 8 despite the fact that Ubuntu and Grub IS installed.
Now, upon startup, if I press F9, then I get to change the boot-device on a one-time basis. I can either select "OS Boot Manager", which loads Windows 8, or "Ubuntu" which loads the Grub bootloader which allows me to select Windows 8 or Ubuntu.
However, when I press F10 to enter the Bios Setup with the intention of changing the boot order permanently, the Ubuntu option isn't there. Instead it has OS Manager, USB Disk, CD Rom, USB CD Rom and Network Card.
Thanks, HP for, the crappily designed BIOS.
Anyway, can anyone PLEASE provide me a way of changing the boot order so that GRUB is loaded first and NOT this crap Windows 8 rubbish (that I would happily bin if I didn't need it for work).

There is the same problem in HP 2000 laptops (in my case specifically, HP 2000-2D22DX). I did some investigation using trial and error, and this is what I found out:
There is some sort of a "recovery feature" or so that on every boot sets the very first UEFI load option to point to one of the two locations, in this order:
\EFI\Microsoft\Boot\bootmgfw.efi
\EFI\Boot\bootx64.efi
This option is displayed as "OS boot Manager" (for the first path) and something akin to "UEFI partition" for the second path, completely ignoring the actual name given to it (when you look at the EFI variables through efibootmgr, you can see that what is displayed as "OS boot Manager" actually is set to the name "Windows Boot Manager"; why anyone would do such renaming is beyond me). If you try to change the boot order so that this slot isn't the first, the UEFI will overwrite the BootOrder variable on next boot and reset it to point to "OS boot Manager" anyway.
By default, both of the paths above contain the same Microsoft bootloader (if you check the md5sum of both, you'll see they match).
So, until HP releases an updated UEFI that allows turning this "feature" off or rearranging boot options through the F10 UEFI setup, this is what you can do to get dual boot with the least amount of hackiness:
In Windows, mount the UEFI partition (mountvol S: /S mounts it as the S: drive) and copy the file \EFI\Microsoft\Boot\bootmgfw.efi to use some other name (for example, I copied it to "\EFI\Microsoft\Boot\bootmgfw.efi~", but you can change the name to anything else).
In the Windows command prompt, update the Windows UEFI entry to point to the new name: bcdedit /set {bootmgr} path \EFI\Microsoft\Boot\bootmgfw.efi~ (adapt to your set name accordingly).
Optionally, change the name of the Windows boot loader so that you would be certain that it points to the new file location: bcdedit /set {bootmgr} description "Fixed Windows path"
Install the other OS. In my case the bootloader was installed into \EFI\opensuse\grubx64.efi.
Delete the two files, \EFI\Microsoft\Boot\bootmgfw.efi and \EFI\Boot\bootx64.efi.
Use efibootmgr to delete the "OS boot Manager" entry: sudo efibootmgr -b 0000 -B
Set the new OS bootloader to be the default bootloader by using efibootmgr with the -o option. In my case, I had an entry called "opensuse" in slot Boot0001 and the updated path Windows entry in slot Boot0002, so I had to do sudo efibootmgr -o 0001,0002
Update GRUB to point the Windows entry to your renamed file (you'll have to create a new file in /etc/grub.d and rerun grub-mkconfig).
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Could use help dual booting windows 8 and ubuntu 13.04

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partitions
OS's

I have a Lenovo G580 with windows 8 + Ubuntu 13.04 installed. I've been trying to get Dual-boot to work for the past few hours with no success. I've been following this guide. After setting up the partitions similar to the ones in the guide i downloaded easyBCD on windows 8. I then added Ubuntu 13.04 to the grub menu. When i restart my laptop i get the menu with lenovo recovery, windows 8, and Ubuntu(not Ubuntu 13.04 like i labeled) when clicking Ubuntu it says windows failed to load, insert media for recovery. I can't do anything to access Ubuntu at this point. I don't know what it is i'm doing wrong but could use some help. Below are some pictures of the process. I'll post any needed info that i may have forgotten. When choosing OS it's in uefi mode.
partitions
OS's

