Install Arch on esata

Hey Folks,
I am pretty sure it should be no problem to install arch on an eSATA drive. But, what I am not sure about is how to handle grub. The computer is already running fedora with gurb. Would you recommend not installing grub at all at then end of the arch install and then modify the existing grub entry OR should I install grub on the esata or the internal drive.
-- Edit --
Or would it make sense to just install grub onto the esata drive & modify the boot order in the bios for the times when the drive is not connected?
Thanks
Last edited by caustin (2010-08-08 01:48:32)

I would modify Fedora's Grub menu. That way, connected or not, your drive will work fine no matter how you've configured things. The only thing you need to worry about are the UUID numbers of your arch drive. You'll have to either learn what they are then modify Fedora's Grub menu or not use them and instead opt for using partition labels instead.

Similar Messages

How to install Arch from hard drive?

Hello
I have an old laptop - Pentium II 266 MHz, 128Mb RAM and I want to install Arch on it.
The problem is that there is no way to boot from this laptop -> floppy is broken, CD drive is not bootable, no available boot options from BIOS to boot from PXE or USB.
So, I found this link useful (but not enough).
I have done everything as described on the upper link, but on the final step 7 I don't know how to proceed.
What I have got is:
Arch installation CD is in the CD drive.
After loading vmlinuz26 and archiso.img (which is RAM Disk or initrd) it shows this message: "waiting 30 seconds for device /dev/disk/by-label/"
And another message: "ERROR: boot device didn't show up after 30 seconds" and after that it put me in the ramfs prompt.
I try this in ramfs prompt, but without success:
1. ln -s /dev/sr0 /dev/archiso
2. exit (and try again)
What I want is to tell the installer that it must proceed with the installation files on my CD drive.
But how to do that?
If it is not possible, then how could I install Arch on this old laptop? Is there any other methods to try?
PS: There is Windows 2000 and Windows 98 installed on this laptop, but I want to install Arch on it. The whole hard drive is one partition.
Last edited by clovenhoof (2011-08-09 06:49:48)

Try either of the following:
* Add archisolabel=LABEL to the kernel line in menu.lst, where LABEL is the filesystem label of the partition where the ISO resides.
* Add archisodevice=/dev/sdaX to the kernel line in menu.lst, where sdaX should be replaced with the partition where the ISO resides.
[Edit]
Hmmm, sorry I think I was wrong. With the above, you need also extract the ISO, put the arch/ directory at the root of the partition.
Alternatively, you can put the ISO to the root of that partition, and add img_dev=/dev/sdaX and img_loop=foo-bar.iso. For details, see:
https://projects.archlinux.org/archiso.git/tree/README
BUT even if it loads, I don't think you will be able to install Arch on the same partition since it's mounted readonly to /bootmnt, (unless, you explicitly add copytoram to the kernel line, in which case, everything is copied to RAM, but since the machine has got only 128MB of RAM, this is not gonna happen). So, you need to put the ISO (or the extracted squashfs images) to a different partition than your target installation partition...
There probably are other things I'm missing... Gotta say this sounds quite challenging.
[Edit2]
Bah! Try archisodevice=/dev/sr0 then!
Last edited by lolilolicon (2011-08-09 07:48:17)

Installing Arch on Asus Eee, Already Read the Wiki [Solved]

I'm attempting to install Arch on my Asus Eee 701 (4GB SSD model) and I made a mistake that I'm having trouble correcting. First, I accidentally wrote the image to my Eee's SSD, instead of my USB drive. I tried to install Arch with the installer on my SSD, set up the partitions (one for /, one for /boot, and one for /home), but when I issued the command, it told me that the disk was in use. It was then that I realized what I did. I used an Ubuntu LiveCD on another computer to burn the image file again, this time to my USB drive. I booted my Eee from the USB drive and tried to partition my SSD again, but this time, it tells me:
Device or resource busy
This disk is currently in use - repartitioning is probably a bad idea.
Unmount all file systems, and swapoff all swap partitions on this disk.
Use the --no-reread flag to suppress this check.
Use the --force flag to overrule all checks.
When I boot from my SSD, I get the same message, so I'm not even 100% certain that I booted from my USB drive before. My USB drive's activity light was on though.
Is there any way to fix this? Also, given that I have an SSD, what partitions should I set up and how big should they be? I can't find any concrete numbers in the wiki.
Thanks in advance for the help.
Last edited by Tyrian (2008-11-17 04:14:23)