[Solved]dual boot windows 7 and arch linux

I have successfully installed arch linux dual boot with the original win7 on my PC. If I only use linux, then the system works well. The problem is that once I boot into Win7 then after reboot, the linux boot manager will stop working and the system always boots into windows automatically. My guess is Win7 automatically repair the boot loader.
My current solution is whenever I have finished using Windows, I'll boot with my linux USB installation, and run "gummiboot --path=/boot install". Afterwards, linux will work fine. But I believe there must be a better solution. Any help will be appreciated.
I have UEFI board by the way.
Last edited by jl2014 (2015-04-19 17:35:57)

Thanks for all your help first! I have tried Head_on_a_Stick's suggestions as the first step. Here is what I did. I have created :
$ cat /boot/loader/entries/windows.conf
title Windows
efi /EFI/hidden/Boot/bootmgfw.efi
The window boot path was :
/boot/EFI/Microsoft/Boot/bootmgfw.efi
and I changed
/boot/EFI/Microsoft
to
/boot/EFI/hidden
After reboot, I clicked 'Windows' option on the linux boot manager. Below are the error messages:
Windows failed to start.
File: \EFI\Microsoft/Boot/BCD
Info: An error occurred while attempting to read the boot configuration data.
Any idea what goes wrong?
I'll try other suggestions soon. Thanks all of you again.
Last edited by jl2014 (2015-04-19 00:03:33)

HP ENVY desktop 700-215xt dual boot Windows 7 and Ubuntu

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Why do I need to reload from recovery media ? The system boots to the original Windows 7 installatation with no problem. I will try this procedure after I find if dual booting voids the warranty. If the warranty is voided then I think I will suggest my brother return the system and go to another vendor that is more customer friendly.

Dual booting arch (usb) and ubuntu (grub2)

Greetings,
I'm trying to dual boot Arch linux (installed without a bootloader on a USB SSD) and Ubuntu 10.04 (installed on a hdd with GRUB2) but can't get Arch to boot. (Oh and I already have windows dualbooted)
The entry grub autogenerated:
menuentry "Arch Linux [/boot/vmlinuz26] (on /dev/sdb3)" {
insmod ext2
set root='(hd1,1)'
search --no-floppy --fs-uuid --set 95d9208a-44e4-48ba-abd2-a365d1ac25ff
linux /vmlinuz26 root=/dev/sda3 ro
initrd /kernel26.img
Why did it input root=/dev/sda3 as it says (on /dev/sdb3)?
The entry I figured would work:
menuentry "Arch Linux" {
set root=(hd1,0)
linux /boot/vmlinuz26 root=/dev/sdb3 ro
initrd /boot/kernel26.img
Output from fdisk -l:
Disk /dev/sda: 160.0 GB, 160041885696 bytes
255 heads, 63 sectors/track, 19457 cylinders
Units = cylinders of 16065 * 512 = 8225280 bytes
Sector size (logical/physical): 512 bytes / 512 bytes
I/O size (minimum/optimal): 512 bytes / 512 bytes
Disk identifier: 0xbc4264d9
Device Boot Start End Blocks Id System
/dev/sda1 * 1 13 102400 7 HPFS/NTFS
Partition 1 does not end on cylinder boundary.
/dev/sda2 13 5286 42353664 7 HPFS/NTFS
Partition 2 does not end on cylinder boundary.
/dev/sda3 5286 19458 113831937 5 Extended
Partition 3 does not end on cylinder boundary.
/dev/sda5 18971 19458 3905536 82 Linux swap / Solaris
/dev/sda6 5286 6502 9764864 83 Linux
/dev/sda7 6502 18971 100155392 83 Linux
Partition table entries are not in disk order
WARNING: GPT (GUID Partition Table) detected on '/dev/sdb'! The util fdisk doesn't support GPT. Use GNU Parted.
Disk /dev/sdb: 8019 MB, 8019509248 bytes
255 heads, 63 sectors/track, 974 cylinders
Units = cylinders of 16065 * 512 = 8225280 bytes
Sector size (logical/physical): 512 bytes / 512 bytes
I/O size (minimum/optimal): 512 bytes / 512 bytes
Disk identifier: 0x00000000
Device Boot Start End Blocks Id System
/dev/sdb1 * 1 13 104391 83 Linux
/dev/sdb2 14 111 787185 82 Linux swap / Solaris
/dev/sdb3 112 685 4610655 83 Linux
/dev/sdb4 686 974 2321392+ 83 Linux
/dev/sdb3 is the root partition
The content of /dev/sdb1
grub
kernel26-fallback.img
kernel26.img
lost+found
System.map26
vmlinuz26
- If I try to edit the root=/dev/sda3 to /dev/sdb3 it begins booting but doesnt find /dev/sdb3.
Thanks in advance for any help,
Oskar