I'll try that, thanks. What would happen if I dismounted the SSD with -f if it was in use?
EDIT: I just realized that when I go into the installer, it lets me set up partitions manually (I run the installer, pick "Prepare Hard Drive", "Partition Hard Drives", "/dev/sda"). But how should I set them up? When I test it by just making one 4GB partition, it tells me, "Wrote partition table, but re-read table failed. Reboot to update table." So I rebooted, and it appears to work. So I deleted that partition, made a 512MB one, rebooted, and repeated until I had 3 partitions in ext2, a 512MB (sda1, bootable), 512MB (sda2), and one roughly 2.5GB (sda3). I then went to "Set Filesystem Mountpoints", said "NONE" for the swap (due to the avoiding pitfalls section of the wiki), picked "/dev/sda1" as "/" in ext2, made "/dev/sda2" as ext2 called "/var", and made "/dev/sda3" in ext2 called "/home", then said "DONE". When I say "Yes" as the confirmation prompt, I get this message:
Error creating filesystem: mke2fs /dev/sda1
I hit enter and get dropped back to the "Prepare Hard Drive" menu. I followed this section of the Beginner's Guide too.
Is there any way to fix this?
Last edited by Tyrian (2008-11-15 18:37:10)

Installing Arch Linux on USB key: error while booting

Hello,
first of all, I must say I've followed the steps from this article on arch wiki to install archlinux on my USB key: https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/In … _a_USB_key
So what I did is to use one of my 2 usb keys to INSTALL linux, and the second one to RUN linux. I used dd to write on the 1st usb, eveything worked fine when booting, then I do install arch on the my second usb following the stept from the link above, everything works until I get this error while booting (at the middle):
Waiting 10 seconds for device /dev/sdc/
Root device '/dev/sdc' doesn't exist. Attempting to create it.
ERROR: Unable to determine major/minor number of root device '/dev/disk/by-uuid/lotsofnumbers'
You are being dropped to a recovery shell
Type 'exit' to try and continue booting
/bin/sh: Can't contact tty; job control turned off
[ramfs /]#
To summarize I'll show you my conf files that could help you to resolve my problem:
/etc/fstab.conf
/dev/sdc1 /boot ext2 defaults 0 1
/dev/sdc2 / ext3 defaults 0 1
/dev/sdc3 /home ext3 defaults 0 1
So here I've sdc1 boot 32MB partition; sdc2 root 3GB partition; sdc3 home 978MB partition for a total of 4GB USB key~
I didn't make a swap partition as in the tutorial they are writing it's unnecessary for some kind of reasons.
/etc/mkinitcpio.conf
HOOKS="base udev usb autodetect pata scsi sata filesystems"
I've added to here, "usb" to the hooks
installed GRUB on my sdc, here is the menu.ist:
# (0) Arch Linux
title Arch Linux (USB)
root (hd0,0)
kernel /vmlinuz26 root=/dev/sdc ro vga=773
initrd /kernel26.img
So, I boot GRUB without problems, start Arch Linux, but then I got this error above.
I've searched alot on some forums and read many stuffs, but sitll can't fix it and it seems complicated.
I've tried to boot with UUID, also, but didn't make difference. I tried to remove some parameter from the hooks, but unfortunately this wasn't working still. I've read somewhere to use chroot, but I didn't catch on how to do that and what was the use of chroot, I'm still noob user of arch linux and currently learning. Maybe it's the problem, as some forum were talking about creating a new image, but I still don't know how to make it. By the way, I'm not sure this could have fixed my current problem. I've also read somewhere it could be due to my lack of space, but I wrote you how I did partition my USB key, let me know if you have any suggestion please.

1. What I did is re-installing entirely from my installation disk or USB to test out different setting in my config files, because I don't know how to edit my .conf as I can't really finish to boot to the end and get in terminal mode? If there is a quicker way to edit files from any terminal to go into my current USB sdc to modify directly my file from there, I'd enjoy probably. So rebuilding the initpio, no, I just re-installed to test out different configs.
2. Yes, same error.
3. Tested out by-id/by-path and uuid = no difference
4. Didn't know about larch, it seems to be a nice tool, I'll check it out

Install arch on a virtual machine

I am following a tutorial to install arch linux on my virtual box, oracle.
when it comes to the command mkinitcpio, it gives me an error, command not found.
#arch-chroot /mnt
#mkinitcpio -p linux
sh: mkinitcpio: command not found
I added /sbin to my path, but that had no effect.
could anyone guide me please.

saman_artorious wrote:Yes, it is the UUID, but I don't know how to check it.
I think this is the way to do that-
To list basic information about the partitions, run:
$ lsblk -f
or, if you like a gui, I'm partial to "gparted" where you right click on a partition and then click 'information'
Somewhat off topic, but are there preconfigured appliances for download that are recommended? It would be nice to not have to go through the whole instillation routine.
I found this one, and it seems to be one of the few out there from the systemd era:
Archlinux-2013.08.01.ova.torrent
For the OP, you may consider working backwords. Load up a preinstalled appliance, and remove packages you don't want.
Just thinking out loud.
Last edited by browntown (2014-01-14 15:56:48)

Install arch on a read-only filesystem

Hi to all, I have an idea about installing arch in a particular way, a way that makes the system more secure.
I want to install a host archlinux system on a hard disk or ssd but I want no data can be written to the storage. The host system will have a predefined set of programs and should use a ramdisk to store temporary data. It is something very similar to a ISO.
The real computation will be handled through a series of virtualbox instances of linux ( the virtualbox images will be stored on an external hard disk, a read/write volume ).
How could I achieve this? Through unionfs? AUFS? or some other thing?
Last edited by pabloski (2011-02-16 16:18:11)

I want to mount my sda2 read-only and union it with a tmpfs, so the machine is secure and the file system is the same every boot.
I installed aufs3 with 3.2.6-1-aufs_friendly, I made a hook (as some-guy94 adviced), but it doesn't work.
The code is:
1. mkdir -p /root/ro /root/rw
2. mount /dev/sda2 /root/ro
3. mount -t tmpfs root.rw /root/rw
4. mount -t aufs -o "dirs=/root/rw=rw:/root/ro=ro" root.union /
At 2. it says: "mount: mounting /dev/sda2 on /root/ro failed: No such file or directory" Both files exist - I can list them just before the mount.
3. & 4. work, but it doesn't matter as sda2 gets mounted rw on / right after (by initramfs's init, I gues).
Can you help me with this, or point some useful howtos?
Btw: is there a better way of debugging a hook, other than making the image and rebooting each change?
Update: This is how they did it in larch: http://git.berlios.de/cgi-bin/gitweb.cg … cpio/hooks
mount -t ext3 /dev/sda2 /root/ro works now.
I used exec /sbin/switch_root as in larch3 hook and for loop from /lib/initcpio/init:109 to move /proc /dev /sys /run to the new root
So the union mount works just fine now, my sda2/sbin/init & sda2/etc/rc.sysinit run, but the latter fails with following:
* Mounting Root Read-Only - this is actually quite acceptable
* Starting UDev Daemon
* Loading Modules
* Remounting Root Read/Write - acceptable as well
After boot X opens and system freezes immediately (no reaction to keyboard, doesn't ping). No useful information in logs. I don't think system can run well without udev/modules. So this is udev not liking / mounted rw (as tmpfs is rw) or maybe /dev /proc /sys /run fault.
I tried to make union mount only in rc.sysinit when /dev/sda2 is already mounted on /, but mount --move / other-dir fails.
Any ideas what can be wrong?
My code:
run_hook ()
read -p "Union mount root (y/N)? " answer
if [[ "$answer" == "y" ]]; then
modprobe aufs
ro="/root/ro"
rw="/root/rw"
un="/root/un"
rob="${un}/ro"
rwb="${un}/rw"
mkdir -p $ro $rw $un
mount -t ext3 /dev/sda2 $ro
mount -t tmpfs -o "size=20%" root.rw $rw
mount -t aufs -o "dirs=${rw}=rw:${ro}=ro" root.union $un
mkdir -p $rob $rwb
mount --bind $ro $rob
mount --bind $rw $rwb
mkdir ${un}/media
mkdir ${un}/sys
mkdir ${un}/proc
mkdir ${un}/dev
/bin/mknod ${un}/dev/console c 5 1
echo "rootfs / rootfs rw 0 0" >${un}/etc/mtab
[ -z "${init}" ] && init="/sbin/init"
if [ -e "${un}/${init}" ]; then
mount
read
for d in proc sys dev run; do
if [ -d ${un}/${d} ]; then
mount --move /${d} ${un}/${d}
else
umount /${d}
fi
done
exec /sbin/switch_root -c /dev/console ${un} ${init} ${CMDLINE}
fi
fi
Last edited by kaos (2012-02-22 17:14:18)

Installed Arch on external usb drive: Drive errors after reboot

I installed Arch on my external usb hard drive and everything seemed to be working fine. After rebooting though, I had a bunch of filesytem errors (ext3) and the system was unstable. I am guessing that this has to do with the unloading of the usb modules at shutdown. If this happens to early, then the root drive doesn't have a chance to shutdown properly, hence the filesystem errors.
Anyone know how to solve this?
Thanks!