Greetings,
I'm trying to dual boot Arch linux (installed without a bootloader on a USB SSD) and Ubuntu 10.04 (installed on a hdd with GRUB2) but can't get Arch to boot. (Oh and I already have windows dualbooted)
The entry grub autogenerated:
menuentry "Arch Linux [/boot/vmlinuz26] (on /dev/sdb3)" {
insmod ext2
set root='(hd1,1)'
search --no-floppy --fs-uuid --set 95d9208a-44e4-48ba-abd2-a365d1ac25ff
linux /vmlinuz26 root=/dev/sda3 ro
initrd /kernel26.img
Why did it input root=/dev/sda3 as it says (on /dev/sdb3)?
The entry I figured would work:
menuentry "Arch Linux" {
set root=(hd1,0)
linux /boot/vmlinuz26 root=/dev/sdb3 ro
initrd /boot/kernel26.img
Output from fdisk -l:
Disk /dev/sda: 160.0 GB, 160041885696 bytes
255 heads, 63 sectors/track, 19457 cylinders
Units = cylinders of 16065 * 512 = 8225280 bytes
Sector size (logical/physical): 512 bytes / 512 bytes
I/O size (minimum/optimal): 512 bytes / 512 bytes
Disk identifier: 0xbc4264d9
Device Boot Start End Blocks Id System
/dev/sda1 * 1 13 102400 7 HPFS/NTFS
Partition 1 does not end on cylinder boundary.
/dev/sda2 13 5286 42353664 7 HPFS/NTFS
Partition 2 does not end on cylinder boundary.
/dev/sda3 5286 19458 113831937 5 Extended
Partition 3 does not end on cylinder boundary.
/dev/sda5 18971 19458 3905536 82 Linux swap / Solaris
/dev/sda6 5286 6502 9764864 83 Linux
/dev/sda7 6502 18971 100155392 83 Linux
Partition table entries are not in disk order
WARNING: GPT (GUID Partition Table) detected on '/dev/sdb'! The util fdisk doesn't support GPT. Use GNU Parted.
Disk /dev/sdb: 8019 MB, 8019509248 bytes
255 heads, 63 sectors/track, 974 cylinders
Units = cylinders of 16065 * 512 = 8225280 bytes
Sector size (logical/physical): 512 bytes / 512 bytes
I/O size (minimum/optimal): 512 bytes / 512 bytes
Disk identifier: 0x00000000
Device Boot Start End Blocks Id System
/dev/sdb1 * 1 13 104391 83 Linux
/dev/sdb2 14 111 787185 82 Linux swap / Solaris
/dev/sdb3 112 685 4610655 83 Linux
/dev/sdb4 686 974 2321392+ 83 Linux
/dev/sdb3 is the root partition
The content of /dev/sdb1
grub
kernel26-fallback.img
kernel26.img
lost+found
System.map26
vmlinuz26
- If I try to edit the root=/dev/sda3 to /dev/sdb3 it begins booting but doesnt find /dev/sdb3.
Thanks in advance for any help,
Oskar

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

How can I dual-boot Mac OSX and Linux Mint?

Hey guys, I was wondering if it is possible to dual-boot both OS's similar to OS X and Windows 7/8...but first I'm wondering if it will void my MacBook Air Warranty (w/ AppleCare) as ultimately it wouldn't be worth it then!
Thanks!
-Stu

Which CD are you trying to use?
Mac OS X 10.4 (Tiger) originally came on DVD.
A media exchange program initially was available:
http://images.apple.com/macosx/pdf/TigerMediaExchangeFormv5.pdf
So maybe you did an exchange for CDs?
You may find this article helpful:
http://weblog.techdad.net/2006/11/12/dual-boot-mac-osx-and-ubuntu/