EtreCheck looks at your log files for any kernel I/O errors. That is what it is reporting. EtreCheck just reports what it finds and tries to avoid judgements exception the most extreme cases. The drive might be OK. I am seeing more reports of this than I would have expected. It may just be a problem with Yosemite. It really prefers SSD disks in all cases. On my own machine, I have seen a slow external drive exhibit classic failure symptoms and sounds when connected via USB2. But then when I switched to FW800, it was fine. Other people are reporting that when they downgraded back to Mavericks, their disk errors went away.
So, I don't have a good answer for you. The drive might be bad, and it might be fine. Yosemite is definitely having problems with it. You may experience performance problems with that drive attached.

Impossible to install arch in UEFI mode on my Acer Aspire S3-391

Hi there,
I am trying to install arch-linux on my Acer Aspire S3-391, which came with a pre-shipped Windows 8. I am trying to make a dual boot, so I would like to keep the UEFI mode at startup. However, my computer won't boot on the Arch Linux USB Flash drive when in UEFI mode : when plugged in, the key prevents the computer from loading anything. The "Acer" page keeps on reloading itself, without even letting me access the BIOS menu (In other words, the computer is blocked at "POST" phase when the installation media of arch is plugged in).
Here's what I did to try and solve the problem :
1) of course, I disabled Secure Boot and hibernation in Windows 8.
2) tried to boot in legacy bios. It works, and i could install arch this way : but as told before, i would like to install it in UEFI mode.
3) Checked, re-checked and re-rechecked the installation media.
4) tried to install Ubuntu in UEFI mode. It worked : the bootable key of Ubuntu was loaded, when the bootable key of arch is blocked. Why ? No idea...
5) Installed Ubuntu, and tried to install Arch in UEFI mode from Ubuntu, following the tutorial "Install_from_Existing_Linux". No luck here : i was blocked at step "Testing if you are booted into UEFI mode" on the beginner's guide : I was not, and I couldn't find any solution in the tutorial.
Any suggestions on what I should try next ?

If you've already installed in BIOS/CSM/legacy mode, my recommendation is to install your EFI-mode boot loader and try it out. You'll need to use something else that does boot (such as Ubuntu), install the boot loader using the Windows bcdedit command (assuming you're dual-booting), or install the boot loader as EFI/BOOT/bootx64.efi (if you're setting up for Linux alone) to get it to work, though.

I'm going to install Arch this weekend but I have some questions

Currently I use Linux Mint on my primary PC, but I've installed Arch on my older PC at my parents house. I like it a lot and I think I want a distro that is rolling release and also that I build myself (as opposed to installing all of the bloat on Mint). However, I do have some questions; Linux is pretty new to me (been using it since about November) so I don't know exactly how everything works.
1) How do I know what packages I have to have installed for building C/C++ programs? I know in Ubuntu install gcc/g++ by itself doesn't get the job done, you need build-essential to get all of the libraries. Also, what packages do I need for OpenGL and SDL? I'm a CS major and I'm in an OpenGL class so I need to be able to compile OpenGL programs; SDL is for my own purposes, but I'd still like to have it.
2) I use Amarok to transfer songs to my iPod. Amarok 1.48 and libgpod 0.6.0 are in the repos and I know both of those are compatible with my 6th gen. However, I do have a question about transferring album art. On Mint, Amarok transfers the album art as I transfer the album, but someone told me that Amarok doesn't do that by default; there must have been a setting changed somewhere to do that. I looked through Amarok's options and didn't see anything like that... anyone know if I can do that in Arch, and how? There's no real information about Amarok in the wiki.
3) I'm going to use Gnome environment but some KDE apps (like Amarok). Will there be any problems with that that I should know about in advance?
I'll probably have some more questions once I actually install Arch, but that will do for now Those are the important ones.

1) You know by seeing its dependencies on pacman or by the developer documentation. Unlike other distros, you don't need to install dev packages. Example: You have gcc and all the basic gnu tools installed, and you want to compile a program that is not in a arch linux package yet (if theres a package, you can build it using abs / makepkg and pacman will handle the dependencies) and requires, for example, a library called "xyz", you only need to download "xyz" from pacman, and all the dev stuff will come together (like header and etc).
I hope it helps.

How to install Arch for dual-boot with Win 7 (on 2 hard drives)?

Hello,
the TLDR first: how exactly should I proceed when setting up GRUB for 2 hard drives to dual-boot Arch (64 bit)and Win 7 (64 bit)?
Long version: So, I have the following hard drive & partition layout:
On my first hard drive (250 GB big) I have: Win 7 64 bit, all the programs for Windows and of course the EFI partition
My second hard drive is 1 TB big and formatted in NTFS and it only contains data. It has 2 partitions, one is about 750 GB big and used for simple storage.
Sidenote 1: sometimes my disk management (Windows' own gparted) shows either the little disk or the big one as disk 0. Don't know what exactly this means, but I have never ever experienced any problems whatsoever during use.
Sidenote 2: the UEFI motherboard (ASRock H67M) cannot boot into Legacy mode.
I want to install Arch on a ~200 GB partition on the second hard drive (the one with 1 TB). (click here if you want to see a screenshot) I am posting this because I am confused with how exactly I should deal with the whole "2 hdds & UEFI" thing.
So how exactly should I proceed when setting up GRUB for this setup?
For partitioning I suppose I would have to use fdisk or cgdisk. I used cgdisk before and found it to be straightforward. Then, because I have experienced my fair share of problems with rEFInd, I'd like to use GRUB.
Last edited by jones (2013-06-29 14:36:56)

First thing you should do is become familiar with your motherboard.
http://www.asrock.com/mb/manual.asp?Model=H67M
This will probably help you out in understanding the sidenote 1 thingie (hdd's on sata3 and/or sata2 connectors)
As on sidenote 2, according to the manual it seems to be possible to boot legacy mode, see Storage Configuration.

How to install arch 2009.08 from hard drive? Please enlighten me

OK, I admit I am impatient for the installation from the CD drive. Whenever possible and whatever distro I wanna try, I head first to try to install it from the hard drive. I don't remember how many times and how many distros I have done the same to, ubuntu, zenwalk, sidux, fedora, opensuse and of course arch. It rarely failed as long as I followed someone's guide, sth like "install any OS from hard drive", I do not exactly remember. And I did the same in the past with arch. But after 2009.08, it simply didn't work. I've read the article "fast install arch from existing linux system" in the wiki, it didn't work either (by the way, if someone can solve my problem, I think the article should be updated). After it boots, at some stage, it says "Use Hook [archiso]", then tell me "waiting for /dev/archiso for 30 seconds ..." then when the time due, it throws me into a ramfs shell. I've hacked for a long time, but no luck. Then I went back to download the 2009.02 iso, however, it works flawlessly.
I did find some differences in the menu.lst/isolinux.cfg between two version.
In 2009.02, we have
title Boot Arch Linux Live CD
kernel /boot/vmlinuz26 lang=en locale=en_US.UTF-8 usbdelay=5 ramdisk_size=75%
initrd /boot/archiso_pata.img
While in 2009.08, it is
title Boot Arch Linux Live CD
kernel /boot/vmlinuz26 lang=en locale=en_US.UTF-8 archisolabel=ARCHISO_AHCOHH6O ramdisk_size=75%
initrd /boot/archiso_pata.img
I know I can install arch from usb, but I simply wanna know what's wrong here, so guys, if you have any idea, don't hesitate to enlighten me.