Dual booting win 7 and arch: cannot install grub to partition

I have read the arch wiki page on dual booting and several other sources on line, but I am still struggling to get this to work.
I am trying to dual boot arch and windows 7 on my lenovo ideapad s205. the machine comes with windows 7 pre-installed.
I shrank the win 7 partition and added an extended partition with 3 logical partions for /boot, swap, and /.
I am able to install and run arch by installing grub to the mbr. when I do this, though, I cannot boot windows. (the windows section of grub menu.lst is uncommented and points toward hda0,0. I have tried hda 0,1 as well).
I have also tried to use the windows boot loader to load arch, as described in the arch wiki page on dual booting. The problem here is that, taking this approach, I should install grub to my /boot partition, but when I try to do this, the installer only allows me to install grub to sda or sdb (the usb stick).
I have read that grub should be able to boot linux from a logical partition. Is this so?
Is there something wrong with the arch installer that it is not giving me the option of installing to a partition rather than the mbr, or is this a problem with my partition scheme, or something else?
I am tempted to remove lenovo's recovery system, but on the other hand, I have already needed to use it several times while monkeying around with installing arch.
Thanks for any help.
UPDATE:
I now have the laptop dual-booting win 7 and arch. My solution ( adapted from here: http://helms-deep.cable.nu/~rwh/blog/?p=177) was to:
1. installed arch on the partitions I had created for it, but skipped the "install bootloader" stage.
2. in win 7, I downloaded and installed EasyBCD and made an entry for arch in it. I checked the option to "Use EasyBCD's copy of GRUB"
3. When I restarted, I got a grub error because the entry in grub's menu.lst was pointing at the wrong partitions for the kernel and root.
4. So I went back into the arch live disk, mounted the boot partition and edited menu.lst.
Now when I start the laptop, the windows boot loader starts and I can choose between win 7 and arch. when I select arch, grub4dos starts and gives me the option to start arch. this is not particularly elegant (nor is it fast), so I think this solution is less than ideal, but it does work.
I'd be interestd in any thoughts about what went wrong and what a better solution would be.
thanks.
Last edited by ratchet (2011-10-10 19:09:16)

ratchet wrote:II am able to install and run arch by installing grub to the mbr. when I do this, though, I cannot boot windows. (the windows section of grub menu.lst is uncommented and points toward hda0,0. I have tried hda 0,1 as well).
Is this a typo in your post or how it was in menu.lst? Surely it should be hd0,0 and not hda0,0? The entry I have in my menu.lst is as follows:
# (2) Windows
title Windows
rootnoverify (hd0,0)
makeactive
chainloader +1
What was yours?
Last edited by JHeaton (2011-10-10 20:18:22)

Can I erase the boot camp partition and dual boot snow leopard and mountain lion instead

Can I erase the boot camp partition and dual boot snow leopard and mountain lion instead

Please don't double post. Look at your other thread.
If you want to get rid of Windows and the BC partition use the Boot Camp assistant program to remove the Win/BC partition. Don't do it manually with Disk Utility Use the BC A program.

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.

Satellite S55t-B5233 Shrink disk for dual boot windows 8 and other OS

Hi,
I have a Toshiba Satellite S55t-B5233 Pre-installed with Windows 8.1
I would like to maintain Windows 8 but to dual boot with Windows 7, Ubuntu and OpenSuse, so:
- When I try to Shrink disk C (943371 MB) it says that 'Size of available shrink space in MB = 469651 MB'. The free space in my disk is 885240 MB!
So I would like to know if there is a way to left about 200000 MB for Windows 8? so I could use the rest of space for shrinking for other OS...
- I would instal windows 7, ubuntu and OpenSuse in partitions D, E and F [Partitions that I pretend to create by shrinking C] ... a) does it will void my warrantee? b) does it will render my Windows 8 “Recovery Partition” useless?
thanks in advance...
Gari

Satellite S55t-B5233
I don't recommend you attempt multiple-booting in this new UEFI/GPT world, Gari. Things are more difficult now than they were in the BIOS/MBR world. Best to set up virtual machines using Hyper-V or another free VM to run other OSes.
In answer to your questions,..
a. Toshiba doesn't care what you do with the software. They won't even look at the computer until the drive has been restored to its original out-of-the-box contents.
b. After you mess around with the partition locations, I doubt the recovery partition would be accessible in the normal fashion if at all. Many create a recovery drive and delete the recovery partition first thing.

EFI partition deleted after removal of dual boot of OSX10.8 and Ubuntu/Linux Mint - using rEFIt

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