Hi, vacant, thanks for the reply. I did not notice you are the author of the article. Actually I missed the head of the article which directs me to another (the amalgamated one you mentioned). I take a look at it, it seems to make things complicated. I still miss the old days: you simply download the iso, mount it and copy all the contents into a separate partition, edit your current grub, then reboot and everything works. I don't understand how Arch could be so evolved to exclude this simple installation scheme. I am not complaining the development of Arch. In my opinion, a distro as flexible as Arch should provide as much installation strategy as possible. In this respect, I think we can learn from Ubuntu or sidux (in sidux, it provides a very convenient kernel parameter called "fromiso" which allows you to install sidux from the plain iso, that means, you even don't have to mount it and copy the contents out of it to a separate partition).
Last edited by plmday (2009-10-25 06:25:44)

Recovering earlier installed Windows 7 after installing Arch Linux

I'm trying to boot windows on my ASUS notebook.
There was windows 7 from the very beginning (disks C:\ and D:\), then I divided disk D:\ on several partitions and installed Arch Linux. I overwrited Windows boot information by boot part of Linux. Now I want to recover windows, that I still have on hard drive. It doesn's matter what there will be: dualboot or only windows (but dualboot is prefered).
Disk info:
[jhon@fckrsns ~]$ sudo fdisk -l
Disk /dev/sda: 698.7 GiB, 750156374016 bytes, 1465149168 sectors
Units: sectors of 1 * 512 = 512 bytes
Sector size (logical/physical): 512 bytes / 4096 bytes
I/O size (minimum/optimal): 4096 bytes / 4096 bytes
Disklabel type: gpt
Disk identifier: 1AFC9DFF-CD3B-4CE1-8CAF-41C3E5B75772
Device Start End Size Type
/dev/sda1 2048 411647 200M EFI System
/dev/sda2 411648 673791 128M Microsoft reserved
/dev/sda3 673792 586731519 279.5G Microsoft basic data
/dev/sda4 586731520 691589119 50G Linux filesystem
/dev/sda5 1412718592 1465147391 25G Windows recovery environment
/dev/sda6 691589120 901304319 100G Linux filesystem
/dev/sda7 901304320 1412718591 243.9G Microsoft basic data
[jhon@fckrsns ~]$ lsblk
NAME MAJ:MIN RM SIZE RO TYPE MOUNTPOINT
sda 8:0 0 698.7G 0 disk
├─sda1 8:1 0 200M 0 part /boot
├─sda2 8:2 0 128M 0 part
├─sda3 8:3 0 279.5G 0 part
├─sda4 8:4 0 50G 0 part /
├─sda5 8:5 0 25G 0 part
├─sda6 8:6 0 100G 0 part /home
└─sda7 8:7 0 243.9G 0 part
sr0 11:0 1 1024M 0 rom
[jhon@fckrsns ~]$ lsblk -f
NAME FSTYPE LABEL UUID MOUNTPOINT
sda
├─sda1 vfat 4DEB-D6D2 /boot
├─sda2
├─sda3 ntfs OS 62364BE9364BBCB3
├─sda4 ext4 c4da4683-871a-49fa-96a3-4da11387d31d /
├─sda5 ntfs Recovery 8ECE4F50CE4F2FAF
├─sda6 ext4 3eba01c6-e422-4542-8442-16064c74a563 /home
└─sda7 ntfs 3B29E7794F6CD932
sr0
OS partition (/dev/sda3):
[jhon@fckrsns /]$ ls /run/media/jhon/OS
altera Boot djvureader DrWeb Quarantine eSupport hiberfil.sys MSOCache N56VM.BIN pagefile.sys Program Files Recovery SecurityScanner.dll VisualCLibs
AsusVibeData bootmgr Documents and Settings eclipse Games Intel MS.Office.2007.Portable.micro.v.1.16 N56VZ.BIN PerfLogs Program Files (x86) $Recycle.Bin System Volume Information Windows
AVScanner.ini BOOTSECT.BAK DOSBox_SIM END gcc Keil_v5 mtd NVIDIA ProgramData Qt R.G. Catalyst Users
I tried to recover MBR with different ways:
with syslinux:
[jhon@fckrsns /]$ sudo dd if=/usr/lib/syslinux/bios/mbr.bin of=/dev/sda
0+1 records in
0+1 records out
440 bytes (440 B) copied, 0.0226394 s, 19.4 kB/s
with ms-sys:
[jhon@fckrsns /]$ sudo ms-sys --partition /dev/sda1
Start sector 2048 (nr of hidden sectors) successfully written to /dev/sda1
Physical disk drive id 0x80 (C:) successfully written to /dev/sda1
Number of heads (255) successfully written to /dev/sda1
[jhon@fckrsns /]$ sudo ms-sys --mbr7 /dev/sda
Windows 7 master boot record successfully written to /dev/sda
But there is still no way to boot windows.
I run grub-mkconfig before and after these manipulations with MBR:
[jhon@fckrsns ~]$ sudo grub-mkconfig -o /boot/grub/grub.cfg
Generating grub configuration file ...
Found linux image: /boot/vmlinuz-linux
Found initrd image: /boot/initramfs-linux.img
Found fallback initramfs image: /boot/initramfs-linux-fallback.img
No volume groups found
done
[jhon@fckrsns /]$ sudo os-prober
/dev/cdrom: open failed: No medium found
No volume groups found
I installed rEFInd, now I have two choices on boot screen: vmlinuz-linux, which it founded, and my earlier installed grub bootloader.
Maybe I missed something, but i don't know what exactly.
Last edited by Jhon (2014-09-28 16:45:38)

Now I know that I don't need MBR at all (but google told me that recovering windows = recovering MBR..)
Are there any ways to recover boot information on EFI system partition from Linux without using Windows Live CD and it's bootrec.exe?
I have bootmgr and bootmgfw.efi files on /dev/sda3 (partition with windows installed), what else I need? Simple copy of bootmgfw.efi to /boot/EFI/Microsoft/Boot/bootmgfw.efi and addition of custom menu item to /etc/grub.d/40_custom does'nt work. There is Windows now in rEFInd and GRUB menus, but there is error on loading.

Installing Arch on a MacBook Pro Retina

I've spent many hours trying to install Arch on my macbook pro to no avail (over 14 times I've tried), I've learned a lot through this process, but apparently not enough. I get the system installed and blessed (in OSX), but when I try to boot into it I get stuck on "loading initial ram disk." (Previous errors were a read-only file system, but this one is latest) My hunch tells me it has something to do with the mkinitcpio.conf (I was told to add "ahci" to MODULES and "keyboard" after "autodetect" in "HOOKS") and I know the mkinitcpio -p linux command creates the initial ram disk environment (thanks to the docs).
Here are my steps, the bash scripts I created to do all this. Does anything look out of the ordinary to anyone?
cgdisk /dev/sda #(setup partitions as below, sda1-3 not shown)
#partitions: (sda4 == 128MB Hfs+, sda5 == 256MB Linux (boot), sda6 == 30GB Linux (root), sda7 == 70GB #Linux Home)
#first script
mkfs.ext2 /dev/sda5
mkfs.ext4 /dev/sda6
mkfs.ext4 /dev/sda7
mount /dev/sda6 /mnt
mkdir /mnt/boot && mount /dev/sda5 /mnt/boot
mkdir /mnt/home && mount /dev/sda7 /mnt/home
pacstrap /mnt base base-devel
genfstab -p /mnt >> /mnt/etc/fstab
arch-chroot /mnt /bin/bash
#second script
#install wifi (dmesg | grep firmware still says no firmware tho...)
pacman -S wget b43-fwcutter
wget https://aur.archlinux.org/packages/b4/b … are.tar.gz
tar -zxf b43-firmware.tar.gz
cd b43-firmware
makepkg -si --asroot #kosher?
rmmod b43 && modprobe b43
echo arch > /etc/hostname
ln -s /usr/share/zoneinfo/US/Central /etc/localtime
hwclock --systohc --utc
useradd -m -g users -G wheel -s /bin/bash dmj && passwd dmj
sudo pacman -S sudo
nano /etc/sudoers #comment out wheel portion
sudo nano /etc/locale.gen #pick locale
locale-gen
echo LANG=en_US.UTF-8 > /etc/locale.conf
export LANG=en_US.UTF-8
mkinitcpio -p linux #someone said i need "ahci" in modules?
#make boot loader, copy to usb
pacman -S grub-efi-x86_64
grub-mkconfig -o boot/grub/grub.cfg
grub-mkstandalone -o boot.efi -d usr/lib/grub/x86_64-efi -O x86_64-efi -C xz boot/grub/grub.cfg
mkdir /mnt/usbdisk && mount /dev/sdc1 /mnt/usbdisk
cp boot.efi /mnt/usbdisk/
umount /mnt/usbdisk/
sudo pacman -S dialog wpa_supplicant iw
exit
umount /mnt/home
umount /mnt/root
umount /mnt/
sudo reboot
I finally got a descriptive error message and am very excited to show everyone.
https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/10021156/arch.jpg
Moderator Edit: Converted over sized in-line picture to link - ewaller
Last edited by dmj (2013-06-25 02:59:00)

Ok, so I managed to boot into arch. The issue was my fstab. The custom settings I was using were incorrect. Going with the defaults helped. Also, the version of grub I was using was broken. See this link for the fix: https://bbs.archlinux.org/viewtopic.php?id=164101
So after I tar -xvJf xxx.tar.xz the fixed version I was able to generate a boot.efi, copy it onto the 128MB HFS+ on OSX and then bless and boot.
A whole new slew of errors occurred.
First, the video mode error occurs "No suitable video mode" (and something about a font).
I found a fix for it here: (but it didn't work) https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/GR … d.22_error
I added
cp /usr/share/grub/unicode.pf2 ${GRUB_PREFIX_DIR}
Then add:
UEFI systems:
insmod efi_gop
insmod efi_uga
After that add the following code (common to both BIOS and UEFI):
insmod font
if loadfont ${prefix}/fonts/unicode.pf2
then
insmod gfxterm
set gfxmode=auto
set gfxpayload=keep
terminal_output gfxterm
fi
Gist: Add these few lines to your grub.cfg, result: no luck still this error
What I'm not sure is if if this is affecting my ability to start the xorg-server.
Then after that the network became unreachable (which is strange because the ethernet worked ootb on install)
systemctl enable dhcpcd@enp0s10
systemctl start dhcpcd@enp0s10
allows me to ping -c 3 google.com
Lastly, I cannot start the xorg server. Says the nvidia module is bad. I installed bumblebee, and ran startx (not from root) and I get a black screen. This is after installing: xorg-server xorg-xinit xorg-server-utils xf86-input-synaptics nvidia acpid
Then running: systemctl enable acpid nvidia-xconfig
My graphics card is a Geforce 650M and I've read I should be using the nvidia module, not the open source noveau module.
startx just boots into a blank screen now and I'm unsure why.
Any speculations, ideas, or thoughts would be gladly welcome.
Thanks ahead of time!
Last edited by dmj (2013-06-26 03:05:26)

Can't install arch in vmware fusion , /dev/tty7 error

I have the latest vmware fusion ,I downloaded the i686 core iso image.
I use vmware fusion (the latest) i select the default options , when I get to setup if i select "auto prepare harddrive" it fails and tells me to see /dev/tty7 which I can't .
So i manually partition, and then when I select files to install I get the error "cannot start pacman see /dev/tty7"
So i thought maybe the disc image was bad, Ive downloaded the iso from different sites/sources with the same problem. It would seem vmware should be the easiest to install to.
I read the wiki but I don't understand, I have no other issues installing other linux distros in vmware fusion.
Last edited by itsmeh (2009-05-07 01:59:57)

Ok got past the auto partition error issue, instead of selecting the first option to install arch from the live disc, select the 2nd option for IDE with no sata drivers in vmware fusion. I think it takes care of both problems

Install arch on emachine laptop

Hello,
Here is my problem. I am trying to install arch on an emachines amd64 laptop. The 0.6 install disc boots a working 2.6 kernel from which I can get networking started. If I then install a 2.6 kernel, it freezes loading the kernel at the point where the dmesg says: "NET" Registered protocol family 2". If I install a 2.4 kernel it will boot fine after adding acpi=off and agp=try_unsupported parms. However, I cannot get networking to work with the 2.4 kernel. The modules will load but I will always timeout during network start. I've run network start using bash -x and I am getting the correct parms to dhcpd. It just doesn't want to work. So my question is this. How do I get a 2.6 kernel to boot? I know it will work because install uses it. Is there a way to use the install kernel? Should I try to build a kernel during install and how do I do this?
Thanks,
Jason

Ok, Got the 2.6.3 kernel working. There is an excellent resource here.
The 3 things which helped me were:
1.) Using the config file listed on the page linked above as a basic guide.
2.) Using ext3 as my filesystem.
3.) Adding "pci=noacpi noapic psmouse.proto=imps" to my kernel boot parms.
Also on the page linked above there are links to 2 other resources. "thither's page" and a gentoo forum link. Thither's page is worth checking out and the gentoo forum is a long read but provides some background on the problems.
The link also provides misc patches. I have not tried those yet.
As far as I know the wireless card does not have working drivers yet and the ati card will not run 3d due to lack of drivers. If I find solutions to either I will post here.
p.s. Sorry about the OT in the posts above I am the only person I know who can get OT in a dsicussion with themself.
Thanks,
Jason

Install Arch on esata

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